Throwback Post: How Badly Do You Want It?

A while ago, I did a guest post on a blog called "At The Cool Table". That blog isn't around anymore, but I was going through old files and I found that guest post. A lot has happened since then but I think my sentiments on the matter are still the same. So, I wanted to share that with you all today.

How Badly Do You Want It?

The way that my first book came about was really sort of an “accident”. A happy accident.  See, I’ve wanted to be an author since I was eight. I write in a few different genres. At age fourteen I said that I would have some type of book published by age twenty. When this opportunity came along I was still twenty. My mom had sent a friend of hers, T. L. Bethel (author of Ramblings and Reflections of a Bahamian-American Poet). She asked him for advice on how to go about publishing something. He replied saying that he would help through the process. That was completely unexpected. The next day my mom was asking me “Do you want to publish a book of poetry?” I think that I was so taken aback that my answer was “Um, sure.” So T. L. Bethel and Lois Josephs (author of Prefaces and Deflections - as well as the now Mrs. T. L. Bethel) said that they would come over to help.

Then I realized that I would be publishing a book! I’d be doing what I had wanted to do since I was eight years old! Self-publishing. Hmm. I knew nothing about self-publishing. I decided to worry about that part later – the loading it and formatting it et cetera – when Tommy and Lois came over to guide us through the process. Now what I had in front of me was going through over two hundred poems to pick which ones would be in my debut poetry collection. A pretty daunting task. Daunting, but manageable.

However, there were times when I didn’t feel like working on it at all. I think that all writers get like this at least once in a while. And it can be extremely difficult to remind yourself what the end goal that you’re working toward is sometimes.  For me, the most difficult part was working through the chronic fatigue and all of the symptoms that come with my condition (the way it manifests in me), Nephropathic Cystinosis. And sometimes I would not work on it. I think that it’s okay to do that sometimes. Sometimes you just need to. Other times though, I would remind myself about the end goal and get back to work. I also showed prospective poems to my mom and asked for her opinion on which poems should go in the collection.

I picked out a photograph to go with each poem in the book (save for one) and then it was to the stages of uploading. Formatting and reformatting and uploading again until it looked right. That was frustrating and I am not too technologically savvy; so that I had a lot of help with from Tommy, Lois and my mom. I feel like this part took the longest.  (Also, if all of this is difficult now with all of our modern technology, can you imagine what it was like to self-publish before all of this?)

When I got the proof of my book in the mail though, all of that hard work was really worth it! I was holding a physical book by ME! Sure, it was only the proof and there were still changes to be made, but still. After all of that was done and I could share the link with everyone it was absolutely all worth it! Then comes marketing and building platforms et cetera. It is a lot of work, but if you really want it – and especially if you plan to keep doing this – it is all worth it at the end of each process! (Because there will be many). You just ask yourself: How badly do you want it?

It's NaNoWriMo Month!! | Top Ten NaNoWriMo Tips!!

NaNoWriMo November!!

Who is participating this year?? This year, I decided to be a NaNo Rebel. I want to write. I love drafting a new story but I'm also editing a book this month and I don't want to stress myself out over it. So my word count goal for the month is about 21,000. Plus editing my novella (which is set in my Beauty of the Dark world) that I'd like to release next year!! Eeek!! :D

I did decided that I would share some tips for NaNoWriMo month. I've done Camp NaNoWriMo six times and November NaNoWriMo three times. I won all the Camp NaNos and all the November NaNos I did. Once during Camp NaNo I went for 50k just like November NaNo and won, so I've actually written 50k on one month four times. So I feel like I'm qualified to at least give a few tips on how you can, too!! :)

