Productivity. Who Knew?

Have you ever had one of those weeks where things just seem to get done, and you're never quite sure how you managed it?

That's my month so far.  I mean, I've written three short stories (all of which have made their way into my Shiny New Idea book for future series...) I've managed to make blog posts every single time that I needed to make one (even when they are late.)  I've gotten my critiques done early both weeks. (I'm already done the one that I need for Monday.  I'm never done this early!) and I've actually started editing Pandora.  I did chapter 5 for critique group, but have finished chapter 6, rewritten chapter 7 and have looked over chapter 8, which will probably be actually started tomorrow.  I've also managed to finish the planning of one of the novels I will be writing in November.

Normally I have a hard time getting motivated to do these kinds of things.  It isn't unusual to see me rushing to finish my critiques Sunday night when I realized that they weren't done yet.  Or for me to submit sub par chapters because I didn't spend nearly enough time on them.  I should probably apologize to my critique group for that, actually...

Anyway, the point of it is, I'm somehow motivated this month, though I really don't know why.  It could be because I was already planning on editing this month, but wasn't able to because my beta readers have unfortunately not gotten back to me yet.  Or it could be because I know that I'll be writing again next month, and I won't have time to get caught up on all of these things once I start doing that.

Honestly, I don't know, and I'm not sure I actually care.  I know, I know.  If I know what's keeping me motivated, I might actually figure out a way to keep myself motivated for the rest of the year.  I'm just afraid that if I figure it out, the magic might wear out.  (Don't laugh!  It's possible...) What then?  How do I go about figuring out yet another way to motivate myself?

Just to explain how weird it is, let me put this into perspective for you.  I bought two new books yesterday.  One by my favourite author Kelley Armstrong.  I've barely touched it.  I only read on the bus on the way to and from work.  Normally I would have had that book done by now.  Trust me.

Or, let's talk about the editing.  Normally it's a struggle to just get through a single chapter.  To force myself to sit down and read it over then put in the edits.  You all know this.  All you have to do is look at my very last blog post where I talked about the fact that I was back to editing.  When I finished rewriting chapter 7, all I could think about what what I  needed to do to fix chapter 8, and actually wanted to look through it right then and there.  I had to do a critique first, but I've also finished going through it.

Does that put it into perspective for you?  I don't know where it's coming from, but it makes me happy. I'm glad to be motivated.  To get all of this done and not have to worry about it so much.  I'm already freaking out too much over The Commons, so having other things to work on while waiting for the much anticipated beta reader feedback has been really helpful.

So, I've decided not to look this gift horse in the mouth.  I'm going to continue being productive for as long as I can.  I want to get as much done this month as I possibly can before heading into an extremely busy month in August.  (Last year I didn't complete the August session of camp nano, so I'm hoping to do much better this year.)

Do you ever have problems with motivation?  How do you get past it?

***I'm currently collecting donations for OLL (Office of Letters and Light) who hosts NaNoWriMo every year.  My goal is $500 and I've already hit 60% of that.  I need your help to complete my goal, however.  Help me raise money for the organization that single-handedly helped me to figure out jthat I'm a writer.***

San Francisco Here I Come!

Every year OLL (Office of Letters and Light who hosts NaNoWriMo, and various other events) hosts The Night of Writing Dangerously.  It's a great night when 250(ish) wrimos get together at a Noire Themed dinner and, basically, write.

To put it simply, it's a ginormous write in with a noire theme and candy.  Lots and lots of candy.

In my opinion it's probably the goal of every wrimo out there to attend this gala at least once, and I'm going to be doing that very thing this year.

November 18th will see me in San Francisco, possibly dressed in a Noire Themed outfit and sitting at a table with wrimos from all around the world that have accomplished the same goal as me.

See, to go to this event, we wrimos have to raise $200 for OLL.  It's a fundraising event, so that just gets us in the door.  Then we have to buy our plane tickets and pay for a hotel, not to mention all the touristy stuff we're going to end up doing while we're there.

