By Kelly Carey It’s that magical month of January when an entire year of possibilities lies before you. The perfect time to set your writing goals and become a 24 Carrot Writer. Remember, to become a 24 Carrot Writer, you need one writing goal and one craft goal each month. Writing goals ask you to draft a new picture book, revise three chapters of your middle grade novel, complete a character bio on your main character, or outline a plot for your new young adult novel. A craft goal needs to focus on the business side of writing and can include attending a SCBWI event, taking a writing workshop, reading in your genre, researching agents, or writing a query letter. For a refresher on setting your two goals visit the 24 Carrot Writing homepage or read http://www.24carrotwriting.com/-blog/two-goals-a-month-lead-to-24-carrot-writing. To help you stay organized and map out your 24 Carrot goals, you can use the 24 Carrot Writing Goal Sheet. Here is a blank 24 Carrot Goal Sheet all ready for you to print off and populate with plans for each month, motivating carrots, and a whole crop of 24 carrots for you to earn. Use the link below to download the sheet to your computer.
To use the 24 Carrot Goal Sheet, first document your January goals and motivate yourself with a January carrot. It might be tempting to go ahead and set goals for the entire year. If you do that, use pencil! Things can pop up, plans can change, and you'll want your writing goals to be flexible. You may wake up on the first day of March with a great new plot idea, and your Writing Goal for March should take advantage of that feeling. On the Craft Goal side, you may find out about a new workshop being offered in June, and that will become your Craft Goal for June. You may also accomplish more than your two 24 Carrot Goals each month. If you do, that's great! But your 24 Carrot Writing Goals are your golden goals - the ones you do first, jettison last and strive diligently to achieve. If you hit your monthly 24 Carrot Writing goals, color in the carrots next to that month. In the example below, both January goals were hit and the writer colored in the carrots next to January. This writer is now a two carrot writer, and has set their February goals, and picked a motivating carrot. If you miss a goal, just cross out the carrot and move that goal to the next month. Don’t beat yourself up over missed goals. This industry can be tough enough and there is no need to let a missed goal derail your progress. Each month will bring the opportunity to earn two more carrots. Keep the worksheet visible as a constant reminder of what you want to accomplish each month.
It’s still January and you have the chance to be a 24 Carrot Writer this year. If you finish the year a 14 carrot writer, or a 10 carrot writer, or a 2 carrot writer, we will be here to celebrate your accomplishment. Use your 24 Carrot Writing Goal Sheet to keep track of your success. Now go set those January goals!
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By Francine Puckly As I reflect on the year as it comes to a close, I am reminded by how important it is to be encircled in a loving, supportive writing community. I am grateful for the daily and weekly buoying by my 24 Carrot Writing peeps, my New England SCBWI team, my accountability genie, and many other writing friends and partners. These wonderful people are my sherpas—leading me up, up, up as I scale the mountain. They encourage me to keep going when I want to turn around and ride a toboggan back down to the bottom and forget the whole thing. But I have other guides on this journey. Voices from the past. Voices in the present. A stack of books by other writers that I read, reread, and then read again. These mentors offer practical, detailed advice about perplexing aspects of drafting and revising, precious guidance in making plots and characters spring to life, and words of wisdom and encouragement when the journey feels long. I would be lost without these “friends” who accompany me on this pilgrimage as well. So just in case your loved ones are still asking you what you’d like for Hanukkah or Christmas, here are 30 of my favorite books to add to your Writer’s Book Shelf: Finding Your Way and/or Thoughts on the Journey:
Drafting and Revising:
Scriptwriting:
Did I say 30 books? I think we all deserve a holiday bonus this year, and here it is! The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler Invite a few of these writing masters to guide your journey in the new year! ~ Francine “Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.”
–John Green ~by Annie Cronin Romano As we embark upon what may be the most hectic time of year, writers often find themselves faced with a more stressful than usual tug of war for their creative time. In this season of holiday parties, shopping, wrapping, baking, decorating, and visiting relatives, when does our literary muse get a chance to do her magic? It can be a tremendous feeling of sacrifice and guilt. Particularly for those who manage to write on a regular basis, having your routine potentially interrupted can be unnerving. Some will keep their writing time intact. Come fire or flood, the writing will continue. But for those who may get thrown off track, give yourself an extra special, no-cost gift this season: Compassion. Cut yourself some slack. Allow yourself room to breathe. Get lost in the holidays if you choose. Deck the halls. Eat. Drink. Socialize. And lay off the guilt. January will be here before you know it, and you’ll be setting your writing goals for 2018. Until then, write when you can. And be merry. You deserve it. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at 24 Carrot Writing! ~by Amanda Smith I have always had a gut feeling that writing poetry is a precursor to writing well. Only recently, while preparing a poetry workshop for middle school students, did I realize how strongly I believe in the poetry connection. During my kids’ baby and toddler years, I didn’t have the strength, time, or mental capacity (Mommy brain, anyone?) to write long pieces. I pushed writing to the very outer circle of my priorities, but somewhere in my youngest’s second year the need to write wiggled its way right into the center of my being. I jotted down ideas, struggles, joys, and observations in free verse. As I played with words, clapped rhythms, and rearranged sentences, within me, something awoke again. And it grew. It grew into picture books, and early readers, and novels. Even all these years and manuscripts later, the poetry that called me from my writer’s slumber is still relevant. Because what we learn in writing and studying poetry, translates to every kind of writing. What do we gain when we write poetry?
