NaNoWriMo Saved Me

By Kelly Bridgewater

Well, I did it.

NaNoWriMo.

This was my second time actually trying it. Then I actually won. The last time I did NaNoWriMo was in 2014, and I won. I wrote a suspense novel then, but since then I have fallen in love with historical stories, so I really want to write a historical suspense novel.

But on October 2015, my father died, and our family took a weeklong vacation to Disney World over Thanksgiving, so I was a just a little bit busy.

For the past two years, I have had a hard time writing anything. I lost myself in books after books, writing reviews by the weeks. The days, weeks, and months slipped by. Even the years flew by.

This year, I begged God to give me my desire of the heart back. He gave me the desire to write for a reason, right. This has been my dream since as far as I can imagine. I remember playing an imagination game in my best friend's side yard, and I went home to write what we played that day.

In July, I prayed that prayer. Then in October, I prayed if I should go do NaNoWriMo, which would hopefully bring my love of writing back.

I planned all October with a little bit of the plot planned out, but not much. I felt ready to dive in.

November first came and I wrote 2,000 words. Then the second came, again another 2,000 words. But the third came, and I couldn't write at all. I felt defeated. Even begged God to not take this desire away from me. I started this book before my father died, but I stopped and haven't touched anything since.

But I kept moving forward. The week before Thanksgiving, I felt like I was moving along at a nice clip and had written a number of words. I got depressed a number of times, but I told myself I needed to do this.

I prayed a lot during November. I begged God for the story. I walked a nice walkway in my bedroom on the carpet at the end of my bed. I spent many moments discussing my story and my characters and deciding what they needed to do next.

nanowrimo.org

On Monday, November 27th at 4 p. m., I finished my NaNoWriMo goal. I reached 50,388 words in 27 days. I felt great. I felt excited. I did it! It was a joy I haven't felt in a long time.

Yes, there are many chapters that will be deleted. There are many moments I need to revise and rewrite. I need to spend more time thinking of my climactic moment and how my characters will reach them. I probably need to think more about the subplot and do my research.

So no, this novel isn't publishable by a long shot, but I have overcome the huge writer's block that has blanketed my entire existence for the past two years.

I pray I continue forward and work on finishing this book, with prayer, by June 2018.

How about you? What have you done to move past a writer's block that blocked your creativity for more than a month?

Welcome to 2017 (Part III)

By Kelly Bridgewater

If you have been following my blog for the past two weeks, I started the New Year with setting my year off right with focusing on God. Then I followed up with my writing goals for the new year. Now today, I will be showing how I set up by reading goals for the New Year. I try to read 200 books during a year. For me, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but as an avid reader who can complete a 400 page book in a twenty-four hour period while watching my boys and getting dinner on the table, I think my list should be longer.

Maybe this year.

Let’s me share my secret. First, I read all the time. My Kindle is in my purse. I find an extra fifteen minutes waiting to pick up the boys from school. Sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to go back and then watching the clock tick by in the examination room. I pull out my Kindle while standing in the line at the grocery store. I read while my husband is driving down the road to the store.  My nose is always in a book. My favorite moments are when my youngest, Obadiah, hands me a book, and he cuddles in my lap while we devour the book together. He is really into Franklin and Lego Batman right now, so we read a lot of those.

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Last year at the Indiana ACFW meeting in December, our speaker, Bob Hosteller, challenged us to be intentional with our reading. He suggested know ahead of time of at least fifty books you want to read in the New Year, and then read accordingly.

In the past, I have been purely a reader who read a book because of I’m a devoted fan of an author who I buy everything of, or I read the synopsis on the back of the book, and I’m interested.  I have a lot of books around my house that need to be read, so I plan to be intentional with the books I NEED to finish by the end of 2017. Not that there won’t be more added as new books come out. There are a lot of books coming out in 2017 that I want to devour. I have been reading every suspense and romantic suspense, so I can study and improve my writing, so now I can venture out of my genre. Lately, I have been obsessed with World War II fiction.

We all know I will be reading the Bible every day, so that won’t be listed.

Let’s begin:

2 authors:

·       Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (all four of the books in the series)

·       C.S. Lewis who I have an entire bookshelf devoted to his writings and writings about him, but I haven’t gotten around to reading all of them.

