465 Minutes (or But Who's Counting?)

Tip of the Day: Contact Kristina through our blog or her adorable website to schedule a FREE Skype visit with her if you use one of her novels for your school or library book club!

I did it! By the time you read this, I will have written at least 15-minutes-a-day for every day in August. Woo hoo! I owe the idea to the amazing writer Laurie Halse Anderson who made me see that it was pretty pathetic of me, someone who claims to be a writer, to not be able to hash out a mere 15 minutes per day.

No, those weren't Laurie's words, but her encouragement certainly made me look at how I spent my time a different way.

It also made me think about how when I am published, I'll have deadlines and I'll need to budget my time differently. I may even need to -- *gasp* -- write when I don't feel like writing! Sometimes people aren't "in the mood" to do their jobs, and if you are writing for money, it is your job.

Who knew? :)

I am heading for Europe next month (yay!), so I DO have a good excuse not to write every day -- BUT I am going to bring my journal and pen and scribble notes on the trains and any other time the urge sets in. I don't want to lose my momentum!

Oh -- and I did finish the draft of my WIP this month!

I encourage anyone who is a writer to write 15-minutes-per day, every day, for a month. You can do it! And you'll be so glad you did!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Copying Kate (or How 15 Minutes a Day Changed My August)

Tip of the Day: Write the next novel. Work on the next book. Don't stp writing.

Kate's Monday post is exactly right. Laurie Halse Anderson is brilliant. And realistic. And motivating. Her Write 15-Minutes a Day in August Challenge is just too simple to pass up -- but the proof is in the writing. I've written pages and pages and pages of my YA wip this way! Often I'll get so into my new words that I write for longer than 15 minutes and I'm at the climax of my book this week!

The best parts of the challenge:
--a bunch of us CPs are doing it together, so we have group motivation
--by writing just 15-mins a day, my wip stays in my head every day and it is easier to get started during my writing sessions
--I use any 15-min block of time I have, and that means most of my writing this month has been done by pen in a small notebook of lined paper, which has changed my tendency to spend most of my writing time going back and editing already written pages
--writing longhand also means that when I copy it over to Word later, it'll be edited once already
--I could easily add another month to this challenge and feel I could succeed

I'm convinced: a draft of a kidlit novel can totally be written in a couple of months this way.

So what are you waiting for? Try this challenge -- there's no excuse NOT to come up with 15 minutes a day!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Ready, Set, Write!

Tip of the Day: It's July 7th, STOP blowing off fireworks yo! Ok, this is more so directed to my neighbors. :-)

Have you heard of writing sprints? Yeah, me neither until a few weeks ago and they are SO FUN! Basically you gather some writing friends (I've been doing them with Rhonda Stapleton, Michelle Zink, Jennifer Brown, and Danielle Joseph) and you meet online at a set time, someone says go, and everyone writes as fast as they can on their different writing projects. We do it for a half an hour at a time and then report back in with our word count. And we do two of these in a row each night. It's kind of like having a diet buddy, someone to cheer you on to write more words instead of lose lbs. It's awesome! I'm getting so much stuff done this way! Usually I get between 700-900 words done in a sprint so that's 1400-1800 words a day that I can't talk myself out of doing (or get distracted by facebook or Real Housewives).

Give them a try! And let me know what you think.

Kristina, Miss Author in Action