I spent a big part of Monday writing limericks. I can’t remember when last I had so much fun. The silliness of it all, within the seriousness of the form. The absolute thrill of finding just the right rhyming words to deliver that guffaw in the last line. Playfulness unlocking imagination and humor. Play, play, play. South African poet Carina Stander challenged herself in high school to write a new poem every second Sunday. She still does that. Ame Dyckman regularly tweets haiku-like observations. Kate DiCamillo often posts lyrical reflections on social media. Jane Yolen starts every work day by writing a poem. Considering their careers, I have to believe they're onto something. We need to shake this pressure that everything we write has to be for the book, or go in the book. Will you explore the poetry connection with me? I’m challenging myself to produce a poem a week. Come join me. Our play has purpose. By Francine Puckly Like many of you, I take my continuing education and improvement of my craft seriously. I attend numerous workshops and writing conferences each year, and I collect handouts and scribble down pages of helpful notes as presenters take me through plotting and character development exercises, marketing tips and Scrivener tutorials. It’s a wealth of information. But what happens once I’m home? The notes are stacked on a desk or worse…tucked away in haphazard fashion, never to be seen nor heard from again. I’ve learned that by taking just a few minutes after I return from these workshops and conferences to file my notes by topic, the information remains invaluable as I tackle various writing projects in different stages of development. The first step in organizing notes by topic is to actually take notes by topic—separating each subject as it’s covered in your workshop or conference. The notes have to be taken on paper that can be easily separated (versus in a bound notebook, such as the beloved composition notebook). I use letter-sized, wide-ruled notepads to take notes. I keep all notes on separate pages. For example, if I’m at a conference and I move to a new workshop, I start notes for that session at the top of a new sheet of paper rather than continuing on the previous page. Other notepads will work as well—spiral notebooks and 5x7 hotel notepads to name a couple. When I return home, I separate the pages from my notepad by subject and staple the pages from each workshop together. I keep any handouts with the notes I took, (either loose or attached with a paper clip). Presto! Notes by topic. Those notes are filed in manila folders by subject. Once I have the notes in subject folders, I place those into an extra-capacity hanging file folder labeled “Craft.” Each subject file contains all related presentations. (You can read about my obsession with manila folders and extra-capacity hanging files in the-portable-office.html.
If I’m working on revising a draft of my manuscript, I grab the “Revision” file and peruse it for ideas and reminders for cutting, tightening, and pulling subplots together. If I’m struggling with my opening chapter, I pull out the “First Chapters” file to get inspired for fixing that. If I’m stumped about my website and how to improve the design, I pull out the “Web Design/Web Presence” file. You get the idea! If, like me, your notes are taking over your office space, take a few minutes to think about what supplies you could add to your conference book bag in order to make your information more accessible and beneficial to your craft the next time you set off for a workshop. It only takes a few minutes of planning and filing to make the year ahead more productive, and all the money you’ve spent on conferences and workshops will be well worth it! Happy workshopping! ~ Francine by Francine Puckly Many of us are blessed with dedicated writing and creating spaces. The rest of us are not. Or maybe we are required to work in a difference place for a brief period of time or perhaps we’ve decided to go on a writer’s retreat. Regardless of the reason, it pays to have our projects organized for portability, whether we’re traveling to the living room, the library, or another state. While I have a dedicated writing space (my bedroom), I often squeeze my writing in and around the rest of my family’s schedule. That could be at a baseball field, the dance school parking lot or the dentist’s office. I also love to sprawl out at parks or outdoor cafes on mild days, hunker down at the local library on rainy days, or get into a groove at the local bookstore while I tackle plot or character development issues. Prior to this summer, I probably had an 80% success rate of packing the correct work material when I worked away from home. Sometimes I caught the oversights while still in the garage. But other times I would be settled at a library table when I discovered missing pieces. I knew this summer had to be different. I had to have a 100% success rate. After an extensive knee reconstruction, my college-aged, working-in-Boston, can’t-drive-for-seven-weeks daughter would need me to taxi her—and wait for hours at a time—on a daily basis. It was unacceptable for me to be stranded somewhere waiting for her without the proper writing materials. But I also didn’t want to waste time packing, unpacking, and repacking my files—and worrying that I was forgetting something. There was way too much room for error with that system. Order, complete order, was needed. I spent the better part of May organizing my electronic files and then turned my attention to my paper files. Every last piece of paper was filed. And my paper files mirrored my electronic files, so that items could be located quickly. But to be truly portable, my paper files required the right equipment. After consulting internet resources and a few organizing books, I decided the tools required to make this happen were extra-capacity, reinforced hanging folders, manila (or decorative!) files, and a portable hanging file tote. I created an extra-capacity hanging file for each of my projects--all of them, including those picture book manuscripts covered in cobwebs, abandoned novels or portions of novels, and current novels in various stages of drafting and revision. Each project had its own hanging file, and those hanging files contained manila folders labeled:
Switching between projects became a snap. All of my hanging files were organized the same way, and I could pop a file in or out of the tote.
