Dawn Colclasure's Blog

Author and poet Dawn Colclasure

Friday, December 30, 2022

How 2022 Was a Year of Doing Things Differently

Around this time of the year, a lot of writers and authors are reflecting on just what kind of progress they have made with their writing. While I’m one of those writers taking stock of just what kind of year 2022 was for my writing, I am also taking a real good look of how I managed another year as an author, and what kind of progress was made with my books

 

When thinking about this, I realized one important distinction: This year was certainly different from most other years when it came to my books!

 

For one thing, I challenged myself to write and self-publish an ebook every month. These ebooks would be available as free downloads. Unfortunately, I ran into a few issues with this particular challenge:

 

1. I lost BOTH of my editors

 

2. I ran into formatting problems

 

3. One of the books was a story based on a traumatic event from my past and it was VERY difficult to write. I DID finish writing it during that month, but I did not self-publish it because I didn’t have an editor. Fortunately, a fellow writer offered one of her ebooks as a freebie to my newsletter subscribers (thanks, Gloria!) so there was still a free ebook for that month. I did get the manuscript reviewed by an editor at a later time and then I self-published it. (Thanks, Julie!)

 

4. I started to have second thoughts about offering certain ebooks for free. They just required a lot of research and writing. So I then decided that I would offer ONLY the books that are easy to write as free downloads. Nevertheless, I also decided to start self-publishing a select group of poetry books as free downloads, only because they contain personal poems a publisher would probably not be interested in. (Those books are slated for next year.)

 

I still managed to make it work, though. I still wrote 12 ebooks in 12 months. I just didn’t self-publish all of them in the same month that I wrote them. Still, I was satisfied with writing 12 ebooks in 12 months.

 

I just changed the plan, but not the goal.

 

This was a fun experiment and I have a feeling I will continue to write 12 short ebooks for each year. In fact, I have more ebooks planned for the next two years. However, some of them require a lot of research and pre-writing, and I have been working on that as I move closer to their release dates. So I am not exactly writing them during those months per se, but getting them ready to be released during those months.

 

That’s one new thing that happened this year with my books. And this is one that I will keep.

 

Another new thing that happened was that I started entering poetry books into contests. I have quite a few complete poetry manuscripts, and I figured that instead of just allowing them to collect dust, why not enter them into contests?

 

This has had a mixed result. Some of the poetry books I have entered in contests did not win, but some of them are still being reviewed. So I don’t know yet if all of them lost or not.

 

My deaf poetry book did not win one of the contests I entered it in. However, I found a publisher of poetry books and submitted the manuscript to them. It is still under review.

 

After I did that, a light bulb went off in my head: Instead of entering poetry books in contests, why not just submit them to publishers?

 

I did actually attempt to do this when I first started writing poetry books. My first poetry book was self-published, but then I thought, why not submit the manuscripts to publishers? Gypsy Shadow Publishing accepted my poetry book, Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion, and I was thrilled. Unfortunately, they stopped publishing poetry books. (Otherwise, I would have likely buried them with more manuscripts!) So I started looking for another publisher. I connected with someone who hosted an online writing community and she created a publishing company out of that. I joined her team first as an editor then as a PR rep for authors, but meanwhile, she also published my poetry books through her company. Unfortunately, we had a falling out, and she removed my books from the market. I was so angry and incensed that I started self-publishing ALL future poetry books, as well as children’s books. I was just so hurt and I never again wanted to put myself into that situation.

 

However, that has changed. These days, I have thicker skin, and I know I can handle it better if I end up in that kind of situation again. (Though I hope not!)

 

So, yes, I am now back to submitting my poetry manuscripts to publishers. I am also submitting poems to magazines and websites.     

 

Even so, the more personal poetry books will likely be self-pubbed as ebooks.

 

Finally, another thing I did differently with my books is submit the ones I had on hand which fit with publishers’ calls for manuscripts. Interestingly, this habit helped me to FINALLY finish writing a psychological horror novella I started writing months ago, but struggled with and I couldn’t continue writing it. With one publisher asking for horror novella submissions, I knew THIS particular story was a good fit. So I pulled it out of the desk drawer and got to work on writing it again.

