2012's Fabulous Four Writing Books

2012's top four (4) writing books that have helped me most during my writing journey to write books and make a living doing the same include, in order of usage during the writing process, the following (Amazon descriptions provided):

Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Plot: A Simple System for Plotting Your Novel (Rock Your Writing) 

ROCK YOUR PLOT: A Simple System for Plotting Your Novel teaches a clear, flexible process to help you with your:

- Premise: test your premise for inherent conflict and sustainability.

- Characterization: create strong characters with urgent goals, understandable motivation, and tons of obstacles.

- Plot outline, turning points: use those characters to build logical and powerful plot points and complete character arcs.

- Plot outline, scene-by-scene: Develop a sequence of dynamic scenes that propels your reader through your story.

This book goes straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding examples from blockbuster stories, and finishing each section with exercises designed to help you work with your characters to write a novel that excites you… and your readers.

Jill Elizabeth Nelson's Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View

Dear Novelist: Would you like your readers to live your stories, not merely read them? Deep Point of View anchors your readers inside the point of view character(s) of your novel. This handbook shows you how to perform the transformation from ordinary narrative to deep narrative in clear, easy-to-master steps. I invite you to sweep your writing to the next level with a technique that creates immediacy and intimacy with your readers and virtually eliminates show/don't tell issues.

Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love

Have you ever wanted to double your daily word counts? Do you sometimes feel like you're crawling through your story? Do you want to write more every day without increasing the time you spend writing or sacrificing quality? It's not impossible, it's not even that hard. This is the book explaining how, with a few simple changes, I boosted my daily writing from 2000 words to over 10k a day, and how you can too."

Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Revisions: A Simple System for Revising Your Novel (Rock Your Writing)

ROCK YOUR REVISIONS: A Simple System for Revising Your Novel will show you a clear, easy-to-follow process for editing a novel. It will help you:

- Test for story structure on a macro level, providing detailed checklists for character and plot arcs.

- Test for story structure at the scene level, making sure each serves a purpose in the novel (and hopefully more than one!)

- Gain insight on the mechanics of the novel -- checking POV choice, dialogue, exposition vs. detail (showing versus telling), and more, with a systematic scene-by-scene approach.

This book goes straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding illustrative examples, and finishing each section with exercises designed to help you see how to not only edit a novel, but improve your reader's enjoyment of your book.
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All four books got me on track, helped me to gain traction and have jump-started my 2013 writing adventure. I would recommend each individually. Read and applied in conjunction with each other, these books provide a powerhouse of information and guidance to move any writer forward in their writing journey. Highly Recommended!

Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

The Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass is proving to be an excellent tool to deepen the writing of and strengthen the story in Book #1, Series #1. While the book, Writing the Breakout Novel, is an okay resource, the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook provided just what I needed to, along with Rock Your Revisions, to perform a cohesive, take-the-draft-to-the-next level edit.

Breaking out, to me, means going beyond the expected or going below the surface to dig deeper into the plot, character conflict, character qualities, etc.

Once I work through the Workbook for Book #1, I intend to begin again to strengthen the plotting and writing of the first draft of Book #2.

The statement on the back cover of Mr. Maass Workbook says: Make your novel STAND OUT from the crowd!

(Working on it and fingers crossed, Mr. Maass!)

Excellent resource! Highly recommend!

Chapter by Chapter

"Keep your head down, Flossy. Just do your job, and you'll get by." My mother used to have a saying like this. I suppose it might be a regional-type quote. Regardless of who Flossy might be (I don't have a clue), I think a lesson lies in the saying.

As it pertains to writing, I keep my head down, so to speak, and focus on the chapter before me.

Before I begin a chapter, I look at my GMCD chart to review the gist of a few previous prior chapters, then I consider the GMCD of that particular chapters scene(s). Does the current GMCD still apply? Did earlier changes of direction in previous chapters alter the direction of this one? 

The GMCD Chart has turned out to be an incredible tool to work out plotting issues and keep track of  the story's path. If for nothing else, I would recommend creating a chart to assist in keeping track of chapters and scenes.

