BellaOnline Forums Career Fiction Writing What Did You Write Today?

I'm starting my final pass on Sworn Loyalty, my 11th medieval novel - curled up in bed with a glass of sangria.

Where do you like to write?

Same place actually

BTW, you look very much like my sister out East.

But I'm learning things writing here. Like the forum. I can write easily or more easily in a forum because I can read little words and memorize the key-board. So, vision is an issue but not so much when I'm staring at a giant Word-doc or form.

Secondly, I thought I wasn't supposed to write in bed until now, lol. So I'd go to this desk and my mind would go blank.

Third, I find in (actually, it's a guest room I've made w/candles and antiques...) I'm in-tune? So I'm trying to combine the flow of inspiration w/the access of whatever allows me to write freely in a blog type setting and finish the darn book!

Basically I've been going against my nature and that is/was part of the problem...

Working on a lot of nonfiction so I've had to put a hold on the fiction projects for now. But I'm up to 30K words on my newest nonfiction. As for where to write, often while sitting on the living room couch with the laptop in my lap. That way our cat has someone to hang out with.

Karen - it is SO true that you want to create an atmosphere that inspires you - wherever that is. It's great that you're developing areas that work well for you!

Val - I like to mix in fiction even if it's just twenty minutes because the fiction keeps the creative juices flowing. That then helps a lot with the nonfiction writing .

While I was out kayaking today I came up with another novel idea - so this is now medieval novel #19 in the works. I'm releasing #11 - Sworn Loyalty - on Monday. Novel #12 - In a Glance - is in its final polishing stages.

So that means I have seven novels in various stages of being written. Is this too many? . How many do you work on at once? And this is only in the medieval part of my writing.

It's important to have some sort of a notebook to keep track of all the ideas. I carry a little notebook in my purse to write down those ideas because they come and if I don't write them down I will forget them.
Keep writing!

Lisa how do you keep track of them and at what stage they are in? Also, when do you find time to write with all the other things you do? Do you have a structured schedule?

Terri, I was wondering that too. I don't know how Lisa does it! Especially carrying on and then have a hard drive crash..and dealing with all that. sheesh! I'm not going to fuss at myself anymore! She's amazing!

Terri -

I have a main folder on my hard drive for "writing" - then a subfolder for "romance" - then a subfolder beneath that for each novel I'm working on. They are labeled with numbers so they sort in order:

1-seekingthetruth
2-knowingyourself
3-asenseofduty

and so on. In each of those folders I have two main things. First, I have the Word doc of the story itself. Second, I have a "timeline.txt" file with the main character names and attributes, as well as a basic timeline. Something like

Jan 1 - Mon - Mary and John meet
Jan 2 - Tue - fight by the bridge

and so on. That way I can keep track of the sequence and also know when Sunday falls, because in medieval times Sundays were fairly important. Religion had a strong role in their lives.

In terms of time, I do most of my writing in my head. When I'm driving somewhere, or falling asleep, what I am doing is reviewing plots. I play and replay scenes in my head. So by the time I get to the computer it's all set and I just type it in. I type about 130 wpm so that part goes fairly quickly.