1. Plan things out - at least a little. I know some people prefer to pants a novel (fly by the seat of their pants) but I think if you even just do a braindump of ideas for you story and plot and characters, that can be really helpful. And maybe even organize it into a rough outline. I often outline but my outlines are always quite rough and more vague than specific. 
2. Plan out your time. Look at your November calendar and see how many days you actually have to write. (Do you want to write on Thanksgiving or not?) Then see if you can estimate how much time you have during those days to write. Do you have an hour? Do you have two? Three? Pencil that in a calendar (or put in your phone, but I'm a paper and pen kind of girl.) Then figure out how many words you need per day, based on how many days you just calculated. However, do not beat yourself up if you don't stick to that. Even if you don't get 50k, you're closer than you were before. 
3. Curate a book playlist of some kind. It can be something you listen to before you write, or while you write. Maybe the songs have words, maybe they don't. Maybe you have two playlists. One that has songs with words that you listen to before you write to get you in the right mood for the book. And one that has instrumental music so you don't get too distracted, but that also has the mood that matches your book, if that makes sense. 
4. Find a writing buddy or accountability partner. It's easier to do this when you have someone to vent to about things when you need to. And to gush to about things when you're super excited. You can find someone in the NaNo Forums, on Facebook groups, on Twitter... Also, someone to do word sprints with is priceless. 
5. Do word sprints!! All a word sprint means is that you pick an amount of time (say, 20 minutes) set a timer and ALL you do during that timer is WRITE. Don't go back and edit, just write. Just go and see how much you get. You can do this alone but you can also do this with a writing buddy. Agree on a time and you both write for that allotted amount of time, then come back and compare word counts. It's both accountability and friendly competition in one. 
6. Keep a list of things that inspire you - specifically about your book. Song lyric or poem snippets, snap a picture of something and paste it in. You could make it like a scrapbook. 
7. Find something that gets you motivated when things just are not going to plan. It could be that book playlist, your writing buddy, that list of things that inspire you about your book. Or maybe it's a writing podcast, or a writing vlog that gets you up off your butt (so to speak) because you see someone else writing and think "I should go write!!"
8. Turn off your inner editor. I know, easier said than done. But the goal of NaNoWriMo is quantity not quality. I mean, you don't want to not even put any effort whatsoever into your book but don't worry about it being perfect. It'll just make things so much harder. Remember, you can always edit later. But you can't edit a blank page!!
9. Have fun. This is meant to be fun!! November NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun!! Have fun with your book, listen to the playlist and think about how awesome your story is! How much you love your characters! Talk and laugh with your writing buddy! Celebrate every time you hit a word count milestone (whether it be 100 or 10,000 words.) Have some treats! Have fun!!
10. Don't be too hard on yourself. Hitting 50k on November is not the end all be all of your book. You can keep going, keep working on it. In fact, even if you hit 50k it's still possible you'll need to write more to finish your draft. BUT if you don't hit 50k, don't worry!! Don't beat yourself up. However many words you wrote, you will be closer than you were at the beginning of November!! You are AWESOME for even doing NaNoWriMo!! You've got this!!!!

Join Us for a Virtual Writer's Retreat!!

I had this idea several months ago to do a virtual writer's retreat. Writing retreats can cost a lot of money and some of us don't quite have that much yet. The way I understand there are two main points to a writing retreat: to meet people and socialize and to get words/work done. I don't quite remember how the idea came into my head. If it was from seeing someone else mention it. I know people have done it and I likely heard someone talk about it but I decided to do my own.

I polled my Facebook group and they decided that the best way to have this event would be in our Facebook group. That's what I did. And the dates everyone chose were October 18th - October 20th (midnight on October 20th, so the even page says through October 21st.) The idea is to pop in throughout those days, do writing sprints, have some threads to share social media, favorite books, books we've written, resources, maybe live videos, etc. It's my first time doing one but I thought why not give it a go? That way it's free and maybe we'll get some words down and have fun doing it!!

Official Description:

"Sometimes we need a little extra push when we're writing. A little extra camaraderie. Writing can be very solitary, but we can't all afford to go away on a writing retreat, so I thought it would be fun to put a virtual writing retreat together."

If you want to take part in this event, you'll have to join my Facebook group, Amanda Leigh's Lounge. If you love reading, we'd love to have you!! And if you love writing, then this event may just be for you!!

Hope to see you there!! ;)

When You Break Your Streak

You've been writing for 23 days in a row. Day 24 comes...and you don't write. Day 25 and you don't write. Day 26 comes. You write two sentences but don't write the rest of the day because you totally skipped the last two. Day 27 you feel just so fed up with the last three days. You're frustrated with yourself, disappointed, and you think "Why bother?"And instead of writing, you watch Netflix. Then you don't write for five weeks. Day after day, it just seems like too much since you broke your streak.

One of the biggest pieces of writing advice is "Write every day." Some writers have to do this to keep things up, to keep up the momentum, and that works for them. That's terrific but it's different for many of us. I call bulls*&t. I don't write every day. I want to try to get some drafting work in every day. I do often do some sort of "story work" most weekdays. Probably four days a week. So I do writing/story work approximately four days a week. Fridays is for creative recharging, or personal development, or just entirely me time. This is what works for me. If you give up when you break your streak, you'll get nowhere because you'll constantly be giving up. You know why? Because there are very few people who can actually keep up with writing every single day. You honestly expect to write every single day no matter what for the rest of your life? Talk about pressure.

I think it's terrific to try to keep up a streak of writing or even story work. It keeps you in your story's world, you learn each time you write a new scene, sentence, etc. If you break that streak though, you get up and you go for it again the next day. Yes, you'll have a day in there where you didn't write, but it's better to have one than one hundred straight with nothing because you got frustrated you weren't perfect and gave up. (This applies to so many other things: yoga, working out, meditation, journaling...)

Another tip more specific to writing: don't set the goal for the day insanely high. When I'm drafting, for example, I know that I can realistically get 1,000 words per day. That is doable for me now. It wasn't four years ago, three years ago. I would probably shoot for 500 then. If you can realistically get 500 words in a day, shoot for that. If 300 is more your thing, shoot for that. 2,000? That's amazing! Go for it! If it pushed you TOO much, lower it a little bit. Same with editing, plotting, etc.

Please don't give up just because you miss a day...or three or seven. Get back up and start again. I know you can do it. Begin again. ;)