 

And I FINISHED writing it, too!! YAY!! I was so excited that I was not only writing the rest of that story, but because of that one call for submissions, I finished writing the WHOLE story! Yes!

 

Another awesome thing happened with my books this year: I FINALLY wrote a 50K-word novel for NaNoWriMo! YAY!! I FINALLY won NaNoWriMo! I was SO EXCITED! After many fails at this challenge, I finally succeeded.

 

Better still, I wrote most of that book on my laptop! That was also a new thing for me. I write most of my books on the PC, only because I type faster on that keyboard, but the NaNoWriMo novel was mostly written on my laptop. The laptop was just more convenient; I used it to write at the kitchen table, on the living room couch and at my writing desk in my bedroom. It just really helped a lot and I firmly believed I would not have succeeded at NaNoWriMo this year if it weren’t for my laptop!

 

Finally, one other different thing happened with my books this year. This year, I have submitted more manuscripts than I have in any other year for as long as I have been an author.

 

These are the manuscripts I have submitted:

 

1 Nonfiction book

2 Novellas

3 Children’s books

4 Poetry books

 

Of those submissions, I received a rejection on one of the poetry books. The others have sent me confirmation that the manuscripts were received. The waiting is agonizing but, meanwhile, I will just keep doing what I do best: Write!

 

And revise complete manuscripts, too. I am once again on the hunt for an agent. I am looking for an agent for my YA novels and I know of one particular YA manuscript I really SHOULD get started with revisions if I want to find an agent to represent me!

 

I have a feeling that 2023 will be the year of novels. It WILL be my 20th anniversary as a novelist, so I am thinking that novels will be my primary focus for books in the new year. I’m looking forward to it!

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Sunday, December 11, 2022

How I (Finally) Managed to Write a 50K-word Novel for NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is often called, is an annual online event which takes place every November. Whenever this event is about to roll around, a lot of writers I know start making plans for their 30 days of a novel-writing spree. Ideas for a novel to write are tossed around, outlines are created, a schedule is set up and everyone they know is warned that they will either disappear at times to get some writing done or they will be too cranky to communicate due to lack of sleep.

 

I wrote my first novel when I was in my teens. There were many days I passed the free moments I had in high school to write in my notebook. After my first novel was published and later republished, that “novelist” title I had finally achieved placed me among the ranks of writers I knew who had also written novels. I was hooked on writing them! So, naturally, trying my hand at NaNoWriMo was something I considered trying.

 

Unfortunately, my attempts to write those 50,000 words did not go very well!

 

There was one time I tried to do NaNoWriMo, but I was also working as a freelance journalist at the time, and after my editor handed me an assignment, all efforts to write a novel went to the back burner so that I could meet my deadline.

 

My next attempt at NaNoWriMo was a semi-win. I DID write a new novel, but it was actually more of a novella. It came in at 30,000 words and not the required fifty. There was just no more story to write. I didn’t want to be one of those writers who filled their manuscript up with useless writing, unimportant scenes, fluff or gibberish in order to get to 50K words, so I just left it at that. My writer friends assured me that this was not so terrible and congratulated me on writing a new book. (That novella is STILL a novella after I revised it years later. It is currently with a publisher!)

The same thing happened again another year I tried to do NaNoWriMo, and I took solace in the fact that at least I had another novella written.

 

Then I tried doing NaNoWriMo another year. This, too, did not go well, because I could only write one chapter before I was seriously blocked. My many attempts to get unblocked and get back to writing that novel were not successful, so I withdrew.

 

This block happened again another year with another novel attempt, but I at least wrote summaries for ALL of the chapters of that book. That was better than not being able to move past Chapter One! At least I had the whole story figured out, but I just couldn’t get the words for the story onto paper.