Once I review the chart, I focus on the Point of View Character for that scene and begin to share that characters experience. When I'm writing a chapter, that's all there is. There is no before and after. Just the now of that chapter.

So, chapter by chapter, just do your job, Flossy, and you'll get by.

Inciting Incident - I'd Say

Bullet, the wire-haired dachshund, was visiting while I worked on Notecarding the scenes of Book #2, Series #1. With his oh-so-innocent face near the Inciting Incident index card on the lap desk, as if the card were a caption for his personality or depicting his near-future actions, I couldn't resist snapping a picture.

Yes, Bullet is an Inciting Incident unto himself. He charges nose-first into everything. Look out world, here he comes!

But, what exactly is an Inciting Incident in writing?

Basically, the Inciting Incident is when something happens that sets the story in motion.

For Book #2, Series #1, the Main Character intentionally gets himself recaptured. How's that for a kick-start for a story?

Finding What Works for YOU

Meditation, Visualization, Word Count, Page Count, Timed Writing, Boot Camp, Retreats, Accountability Partners -- all methods of increasing writing productivity, and it seems to me, I've tried them all.

In trying a variety of methods, I am discovering what works and doesn't work for ME as a writer. All reasonable, valid methods, I've learned that each works for some people, but not for all. One might work like gang-busters for an individual writer, while another might be that writer's particular solution.

There's not one way that's THE right way of increasing productivity. There's what works for YOU as an individual, unique writer.

On Author Rachel Aaron's Pretentious Title writing blog, Rachel addresses a way to track and increase daily writing output production. She actually finished a book in 12 days, please see Rachel's 12 days of Glory post! Rachel went from writing 2,000 words per day to 10,000 words per day.

I so appreciate Rachel sharing her system and can vouch to the fact, for me, her method is working! I may not ever get to 10,000 words a day, but I've found what's working to increase my productivity.

700 Hours Battery Life, Less than 2 lbs,Take it Anywhere -- It's a NEO 2

I gave myself an awesome birthday present a few years ago, the Alphasmart NEO. The NEO has been so helpful to me in my writing life, that I wanted to share how this writing tool has been one of the best gifts I've ever received (even if it was a gift from myself). ;-) [NOTE: production of the NEO has ceased due to competing technology. The products may be found on ebay for purchase. NO existing technology can stand up to the sturdiness or the battery life.]

Recently, this low-cost, go-anywhere writing tool was upgraded by NEO Direct to the NEO 2. For $169.00, the NEO 2 weighs less than 2 lbs, and, at times with the help of a lap desk, I have written on airplanes, in a camping tent, on front porches, in a stationary car, at doctor/dentist office, atop picnic tables, while curled up on the couch or chaise lounge, propped up in bed, etc.

Instead of maybe 1 to 3 hours of battery life like most laptops, NEO has 700 hours (seven hundred hours) of battery life from 3 normal AA size batteries.

The screen is small and is not back lit; therefore, you will need a light source to view the screen. (I've even used a headlamp at night while camping.) I write with the largest display text, 36 point, with only 3 lines visible on the screen. The NEO 2 can store up to 100,000 words, more than enough for an entire book.

The NEO 2 Key Features include durability. So far, my NEO has been dropped more than once, sat on, and stepped on, and is still going strong.

Touted as the Ultimate Personal Writing Tool, the NEO 2's built-in word processor, AlphaWord Plus, provides a thesaurus, spellchecker, and word/page/paragraph count. Also, it emulates a keyboard -- when you plug it into a USB port and press Send, NEO types your text directly into your word processing software.

My personal favorite features of the NEO include:

• No internet access (no temptation to surf)
• Lightweight
• Fits in a small carry bag or medium to large purse
• Durable
• LONG battery life
• EASY to use
• Amount of text storage
• Low cost

What with having worked on the computer a great deal for my previous job, right now, I am in need a break from sitting at a desk in front of a monitor because it feels so much like "work," so writing on NEO works for me.

Yesterday, I wrote 3,300+ words in 4 hours, all comfy on the chaise lounge, with Jasmine the Siamese cat keeping me company. Thanks to NEO.