How to be a lean, mean writing machine

Pic: If you employ the tips I will share with you, you will have sprouted the equivalent of another pair of hands. Or something like that.

It’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and you know what that means. If you’re a writer and typically neglect your house, it will be even more neglected. Right now, whenever I pass the flower garden, I avert my eyes because the grass I’ve allowed to creep into the beds is yellowing. But that’s okay. If I were a green thumb, this article would be called “How to be a lean, mean, weeding machine.”

So in the interest of helping out anyone who is crazy enough to try this insane effort of writing 50,000 words in 30 days, I’ve compiled some of my tried and tested methods:

1.Sprint for 20 minutes on and off in blocks of time. Join a sprint group that gets down to business. Sprinting has a side benefit: if you are competitive like I am, you have the motivation to keep writing even when your inner editor says your story is lame. You want to be able to report a word count to your fellow sprinters after all. That said, take breaks. Do not do this: write for hours and hours on end without a start stop time. Your body will rebel and defeat you.

2.Accept the fact that your house will not be clean, dinners will not be cooked, and the carpet will not be vacuumed.

3. Set a word count goal. My goal has been writing 5,000 words a day, because a) I don’t write on Sundays and b) I want to see how much I can push myself. So far, so good.

4.Do not edit, except for those obvious typos that can easily be changed.

5.Have an outline. Or at least a list of scenes that you can refer to when you are stuck. You can always move things around later.

6.Turn off the music. I find that I can focus better when the music is turned off. My brain apparently can only handle one thing at a time.

7.Go to the bathroom, get your snack and water bottle, feed the dog, bring the dog in, clean up after the dog, brush your teeth, etc. before you sit down to write.

8.Ignore phone calls. They can always leave you a voice mail.

9.Write a story you are excited about. If you’re not excited, this will feel like the ickiest 50k words of your life.

10.Get those must-do tasks out of the way. Then dive into your writing, guilt-free.

By the way, these are good things to apply to just knocking out a manuscript quickly, in general. Good luck!

Jewel Allen is an award-winning journalist, author and ghostwriter. Connect with her at www.jewelallen.com. Also, check out and nominate her Kindle Scout book, DEADLINE, which she wrote using the tips above: http://amzn.to/2wZKcm4. If it’s selected you get the e-book free.

How to turn a vacation into a book

Two titles in my contemporary travel romance series

I love traveling. I started by moving from the Philippines to Utah at age 15 and I haven’t stopped since. We have been blessed as a family with opportunities because my husband gets to go on a lot of conferences (and I get to tag along), we choose to invest in travel, and we are able to schedule the time off.

This past summer, we were able to go to Morocco for five days, as part of a Southern Spain/Morocco trip. I had fully intended to collect enough material to put into a book, and I did. For about two weeks, I knocked out a 20k word romance novella, Saffron Summer. Next, I plan to write A day in Paris, which is based on a literal day I spent with my husband there for our 22nd wedding anniversary. Other places I plan to write about: Seville, Spain; Ireland; Aruba; Grenada; and the Philippines. My bucket list for both travel and books: Italy, South Korea, China, and Greece.

If you’ve ever thought about turning a vacation into a book (fiction or non-fiction), here are some things that are cool about it:

It’s tax-deductible. Our accountant says we may be eligible to write off 20 per cent of our trips' expenses because I base my books on them. If you write a book within a certain time period, I believe it’s either one or two years, you can write it off. (Be sure to check with your accountant.)

It is easier to conjure up a book cover. I am not a pro cover artist by any means, but I like dabbling in it. I have hired pro artists before, and ultimately, I give them an idea that works for my cover, so I figure, why not save the money and try to make it myself? Especially for mock-ups. For the third book in the series, I am thinking of setting “An Irishman’s Promise” in Ireland. Having been there, some cover elements came to mind easily: rain, umbrella, doors (Dublin), lush green, rain boots.

It gives you license to imagine "what could have been" in your vacation destinations. Once, when we went to Grenada, an older man gave me shells from his shell collection. I’ve always wondered about his own personal story. Now I can imagine it via a novel.

You pay more attention when you travel. When I go someplace, I like being up at sunrise and pay attention to sensory details. I remember little things like the prayer call in Morocco five times a day and the pealing of church bells in Sevilla. At the end of each day, without fail, where I’ve stayed up all night if need be, I write in my journal for hours, so that I could remember the experience, and it’s been invaluable to helping me with the setting for my novels. Even my historical novels benefit from this.

Going someplace is tons more fun than Internet research. I am not knocking Internet research, because it’s amazing what is out there. But if you’re going to write about churros dipped in chocolate on a street side café in a Spanish enclave in North Africa, why not go there in person?

You meet interesting people who make great characters in your books. Nothing reveals someone’s character better than traveling with them nearly 24/7. We’ve gone on several guided tours with people whom I have based characters on. It’s a great opportunity for people watching.

It’s a great way to relive your trip. As I wrote about Morocco in Saffron Summer, memories rushed back. It was as though I was there again. When I sat down to read the manuscript all the way through, I had so much fun. I am excited to relive the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower in A day in Paris.

You learn a lot. This is obvious, but until you get out of your comfort zone and experience other cultures, you don’t realize how little you know about yourself, the world and how other cultures live. Since I never know what material I will need I tend to be one of those slightly-pesky tourists who ask twenty questions on guided tours so I am usually overflowing with facts about a place.

You are contributing to the world’s travel knowledge. Even though what you might write is fiction, if it is couched in truth, you are revealing some neat things about other countries and cultures to your readers who might, by choice or opportunity, not be able to travel to the places you’ve been.