6 contemporary romantic suspense books (Including Love Inspired Suspense) Let’s be honest, I’ll probably be reading a lot more of these:

·       Justice Delayed by Patricia Bradley

·       Moving Target by Lynette Eason

·       Still Life by Dani Pettrey

·       Maybe It's You by Candace Calvert

·       If I'm Found by Terri Blackstock

·       Beyond Justice by Cara Putnam

From Amazon

4 World War II or historical fiction books (absolute minimum):

·       The Stranger at Fellsowrth by Sarah E. Ladd

·       When Tides Turn by Sarah Sundin

·       High As Heavens by Kate Breslin

·       The Illusionist's Apprentice by Kristy Cambron

·       With Love, Wherever You Are by

3 suspense/ thriller books:

·       Murder on the Moor by Julianne Deering

·       Purgatory Road by Samuel Parker

·       Pursued by Lisa Harris

4 favorite fiction authors:

·       Susan May Warren

·       Steven James

·       Kathy Herman

·       Julie Lessman

2 new fiction authors:

·       Harlan Coben

·       James Rollins

Young adult books:

·       The Noble Servant by Melanie Dickerson

·        

4 writing craft books:

·       Troubleshooting Your Novel by Steven James

·       Stein on Writing by Sol Stein

·       The Fire in Fiction  and Writing the Breakout Novel  by Donald Maass

2-3 Christmas books:

·       Where Treetops Glisten by Tricia Goyer, Cara Putnam, and Sarah Sundin ( I read this book this past Christmas, and it became a classic that I will want to read every Christmas)

·       The Christmas Candle by Max Lucado

·       The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Never read the actual book! Shame, I know)

Non-fiction books:

I have a couple on my bookshelf from C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien I need to read.

1 daily devotional:

·       A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works

This is just a summary of the type of books I plan to read this year. Plus, if anything new comes up, then this list has the right to change by adding or deleting a certain book. Some of these books aren’t even going to come out until the end of the summer, so I probably will have included some new books by then.

How do you decide what books to read for the New Year? Share. I have a journal next to my favorite chair where I list every book that I read during the month and under the heading of what I have actually read during the year. It helps me keep track of what I already have read. Plus, it is cool when someone asks what type of books I read. Like they couldn’t tell by looking at my overflowing bookshelves.

Let’s meet back here for a recap in December and talk about our books that we read during 2017.

Welcome to 2017 (Part II)

By Kelly Bridgewater

Wow! I can’t believe it is 2017. Where has the time gone? I graduated from high school in 2000, so I can’t believe it is the year of my sixteen year high school reunion. Not like I’m going because there were 1,000 kids in my graduating class, and the ones who I would want to see again, I still keep in contact with.

But as we look on the vast expanse of the New Year, what do you plan to do? It is a time of new beginnings. Time to start again. Even though, I believe you can do this anytime of the year, not just in January.

If you missed my post last week, where I shared how to start the year off on the right foot. Here is the link to that post. I hope you read it and then return to this entry.

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As a writer, I set personal goals during each month. Right now, there in the back page of 2014’s planner, which need to be transferred to my new planner. My yearly planner is a 400 page planner that I customize with handmade calendars then two pages for each day. I am the most productive that way. Plus, it costs an arm and a leg to buy planners that are daily and monthly. I don’t like the weekly monthly ones. There is never enough time for me to write in. My husband keeps joking that there is an app for that on my Note 3, but something about writing it down every day. Must be the writer in me. J

Back to my writing goals.

During January, I have started another research marathon to prepare myself to work on the first book. I hope to finish all the research in January, but I think it will leak over in February too.

During February, I hope to start writing the first book and come up with the main idea for the second book. Now these aren’t full on sketches. I use the cork board method in Scrivener and write little ideas for each chapter. I love being able to drag and move the chapters around.

During March, with Seekerville, who offers prizes and advice to encourage writers, I plan to research my second book in the series.

April, I plan to start writing my second book.

May, I will finish my second book and start researching and planning my third book.

June. Complete research. Start writing the third book

July. Rest and relax. Catch up on reviews and blog posts. (I like to be at least three months ahead! Surprising. I know!)

August. Start editing book one.

September, Prepare one sheets and my pitch for the annual ACFW conference. This year, I don't plan to attend the ACFW Conference because it is a lot of money when you include an airplane ticket. Next year, it will be back in Nashville, TN, so I'll attend then. 

October. Work on editing second book. Hopefully, preparing my book to send to an agent or editor who I sparked their interest.

November. Revise book three or write another book for NaNoWriMo.

December. Spend time with family while finishing the book I started in November and plotting my next book.

A lot of writing goals for one year, but we’ll see how the year actually goes. Stayed tune for my next post next Friday on February 10 where I will share my reading goals. It won’t be month by month like my writing goals. It will be something more interesting. So come back. I need tons of feedback on both of these posts.

Do you set writing goals in the beginning of the year? How do you do it? If you don’t, should you?

I would love to hear your comments on what you do to set the year off in the right foot when it comes to writing.