Me, being the overachiever that I am, have set an even higher goal for myself.  OLL is a fantastic organization that has brought the world more novels than you can shake a fist at.  Even if most of those novels never see the light of day, it's a great program, showing people that they have it within themselves to write that novel they've always been thinking about doing.

Without nano, I don't know where I would be in my life right now.  I would never have met my boyfriend.  I wouldn't have already written ten novels (no, none of them are published, but every novel I write brings me closer to that one that's going to be put on the bookshelves, I know it).  I wouldn't have the friends that I currently have.  I would be wasting my life away still not knowing what I wanted to do.

It's because of nano that I started this blog.

I want to show that appreciation by raising $500 for them.  Of course, I require your help for that.  I've already donated $300, but I'm hoping that I can fundraise the rest of the amount.  Love will be shown for anyone who donates, probably in the form of a blog post.

If you want to help, I've posted a link to my fundraising page in the sidebar to the left.  I want to thank anyone who helps in advance.  This a great organization who deserves every penny that's donated to them.  Their work with youth alone makes them amazing.

I encourage anyone who hasn't heard of nano to visit their site.  If you've been thinking about writing a novel, why don't you sign up and join us in our adventure in November?

Splashing The Plot

Nearly a year ago my group of friends and I started poker night.  It's nothing particularly amazing, we buy in with $2, and we play.  Twenty-five cents is a huge bet for us, just to put things in perspective.

Of course, as most of my friends are writers, that means that most of the people at poker night are writers.  In fact, there's only one person who isn't.  We like to think of ourselves like Castle, sitting around a poker table discussing all of the problems with our characters while tossing away money without a care.  We're not, but that's what we like to think.

Anyway, being surrounded by writers (and therefore ending up talking about writing far too often for our non-writer) sometimes we end up saying things that we didn't really mean.

For example.  A couple of months ago we were discussing plot, and someone threw in  enough coins to make everyone else fold.  This is generally called 'splashing the pot'.  What came out of my mouth, however, was 'splashing the plot'

What would have been something that most groups would make fun of for the rest of that night and moved on, we have spun into our own saying.  We no longer splash the pot...it's plot every single time.

Of course, me being me, I couldn't help but wonder what splashing the plot in an actual writing scenario.  This is what I came up with.

Have you ever come across a book where too much of the plot is given away right at the beginning of the book.  When you know what's going to happen basically from the very beginning of the book?  I, personally, hate when that happens.  I recently came across one such book.  It felt like the entire plot of the book was laid out plain as day for me.  I got annoyed, because I prefer to be surprised.   Someone once told me that I should 'stop guessing' because I was ruining it for myself.  Honestly, I don't turn around and ask myself what it could be, it really just occurs to me.  Anyway, I got supremely annoyed, and it took me a long time to be able to pick it back up to finish it.

That was the first idea I came up with.  After that I thought of all of those times in books where the plot seems to be stalling out, and I'm not quite sure that the story is actually going anywhere.  Then all of a sudden ten million things happen all at once and you can't quite seem to keep up with it.  This has happened more than once in books I've read, and not only is it confusing for the reader, it's also frustrating.  Obvious pacing issues can be absolutely infuriating.

Now, I didn't go any further than that, but from what I can see, it's never really a good thing.  Any splashing of the plot seems to annoy the readers (at least, it annoys me) and that's the last thing I want.

So, splashing the plot is going to be something that I look out for.  Pacing is something I've always been concerned about, and after thinking about this blog post, I can't help but be even more conscientious about it.



*** I am currently collecting donations for OLL (Office of Letters and Light) who hosts Nanowrimo every November, along with both Camp Nano sessions in the summer.  They are an amazing organization who deserves every penny that is donated to them.  My goal is $500, though I need all the help I can get to achieve that goal.  If you would like to help (and I hope you do) The like is on the side bar.  Thank you in advance for any donation I get.  I will be actively collecting donations until the end of October. ***