The last step to peace of mind was establishing a list of all the little items that had to come along with me each day in a separate messenger bag. I “laminated” this list using packaging tape. Your list might look different than mine, but these were my essentials:
While this level of detail might seem like overkill, I only had to create the list once. Each morning I scanned my bag and checked off the list. I took the thinking out of packing and poured that energy into my manuscripts instead. So if you’re taking your writing on the road, I hope these suggestions will help make your portable life stress-free! And happy writing…wherever the day may take you. ~ Francine By Allison Pottern Hoch If you’re a regular here at 24 Carrot, you’re no stranger to setting and reaching for your goals when it comes to your writing. But why should that end with the final page of your manuscript? Marketing is how you get that big, beautiful book in front of readers. Having marketing goals helps you to focus on your strengths and make the best use of your time and energy. Because you want to be diving into the next writing project, not spending every day on a new marketing plan. So where to begin? BIG GOALS: Identify Your Audience: Remember when you started your book and you thought you knew what it would look like when you were done? Odds are it’s become something bigger and stranger and more exciting than you ever imagined. Your audience is the same – your work will touch people you never thought possible. So now it’s time to really dig in and identify who those readers are and how to best reach them (I have some tips here). Know Your Why: With each marketing strategy you try — interviews, blog posts, events — you should ask yourself ‘why?’ What are you hoping to get out of the experience? What are you hoping your readers will get from it? This can help you target specific venues and outlets that meet your marketing goals. Play to Your Strengths: There’s a time and place for all kinds of marketing. But where should you put the most energy? You don’t have to do everything to have success. Identify the strategies that get you most excited and play to your strengths. Public speaking? Social media? Blogging? {For example, I love talking, teaching, and writing so I host workshops and write for a blog}. SMALL GOALS: Start now: You can begin building your fan base right now, even without a publication. Build your online network through social media and your in-person network through conferences, writing communities, and local bookstores and libraries. Lay the groundwork now so that when you do have that book coming out, you’ll have ready and willing co-marketers. Support others: Promote others as you would like them to promote you. Attend events, review books, buy books, and let people know about the writing and authors you love. Make a plan: Get out a blank calendar and colored pens. Identify key dates (publication date, bookstore events, relevant holidays, etc.) and how you need to plan around to market your work. Booking events? Posting social media updates? Sending out an evite? Put it all on your calendar. Set aside time to market yourself: This is hard. You want to be writing, I get it. But you can’t cram the marketing in last minute – it doesn’t work that way. Build time into your weekly schedule to promote yourself, your work, and your events. Allison Pottern Hoch is a writer and event coach with over eight years of experience in marketing, publicity, sales, and event planning. She spent four years promoting academic titles at The MIT Press before she went to work for Wellesley Books as a bookseller and event coordinator. She organized, hosted, and promoted over 150 events during her tenure, ranging in size from intimate workshops and lunches to multi-media events with over 700 attendees. She’s worked with veteran authors, celebrities, and debut authors. This September, Allison is teaching a Building Events workshop at Grub Street and leading a bookstore panel at The Writer’s Loft. For more information on her workshops and coaching services, visit http://events.pottern.com By Amanda Smith So, you have been writing and revising and polishing and editing. You also attended an SCBWI conference or two, and printed out the highly coveted faculty submission guidelines. You poured over editor and agent names, highlighted deadlines, and bookmarked MSWL. And then you stuffed the guidelines in the bottom drawer along with your manuscripts, and climbed under the covers with a flashlight and a book. Because putting your precious story OUT THERE is just too much. Or life got too busy. It was spring, and then the school year ended, and then it was summer, and then the school year started, and phew! And now you’ve missed all the deadlines. Oh, well, next year after the conference you will do better. NO! Make a plan. Today. Because your beautiful story, your heart spilled onto the page, will never ever see the light of day if you don’t send out those submissions. Lots and lots of submissions. And if you don’t cowboy up and deal with those rejections. Lots and lots of rejections. And keep on sending out submissions until you get the call or the email. And then there’ll be dancing. But first. Submissions. So, here’s my plan: (Because yeah, this is totally me.)