Surviving a one-star review

My fourth published book and the second in my historical series, The Last Princess, came out Monday to fanfare: Facebook posts, an email to my newsletter subscribers, a tweet, an Instagram pic...and its first one-star review.

You spend hours, days, years, toiling over your book, and someone is bound to come along and say they didn't like it. Many people say they love reading your work but don't leave reviews; that one person who didn't...they take the time to write a review. Gah, is that frustrating, or what?

It hurt so much, I didn't write more of book 3 that afternoon, even though that had been my plan. Instead, I critiqued several pages for other people. It felt good; it allowed me to think of something else other than my own. After critiquing, I took solace in the fact that at least I got five-star reviews before the one-star came along.

But it still stung so badly. I admit, the review shook my confidence to my core.

I've written poetry and essays most of my professional life. I've always gotten great feedback on Facebook for my poetry. Heck, I've made people cry. But this fiction gig is by far the hardest I've done.

I like to think I can stitch along a good story. I have a good grasp of grammar and spelling. So why can't everyone just love everything that I write, and if they don't, to keep it to themselves? Um, because that isn't realistic? Thing is, by releasing a book to the wide world, without the safety net of "Facebook friend" connection, I am opening myself to criticism. It is an invitation for honest feedback.

Today, having recovered sufficiently from Monday, I planned on writing. Instead, as my first and third Wednesdays usually shape up, I had meetings, emails, and phone calls all day related to city council. (I am a councilwoman. Writing is not for the faint-hearted. Politics, too, but that's for another blog post.)

When my husband came home at four and I had only another free hour to write before a city work meeting, I lamented, "How can I write my bestselling book when I have to do xyz?"

The answer came to me just now. It is this: keep on writing.

It means I can learn from my reviews then square my shoulders. It means I should focus on the good (I got a book out, I finished a manuscript, I got a good review...Yay!) and not dwell on the negative. It means I should put my best work out there and write on despite what other people say.

Monday actually ended on a positive note. My son, who is serving an LDS mission in South Korea, emailed that evening. He wrote, God "has a plan for you, He knows how much good you can do, and He knows how much good you WANT to do. :) Keep on praying, keep on being obedient, and 'all things work together for good to them that love God.' " (Romans 8:28)

Amen.

Jewel Allen is an award-winning journalist, ghostwriter and author. Her latest novel is The Last Princess, set in 1760's Philippines, about an exiled Spanish captain who falls in love with the elusive Last Princess. Visit her at www.JewelAllen.com.

Breaking a revision rut

Me, "cutting" my cake at The Spanish Exile book launch

Lately, I have been reveling in a whirlwind of creativity. Since November 2016, I have published two books -- about as different from each other as you could get. The first is a political memoir called Soapbox: How I landed & lost a columnist gig, fought a prison, and got elected. The second is the first of a 4-book swashbuckling historical series, The Spanish Exile, which I launched last week.

The Spanish Exile started as a glimmer of an idea clear back a decade ago. Before its publication, I started a memoir publishing company (Treasured Stories), self-published my first novel (Ghost Moon Night), got elected to city council, and put out my memoir. Finally this year, I decided, no more digressions; it was high time I got this series off the ground.

However, in the past, my publishing process stalled at revision. I just couldn't muscle my way through a hot manuscript mess. I decided to overhaul my process, so I could overcome that I-can't-revise psychological hurdle. Here are some things that helped me through that revision rut:

1. Write a synopsis and blurb. I wrote a 7-page chapter by chapter synopsis then hired someone to write an exciting blurb...and revised to that. Some people detest synopses. Relax. It doesn't have to be literary or even pretty. You are just cataloguing your plot, to test it for holes and give you the lay of the land. As for a blurb, I could have muddled my way through it, or, for the price of a nice dinner for two, I hired a talented blurb writer.

2. Recruit cheerleaders. These are readers and writers who like the kind of stories you write. If you get a fantasy reader for your nonfiction, most likely, their feedback will be a downer. I had a cheerleader, my 16 year old voracious reader daughter, who brainstormed solutions to my plot holes. She kept me going and kept my pace exciting. Which meant my story was less boring, making it more exciting to work on. This recharged my creativity.

3. Set specific and challenging goals and track your progress. Sure, I could have revised an hour here and there. Instead, I revised in marathon sessions with specific page number goals that I announced to an accountability group. If midnight rolled around, I stuck to my guns until I finished into the wee hours just to say I did it.

4. Minimize distractions. I transformed my office into a writing "cave", closing my blinds, immersing in instrumental cello music, wrapping myself in blankets, closing my door if need be. Kind of writing in a cocoon, turning into a butterfly later.

5. Get a print copy of the book. I formatted my draft into a Createspace book which inspired me, then made corrections on the book. Oh my, that was a little disheartening seeing all those scribbles on every single page...

6. Keep going. But I persisted one page at a time and revised it in the final format, so it felt like progress. The book will eventually end, so hang in there.

7. Focus. I resisted signing up for conferences and contests and focused on getting my book done. I kept my schedule as open as possible for writing in long stretches. I asked my already sweet helpful family to pitch in on household chores and to cook dinner if they wanted to eat.

8. Acknowledge difficulties but don't wallow. I allowed myself to cry a little, "Wah, this is tough!" then went back to work. I asked more expert writers for help with specific problem spots. I watched YouTube videos on revising and writing.

9. Pray. I prayed for help. A lot.

Now that momentum is on my side, I intend to capitalize on it. I am revising Book 3 and plan to complete the series by September.

Jewel Allen is an award-winning journalist, author and ghostwriter. She is the author of The Spanish Exile and The Last Princess, the first two books in a swashbuckling historical series, Islands of the Crown. Visit her at www.jewelallen.com.