Hello friendsies and a Happy Monday to you!

This week is chock-full of happy news:

1)  As some of you may have already figured out, I finished the first draft of my WIP.  Whee!  I feel like baking everyone in the blogsphere a cake.  Then again, smashing cake pieces through the computer screen would be rather messy (not to mention I’d get crumbs all over my keyboard), so here’s the next best thing:

 

Here’s how it works:

To enter the contest: Leave a comment below.  That’s it.  No tallying entries or or all that icky math stuff, just your shiny happy comment to this post.  Isn’t that easy?

Prize: One lucky winner will get a critique of their first 25 pages from yours truly.
(Standard formatting: double spaced, 12pt font.)

But wait… it gets better!

If you’re not already following this blog, you might want to join the fun.  And spread the word because…

If I make it to 200 followers by the time the contest closes, I’ll double it to two lucky winners.

Contest closes this Saturday (11:59pm November 20 EST)

Hooray!

I don’t usually blog about my current writing project because I’m always scared I’ll jinx it if I talk about it too much.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a superstitious person.  I have a black cat that crosses my path on a regular basis, Friday the 13th is one of my favorite days of the year and I cross my eyes and make faces regularly, just to make sure I won’t get stuck that way.  But there’s something about talking about my WIP that gives me the heebee-jeebies.

Now I’m in the final sprint–only a few hundred words away from finishing–so I feel OK about sharing with you all.  In fact, I feel more than OK, I want to share because that way you’ll understand why I’ve been a bit more MIA than usual these last few weeks.  Still, part of me is a little superstitious about talking about my WIP so I’ve decided to tell the story in pictures, starring baby animals (because baby animals make any story that much cuter).  Here it is.  The progress report of my WIP (title to be revealed later) told in pictures.

Enjoy! <3 <3 <3

At first, things were going swimmingly.  I finished my thesis, had a solid outline, and was writing along.  La la la la la…

Then, as I was climbing fast toward the climax, I made a fatal mistake: I looked down. “Yikes, it’s pretty high up here.”

Lucky for me, I have some great writing buddies who weren’t afraid to give me a pick-me-up. I kept writing.

Even so, there were times I just wanted to curl up inside my shell.

Then, I finally made it to the final showdown! Good thing I’m trained in the art of pen-wielding, because my villain turned out to be a piece of work. “Take that, evil character!”

Now I’m sprinting to the finish line. 1200 words… 1100… 1000… And pretty soon I’ll type the two most beautiful words in the English language: THE END.

Write on!

Everyone’s always talking about first sentences and how important it is that they make an impact and draw the reader into the story.  But what about the last sentences, the words that stick with readers after they put down the book?

As writers, most of us are wired to take a sentence and write forward from it, but how often do we write toward something, toward an ending?  A classic writing exercise is to take a random sentence from a famous novel and write from there, using those words to jump-start our own writing.  Today I’d like to challenge you all to do the opposite.  Below is a list of last sentences, final words from existing books.  The idea here is to write toward these last words so that they fit as the last sentence of your piece.

Here’s a fun exercise! Choose one of the sentences below and write a short piece with the sentence you chose as the final sentence.

• No one has claimed them yet.
• “Let me tell you about it.”
• Everything must go.
• “Make me pretty.”
• …and it was still hot.
• It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.  [She] was both.

Bonus points to anyone who can guess which books these sentences come from!

First off, I wanted to give a huge shout-out to all my readers who are participating in NaNoWriMo 2010.  You guys are awesome and you continually amaze me with your strength of spirit and dedication.  Go writers!

In light of it being November and NaNoWriMo being under way, I thought I’d talk today about binge writing.  I myself have never done NaNoWriMo but I’ve experienced my own writing binges in different contexts (mostly academic).  For instance, I completely rewrote my college thesis two days before the deadline.  My psychology master’s thesis got done during the week before I moved from upstate back to NYC.  In fact, the only thesis I’ve ever written that was not started and completed in the days before the deadline was the MFA thesis, believe it or not.

My point is, I know what it’s like to crank out pages in a short period of time and to write so hard you don’t know whether you’re crying or your eyes are bleeding or your brain’s exploding.  Or all of the above.  I know the rush and thrill of when all those disparate ideas come together at the last minute and the whole project feels like it’s suspended in air, waiting for that last breath, that last keystroke.

But aside from the frantic rush of it all, there is strategy to binge writing and I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned from my own binge writing experiences.

1) Don’t forget to eat.  Whether you take a short break for dinner or keep a snack next to you as you work, remember to refuel with food.
2) Sleep can be optional for a day or two.  But if you’re planning to pull all-nighters for a month, be prepared for lowered productivity.  I know because I’ve actually done this and it’s not a good idea.
3) Bathing is optional. (Unless you plan to go out in public, in which case, do the world a favor and take a quick shower.) ‘Nuff said.
4) Take breaks.  Sometimes your brain needs to zone out and relax.  Beating it with a stick isn’t going to get the words on the page any faster.
5) Goals can change and that’s OK.  You may find as you work on your project–be it NaNoWriMo or something else–that your goals may shift.  That’s perfectly OK and it’s important allow yourself the flexibility to change directions if need be.

Here are some happy writing vibes to all you awesome writers, especially those doing NaNoWriMo.  Hope your project goes well!