My 3 fave writing tips:

Hi from Leanne!:) I've begun blogging at www.babesinbookland.com with Cherry Adair, Traci Hall, Rhonda Pollero (Kelsey Roberts) and Karen Kendall. I imagine some of you may have missed my blogs there, so I'll begin posting one each week for you here. If you'd like to read a different blog post from me or see what one of the other babes has to say, then please mosey over to www.babesinbookland.com Also, if you've had difficulty viewing the babesinbookland website, it may be due to the new microsoft explorer, which unfortunately has lots of bugs in it. I got rid of the new one and went back to using the old and I now have no problems. Yay!:) Now for the BLOG!


My 3 fave writing tips:

Oooh, I like this subject and since I have difficulty staying on task, I’m happy to report that my #1 isn’t exactly writing-related.

#1 is using self-affirmations. It sounds like baloney, but the truth is we all use self-talk all the time. Think about it. How many times do you fuss at yourself for doing something wrong or put yourself down? Self-affirmation helps you use self-talk in a way that will help you get to where you want to be. In my case, where I want to be is published... and finishing my current book. If you want to know more about it, I put a little article about it on my website. If you want to know a WHOLE lot more about it, you can read a book by Shad Helmstetter.

#2 is the list of 20. This has saved my butt more times than I can count. You can use this one for writing and non-writing stuff. What you do is make a list of 20 possibilities, such as 20 possible scenes that demonstrate the conflict between your hero and she-ro. No editing allowed. The first ten on your list are often the tried and true, but then you start getting desperate and thinking outside the box. Often, somewhere in that second ten, you find an idea you can mutate.

#3 is asking my characters these key questions: What does my character most fear? What is my character’s secret wish? If I know these things, I know what drives my character, and I always know what is going to cause them the most pain and most joy.

Cheers to all!

xo,
Leanne
www.leannebanks.com

Procrastination and Production

Based on what I call this blog, “What is she thinking?”, you might think I haven’t been doing much thinking for about ten months. Not true, I promise. I also promise I’ve been a little writing beast. I’ve turned in three projects and am currently working on a fourth right now.
The reason I haven’t blogged is because I’ve viewed the blog as an extra. Book comes first, blog comes second, but come on, almost a year between blogs? I know. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? So I’m making a resolution to write more frequently.
I just have to make sure I don’t use the blog as a way to procrastinate, because we writers can serve up about a thousand reasons to put off writing faster than you can eat one piece of chocolate.
Another source of procrastination is surfing the net. My two favorite places for dodging my current manuscript are http://www.sunless.com/ and http://www.hln.org/ One of the sites deals with the application of self-tanner, something I’ve been unable to master. The other is the website for Huey Lewis and the News. I love seeing this group live.
Yet another source of procrastination is reading the news. My level of knowledge of current news often correlates directly to how difficult I’m finding the scene I’m currently writing.
Some of us are forced to use tricks to get ourselves to face the blank page and get cracking. You would think that after writing 42 novels and novellas, I would have all this mastered, but I don’t. One of my tricks is to tell myself to write for fifteen minutes. I did this in college with studying and found that after I’d studied for fifteen minutes, I usually wanted to study longer.
Another trick is to write in sessions – two to three sessions per day. The idea is that you’re not done after one session. You go back to the book.
I’ve begun using a little writing tablet called NEO by alphasmart to keep me moving. No internet on my NEO and only four lines appear on the screen, so I can’t over edit at that stage.
Some people write out a plan for every single scene in the book, but that takes some of the fun out the process for me. I enjoy some sense of discovery. Some people separate writers into two groups – plotters and pantsers, but I think a combination of approaches works best for me.
Another trick is having what I call a book-it buddy. This is a writer friend with whom I check in and encourage via email on a daily basis. Cindy Gerard is my book-it buddy.:) Knowing I must report my pages at the end of the day can motivate and/or shame me into getting off of sunless.com and back to my book.
My other trick is to use affirmations. I’ve found affirmations so effective that I’ve dedicated part of my website to affirmations for writers. And yes, they really do work! I still use them!
I’m headed back to the book now. Wish me great pages and I wish you a great day!

First blog!

My first blog. Okay, so I'm kinda excited. My stomach's a little nervous. I've just moved into my new house and it feels like the box monster barfed boxes all over my house. My doggies are gradually growing accustomed to their new surroundings. If I could just get my pomeranian to stop tinkling where she's not supposed to!

Although I haven't quite met my page count for the day (big stretch, there), I'm getting out of the house this afternoon to visit an antique auction that's held every Thursday. I place silent bids ahead of the auction for the things I want. I never go to the actual auctions because I'm afraid I'll get too excited and spend TOO MUCH!:) My next purchase is a futon for my office. I'm pretty sure I won't find that at the antique auction. Any advice on futons?:)

Oh, and I should tell you my exciting news -- my book, WHEN SHE'S BAD, won the Booksellers' Best Award, and my other single title, SOME GIRLS DO, was second place! How cool is that!:)

Welcome

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