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Emmi Lawrence

~ MM Fantasy Romance Writer

Emmi  Lawrence

Tag Archives: goals

Coffee & Conversation: How many times have you won Nanowrimo?

29 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by Emmi Lawrence in Coffee & Conversation

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answer, author, essay, goals, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, non-fiction, nonfiction, prose, question, reading, writer, Writing

How many times have you won Nanowrimo?

I’ve only won once. And it was with the first 82k or so words of Haunt of the Wilds.

I was actually supposed to be working on a different novel and Haunt was just going to be a quick practice to get the rust out of my brain. And then I just…kept going. No biggie.

It was also rather helpful to have my partner suspended for that month (tongue in cheek–it was a very stressful month) because it meant that I got a huge amount of time every day to write.

Every other year that I’ve attempted to write 50k in a month, I haven’t made it. I’m pretty sure a bunch of the reason is because of not having all that extra time to write. But also, I’m rarely excited going into November to work on something. I’m usually in the muddy middle, so really I’m just operating at writing as usual, same old habits, getting my typical amount done as I do every other month while I’m knee-deep in a project.

If I finish a project during November, that adds another sticking point, for it’s difficult to immediately jump from one project to the next (at least for me) without some form of reset. The beginning might be slow. I’m probably still heavily thinking about my last story instead of my new story. I may have a few things that have fallen by the wayside that need to be caught up on.

There’s also the possibility of interruption during the month and interruption is the key killer of motivation and advancement.

Either way, winning Nano isn’t the end goal for me. It’s about making sure I’m keeping up my habits and hopefully tweaking them to be better habits.

If you are doing Nanowrimo this year or are working on some other large project, I wish you all the luck and organization to keep yourself focused and moving forward on it!

And if you fail, you will be far further than you were, and that is a success in and of itself :)

~Emmi

Coffee & Conversation: What is a Nanowrimo novel?

01 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by Emmi Lawrence in Coffee & Conversation

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answer, author, essay, goals, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, Novel, prose, question, writer, Writing, writing advice

What is a Nanowrimo novel?

A novel written during the National Novel Writing Month (November), where people are urged to set themselves goals, the lead one being to write 50k words in 30 days.

A lot of people look down on events such as Nanowrimo. They call the books or partial books written during that focused time “brain dumps” or far worse. There are even submission guidelines by editors and agents that specifically demand not to be sent your “Nanowrimo mess” as if November is the only time that one might be able to write a mess of a novel or that if a novel is written in a month it must therefore be, a mess.

Thing is…a month is an incredibly arbitrary span of time.

What is a month? It’s four weeks. It’s 28 to 31 days. It’s 672 to 744 hours. It’s 40, 320 to 44,640 minutes.

So, when you say you wrote a novel in a month, are you saying that you spent 40,000 minutes on that novel? Did you spend 700 hours on that novel? No, of course not! (i mean, unless you never sleep or do absolutely anything else during the month.)

So what does saying “I wrote this novel in a month” actually mean?? What does saying that you spent two years working on a novel mean??

Well, in fact, they could actually mean the exact same thing. Or, they could mean nothing at all.

If, say, a person decided to spend one month working a novel, by which they decided to spend a grand total of 4 hours each evening instead of watching TV or going out or reading or any other leisure activity, by the end of the month they will have written during a total of 120 hours during that month.

If, say, a person decided to write a novel and only spent 1 hour a week over the course of two years, they would have spent 104 hours during those two years. Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: First Quarter Update 2021

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by Emmi Lawrence in Coffee & Conversation

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answer, editing, FAQ, goal, goals, progress, question, reading, social media, Update, Writing

First Quarter Update 2021

I wanted to give you an idea of where I am and what I’m working on.

In the past three months, I’ve gotten more work done on Canvas Blues and the body count is racking up behind the scenes. In fact, i don’t think I’ve ever written anything with this level of death, yet such a long drawn-out light tension before. Usually tensions run high with that much death going on.

Next, I finished all the things for Lost Isle and got it out into the world. Woot!!

I’ve written many, many blog posts.

I’ve quite a twitter game I attempted to start. Well, actually, I’ve mostly quit twitter completely because I just can’t keep my endurance up over there, not while doing everything else I’m doing.

[On my non-romance name, I’ve written six short stories, three on submission, one already semi-sold (no contract, just word of mouth), one needing edits; wrote a ton of blog posts for over there (mostly rec posts); slush read over 200 stories; critiqued a bunch of friends’ work; began a novel and a novella (no relation to one another because I’m a masochist)]

I’ve gotten on the schedule with a cover artist to get Shatter by Glass a cover. And I’ve finished formatting that book for paperback. Ebook still needed, however it looks to be on track for a Jun/July rerelease.

I’ve also been striving to read more, though this has been more short stories than novels.

Oh, and I’m in the process of moving.

So that’s about where I’m at. For the next three months, I’m working on keeping up with blog posts, getting Shatter by Glass fully ready, adding words to Canvas Blues, and doing a lot of prep and work on Scorched Isle. Plus words for my other name. Shall update again in three months to see how far I get :)

~Emmi

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

A serialized novel begun Jan 29th 2020. Here you can find links to the beginning and the most recent additions.

I: Prologue
II: Present
III: Yesteryears
IV: Yesteryears
V: Present

……….

L: Present
LI: Yesteryears
LII: Yesteryears
LIII: Present
LIV: Yesteryears

New chapters published every Wednesday!
Next up: Jul 7th 2021

FREE SHORT STORIES

THE BAYWATER & THE HURRICANE
(fantasy M/M)

WHAT SECRETS MIGHT REMAIN
(fantasy M/M)

TALL, DARK & HANDSOME
(contemporary M/M)

THE IMMORTAL LOVER OF LAKE PHANTA
(fantasy M/M)

ACROSS THAT OCEAN OF SAND
(fantasy M/M)

MY LIFE, HIS BREATH
(contemporary M/M)

POET’S BANE
(fantasy M/M)

What’s Up!

  • Canvas Blues – XCV: Present
  • Canvas Blues – XCIV: Present
  • Coffee & Conversation: How to keep your plots/stories from being repetitive?
  • Canvas Blues – XCIII: Yesteryears
  • Coffee & Conversation: How to critique someone else’s work?
  • Canvas Blues – XCII: Present

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