Renee is Writing

we live at the edge of the miraculous You might wonder why I included my own art journal page on this blog that is supposed to be about writing a novel. Well I found this saying in a fortune cookie--"we live at the edge of the miraculous" and I thought it applied. Writing a novel is a miraculous process, one I've engage in several times. Some to completion, while other novels sleep soundly in my file cabinet never to be awakened again. As I approach this coming new year I must make a commitment to actually writing a novel. I have the idea and have spent the past two weeks planning it. Planning involves an overall description of important scenes or plot points. It means coming up with characters to inhabit the story and giving them names, jobs, personalities and physical descriptions.  I'm not a big outliner and over the past few years I have read books on outlining and tried to write the last novel following a scene by scene outline that took hours ...

I always believed New Year resolutions should be composed in December. That way you can just dive right into them on January 1. This is the first year I am actually doing that! The new issue of Writers' Digest magazine says "Make 2016 the year you write your novel." So that is my plan. I have no more excuses. Now that I am retired I have all the time I need. I just have to muster the motivation and inspiration. I have the idea for the novel so now I have to take a few first preparatory steps. Clear away art supplies and wash my art/writing desk. Set up my writing craft books on the computer desk. Create a binder for the novel and take out a fresh clean spiral notebook for notes and the first draft. Begin planning the story and creating characters. I want to be able to start right in on a first draft beginning January 1. In the planning stages I am using a few tools and ideas from writing gurus. First I am going to re-watch the videos that Mart...

After working for over 25 years in the field of special education I know all about goals and objectives. At least I know how to write them for my students. Now I must create some for myself if I ever want to get this novel written. Between now and January 1, 2016 I must lay down my writing goals for the coming year. Timelines involve getting a first draft done by the time my writers' group goes on retreat again in April. I will need weekly goals, monthly goals and a daily writing schedule. I want a good second draft completed by July when the Romance Writers of America has its annual conference. I need to calculate how many pages a day, chapters a month, whatever I need to write in order to meet my self-imposed deadlines. It will be a long road, but I have to take the first steps and keep trudging along until I meet my goals and get a novel written, revised, published and be ready to write novel number 2!!