quality vs quantity

The first week of 2016: goal setting and keeping on track

beccakinla advice, goals, Uncategorized, writing, writing exercise Tags: , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, I saw quite a bit I didn’t like when I looked back on my writing accomplishments for 2015. A colleague “happened” to reach out to me right around then to ask if we could be writing buddies. Basically, we touch base once a week to confess how much writing we did or didn’t do during the week, as well as swap a bit of writing we did. We’re hoping this will keep us accountable and help us reach our goals. Today was the second Sunday my new partner and I swapped our accountability emails. So far, so good. Last week, I got a great critique out of it, as well as some insights about how I’ve been spending my time.

All of this means I had to pin down some goals. Continue reading →

Switching from the Pressure Cooker to the Crock-Pot: A (much needed) break

beccakinla writing, writing process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Whew!

At this point last week, I had three looming deadlines ahead: a short story each for Binyan and for Binah BeTween, and my next batch of episodes for Glixman in a Fix, the serial currently running in Binah BeTween. I was feeling stressed out not just because these items needed to be in by this week, but by a whole string of deadlines, pretty much constant ones for months on end.

The Pressure Cooker

I had first drafts for both stories already written, and an outline to base the serial chapters on, but it was a lot of writing to complete in a single week. The previous few stand-alone pieces I did for the tween/teen magazines had not come as smoothly as usual, so I was feeling anxious. Trying to think of multiple fictional plots, spoken in the voices of multiple narrators, overlapping one another for months on end was wearing my creativity a little thin. The quality of my work had dropped, and it weighed on my mind.

In fact, Continue reading →