No more excuses. This year, grasp the wonderful opportunities provided by SCBWI. Put the flashlight down, creep out from under the covers, and send your stories out into the big wide world of publishing. We promise, we will hold your hand when the rejections come in. But one day you’ll get the call. And then there’ll be dancing! Lots and lots of dancing. Downloadable pdf files: UPDATED!
~By Amanda Smith When I spend a day in a classroom as a substitute teacher, I always feel as if I’m the one learning something new. A couple of weeks ago, when I was elementary art teacher for the day, I was reminded of some very important writing truths. The art teacher had left instructions for the Kindergarten class to add a few finishing touches to their art projects. When they were done, I dismissed them to “free draw.” All of them huddled around the big, round open studio table, grabbing scissors, glue, string, construction paper and markers. All except one boy. He clenched the Sharpie he had used for his art project tightly in his fist and asked if he could write a story instead. “Go for it.” I said. “The Troll Sbardee,” he wrote. “The Troll Story,” I read. “Oh, I got that right? I wasn’t sure,” he said. “Well, actually, that’s not quite how you spell it, but when we write for fun, that doesn’t matter so much,” I said. He beamed. Ah, a kindred spirit. He went to work writing his sbardee, and I roamed the room, admiring art work, untangling balls of yarn, and reminding kids not to run with scissors. Towards the end of the period my little writer came up to me, proudly waving a paper. Happy clusters of black Sharpie letters danced on both sides of the page. “I finished!” he said. “I finished my story.” “That’s wonderful. Will you read it to me?” He held the paper in both his little hands and in a ceremonial voice, read his story of the princess troll. It was funny. It was action packed. And someone got eaten. It was perfect. “That is a great story,” I said. “You have some interesting characters. I would love to see what they look like. Do you think you can draw a picture of them?” He scrutinized me, with a most serious little face. And then he said, “This is a word story. This is not a story for pictures. I don’t have time for that.” Lessons learned, dear fellow writers: 1. Write for fun! Get the story on the page in happy word clusters. You’ll have plenty of time during the revision stage to worry about spelling, sentence structure, arc, pacing, and all those other academic things. But first, just enjoy the act of creating. 2. Know what you’re writing. You might not know what you are creating when you start, but sometime during the process, ask the important questions.
3. Stick to your guns. Critique partners are gifts from heaven. Great feedback can place you squarely on the right track. But ultimately, you know what you want to accomplish, and where you want your story to go. Suggestions are just that. Make sure to stay true to your vision. 4. Manage your time wisely. But mostly. Have fun writing those sbardees! By Annie Cronin Romano Two weekends ago, I went on a writing retreat with three of the four members of my writing group. It had been 20 months since our last one, and planning this one had been a challenge. From nailing down a weekend when all four of us could go (obviously we didn’t succeed there) to finding an affordable, comfortable place to work distraction-free, there were several obstacles to overcome. But it was important to us, as a group, to do this. Why do this? You ask. Good question. 1. There are no “home life” distractions. No one feels compelled to do the laundry, or clean the bathrooms, or rake the yard. Your kids can’t suddenly ask for a ride to the movies. It’s just you and your writing. 2. There are no (or far fewer) time constraints. You don’t have to stop writing in fifteen minutes to prepare dinner for the family or do the grocery shopping. This unrestricted time can free up your creativity and get the ideas flowing. 3. You’re not alone. There’s a group mentality to help maintain focus. You’re all there together for one purpose. I’m a fairly disciplined person, but even I admit that I would be tempted to lounge around, sleep late, read a book, or surf the web if it was just me on a writing weekend. Sure, I’d write. Just maybe not as intensely as I do with others around me who are focused on their work. Having fellow writers with you creates an accountability you might not have if you’re alone. 4. Even the breaks are productive. When we get up to make tea, grab a snack, or just stretch for a few minutes, we often use that time to bounce ideas off each other. We ask each other questions about plot, word choice, and characterization. When writing alone, that’s not possible. But when you’re with fellow writers, you can tap into each other’s writing strengths and knowledge. All the members of my writing group write fairly consistently at home. But we recognize that doing this intense write-in retreat really helps us get a significant amount of writing accomplished. A group writing retreat can rejuvenate your writing, whether you use it to brainstorm story ideas, plot a novel, revise a story, or free write to move your creativity into high gear. So round up some writing colleagues and organize a retreat of your own. And let 24 Carrot Writing know how it goes! ~Annie |
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