 

When I made the decision to try NaNoWriMo again this year, I vowed that this year would be different. After all, this year was different for everything else writing-related in my life: I was earning more as a freelance writer, I was succeeding in my new venture as a content writer, I had submitted manuscripts to publishers, I am once again looking for an agent to represent my novels, and I have managed to write several ebooks.

 

Plus, I was writing again! I finally got back to writing in late 2020, after enduring a serious creative block while I was recovering from an illness, when I wrote a whole nonfiction book in my notebook, and I figured that trying to do NaNoWriMo this year would be the ultimate challenge to prove I was able to write a novel in 30 days. I believed I could do it. I had faith that I could do it.

 

And having an idea for a novel in my head for a few months helped. I was ready to start writing it!

 

Before I got started, though, I had to ask myself: Should I outline this novel or not? I had A LOT of information about this novel in my head and I was confident that I could at least get started writing it. So, I decided to take the pantser approach, rather than the planner approach. I just decided to wing it!

 

Soon after I got started writing, though, I definitely had to create an outline. The story was coming to me too fast so I had to write everything down before I lost it. All that writing down was separated into chapters. I also used this sheet of paper for any notes or ideas.

 

Having that outline helped A LOT as I continued writing the novel. I wrote the novel on my laptop because we only have one computer in this house, and I needed something that I could have access to at any time. The laptop was that very thing. I wrote the novel at the desk in my bedroom, on the living room couch, and at the kitchen table.

 

Some writers plan their writing time but, for me, it was not so much planning for when I would write in the novel, but just when I would have that undisturbed time to write – which was in the evenings. I would spend the day thinking about the next chapter to write, and then sit down that night to write it. This was unusual for me, as I normally did my writing in the early hours of the mornings while everybody was asleep, but for some reason, writing this novel at night just happened on its own. I joked to my kids that I was a “night writer.” I was often up until midnight writing (yes, I was burning that midnight oil!). Sometimes these writing sessions started at 9PM, and at other times, 10PM.

 

When I got started writing this novel, I decided I would write 2000 words every day to meet my 50K-word goal. Unfortunately, some days were just too busy, and I didn’t get to write in the novel, but they were only a few days out of all 30 days of November. I kept tabs on my word counts and figured out how many words I needed to write once I was back at it in order to get back on track to reaching 50K words. With that effort, I managed to reach 50K words on November 29th.

 

Ultimately, though, the big thing that helped me to reach my goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in one month was discipline. I had to have the discipline to get my butt in the chair every day and WRITE! (Seriously, you have to be disciplined if you want to succeed at NaNoWriMo. There were many times I didn't "feel like" writing or wasn't inspired, but I still did the writing anyway!) Even when I had no clue how to start a chapter or couldn’t figure out how to resolve something in the chapter, I sat at the desk and stared at that blank screen, pushing myself to write something. Gradually, ideas came to me, and I soon started writing. I also figured things out when I got to that certain point in the chapter. (Sometimes, you just have to write anyway even if you can’t figure something out ahead of time.) But the discipline to write every day – or to TRY to write every day – is very important in order to achieve the goal of writing a novel in a month.

 

The same goes if you want to write a novel at any other time of the year, or even a book. You need to have the discipline to keep at it. Keep going. Keep writing.

 

I’m thrilled I was able to finally succeed at NaNoWriMo this year. It was a huge accomplishment for me. I finally did it! YAY!

 

And therein lies another lesson I learned: DON’T EVER GIVE UP!! If you really want to do something, keep trying. It took me many attempts to succeed at NaNoWriMo. I didn’t succeed on my first try! Or even my second try! But I kept trying until I finally did succeed. I never gave up on it! It was important to me to be able to do this, so I kept trying. I tried and tried again. And I have finally succeeded.

 

And you know what? It was worth it. The sheer joy I felt at FINALLY achieving this goal was such a wonderful moment to experience. It was a really great feeling. I’m so glad I hung in there, that I never gave up, and that I gave it another try. Because of that, I finally did it. I finally wrote a 50,000-word novel for NaNoWriMo.

 

And now to see if I will be able to do it again!

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