Retreating to Advance

By Cathy Perkins

The weekend marked the 10^th anniversary of our writing retreat. Wow, ten years. Ten years ago, Rachel Grant, Rebecca Clark, Courtney Milan, Darcy Burke and I were Golden Heart finalists and staged our first retreat. (We invited Elisabeth Naughton to join us several years ago and Kris Kennedy couldn’t come this year.) We’re all multi-published authors now, but we’re also friends. We’ve seen each other’s children grow up, celebrated successes and consoled losses.

The primary focus of the weekend is writing. Usually silence reigns except for the clicking of Elisabeth’s keys, but there are lighter moments too. We reviewed the 432 pictures from Darcy’s photo shoot and picked favorites for book cover potential. Of course, we had to stage our own “shoot.” 

This is our “thoughtful” pose. 

Yeah, not.

One of the most helpful things for me was the business discussion. We talked about goals for the upcoming year and mouths gaped as Darcy described her publication schedule. “I treat it like a job, because that’s what it is,” she explained. In order to meet her schedule, she sets—and meets—daily word counts. 

Her comment echoed Steven King. I listened to On Writing during the drive to Portland. (We change the location every year, but the house is always in the Pacific Northwest.) King said he goes to his writing space every morning and doesn’t come out until he has at least 1500 words on the page. Some days he’s done by noon. Others, he’s there until dinner time.

That’s my takeaway from this year’s retreat. Consistency. Discipline. Sure, I wrote nearly 15,000 words this weekend. Some of them will turn out to be lousy, but the first draft of my latest novel is nearly complete and editing will deal with the clunky sections. But every day since I’ve been home, instead of checking email, social media, and the news when I get up, I write. I’m roughly two scenes away from reaching “The End.”

And then the editing will begin…and the plotting of the next book.

Thanks Darcy. And Steven.   

An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd. 

Visit her at http://cperkinswrites.com

She's hard at work on the next book in the Holly Price series, 
In It For The Money.

Writing Rehearsal

by Paula Gail Benson

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!

How do you get happily published? Submit carefully crafted writing.

And, how do you ensure that your submissions are carefully crafted? Write extensively.

Do you have to write every day? Some authors manage without, but I remember what happened when I tried to improve my piano playing and left off practicing until the day before the lesson. The result was passable, but not as polished as it could have been if I had built on a daily habit.

While music and writing may be inspiring to their listeners, they don’t emerge from the muse by someone simply placing their fingers on a keyboard. Music and writing have to be worked out in advance before you can sell tickets to the audience.

Acting is another creative activity that requires prep time. The first reading of a line may “feel” perfect, but once you’ve rehearsed it, you realize more subtle nuances, ways to play off fellow actors, or timed reactions that are funnier or more poignant than the original interpretation.

Pianists and writers are solo performers. Only by repeated practice do they learn the methods that will best charm and involve an audience. One of the greatest joys of a performer can be the private discovery of how a musical or written piece should be presented.

That joy is compounded when they hear the audience’s reaction. The true moment when the muse touches you is when you realize the perfect order and symmetry for your work. An actor or pianist may receive a more instant gratification in hearing applause, but what writer doesn’t relish listening to a reader tell him how his words and stories have changed a life?

Practice is necessary for performances because to act or play piano is an extension of self. The way we turn writing into that extension is to: (1) sit down to write with purpose, and (2) embrace the discoveries made.

By developing a writing habit, you can let the daily discoveries soak in until they become a part of your writer self. You learn to recognize those “tricks” that attract your audience’s attention. Then, you refine them in order to make them appear natural, so they become craft and your audience doesn’t perceive them at all, but is completely involved in the story and hates to see it end. This is the objective of every artist: to tell the story well and leave the listeners satisfied.

Walter Moseley said that when writing becomes a daily practice, the writer completes projects and his subconscious begins to assist him even when he’s not writing because the constancy of the task has become so strong. (Why does his concept make me think I hear, “May the force be with you,” echoing in my head?)

Linda Rodriguez has written some inspiring recent messages about becoming motivated to write and making the decision to be a writer. Both feature excerpts from her recent book, Plotting the Character Driven Novel, which is terrific.

If you’re still contemplating New Year’s resolutions, here are a few books that have recommendations to help you develop a daily writing schedule: 

The Divine Guide to Creating a Daily Writing Practice by Pernille Norregaard. This inspirational text includes many quotations from established authors (like Walter Moseley’s theory above) and emphasizes how to effectively build a habit.

Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day by Chris Fox. By illustrating how he changed his entire life through developing consistent practices, Fox shows the path to more effective writing and offers exercises to achieve that goal.

The Eight-Minute Writing Habit: Create a Consistent Writing Habit That Works With Your Busy Lifestyle by Monica Leonelle. This guide offers a modified Pomodoro Method of timed writing. By limiting the writing period to eight minutes, Leonelle contends it creates a habit that is easy to incorporate into any lifestyle and capable of ensuring at least 250 per day, which could lead to 90,000 words in a year.