Normally, I like to reward myself for a job well done. Particularly if it took some doing and extra motivation was necessary to persevere.

In fact, a few years ago when I contracted with my first book agent, I bought myself a ring. Despite the arrangement not working out, I still wear that ring to this day and it makes me feel quite proud.

Today, I jumped back on the submission saddle and started working old and new manuscripts.  A new revision process helped and so too did a new submission process. (Can you tell I’m all about creating systems!)

I actually wrote about the submission process HERE.

Originally, once I sucked up my courage, I was going to buy myself a ring for sending off the first query. Yes, I do like rings - especially the ones over at the Sundance Catalog. However, I changed my mind.

Submitting my manuscript is a reward all by itself. I think I’ve grown wiser over the past few years. (Thank goodness!)

Of course, I will be buying myself a snazzy ring when I get that publishing contract, you can be darned sure!

Yesterday, it was a bright sunshiny day. The perfect day to sit outside on the patio and revise chapters.  An ideal day….

…and it was all I could do just to think about writing and revising. Truth be told, I reviewed about ten pages and took some notes. I had absolutely NO ENERGY! And no idea why.

Today, it’s cloudy, cold and rainy and guess what? I have the energy of a two year old child high on cotton candy. I’m vibrating.

Why?

Why does our energy ebb and flow seemingly without reason or cause. Yesterday I could have slept all day and been completely happy and today I’m bee bopping to MJB and making real progress on client projects and my manuscript.

As a romance writer, or a writer of any kind for that matter, you’ll likely struggle with more than a simple change in energy levels.

Some days the muse whispers sweet nothings in your ear and other days it’s all you can do to remember what she looks or sounds like.

Push Forward

The path to productivity and maintaining progress is to push through the low energy, low creative inspiration, and low motivation days. Get somethign done, even if you only revise ten pages or write one. At least you’ve done something toward your end goal. You’ve made progress.

Creating this habit is the key to achieving your goals and your dreams.  Accept the ebb and flow of motivation and learn to work with it.  And when those high energy days surface, seize them!

***For more information about how to be a productive writer visit www.makealivingwritingromance.com and check out this article.

I have a unique challenge when it comes to working on my fiction projects. I’m actually a writer by profession. I own a content busienss that writes articles, blog posts, reports, and ebooks for other business owners. Most of the content is published online though I have had several books published (Ghostwritten) and one of them even managed to make it to Amazon’s Bestseller’s list.

So while other writers have to balance their day job, family, and their writing dreams, I have an advantage.

I work from home, I write from the time I wake up in the morning until the end of the day. When my family needs me, I can be there without pissing off a boss. YAY!

However, let me tell you writing all day (I mean ALL DAY) can wear on a person.  Vacations and days off from writing are a must.

Yet, the bigger challenge is balancing my fiction projects with my paid ghostwriting projects.

I’ve yet to f ind a real schedule that I can stick to because let’s face it the paycheck often has to come before the dream.

However, I have been able to create minimal goals I can stick to: 100o words a day and/or 50 pages a day during the revision process.

I’ve no advice to other writers when it comes to finding a balance other than to make time for your publishing dreams. Writing isn’t a chore, it’s an escape, an art and it’s your reward. When you think of it that way, it’s easy to turn off American Idol and write a few pages of romance!

After six manuscripts I came to the point where I realized I needed help.  I had no idea how to create a revision process that didn’t end up with me getting frustrated and moving onto the next project.

After doing a heavy bit of research and asking the lovely women over at Passionate Ink for help, I’ve now created a checklist and a systematic and quite thorough process for revising my manuscripts. To top that off, I also grabbed a whole gob of ink and paper and printed out a working version of each manuscript. Three hole punched, labeled and placed in a binder, these manuscripts are ready for the first step in my newly designed revision process.

Step #1 Read the entire manuscript through beginning to end and take notes on each chapter with my Livescribe pen. Why Livescribe? So the notes can be uploaded and saved on my computer in the file designated for that book.

Then when I go back and do rewrites, I don’t have to sort through stacks of scrap paper. it’s all on my computer waiting for me.  And any notes that need to be worked right into the manuscript can be converted to text, cut and pasted right where they need to be. Ain’t technology grand?!

So what’s the lesson?

That writers, myself included, spend a lot of time learning how to be better writers but we’re not taught nor do we focus on the revision process. Which I’ve learned is about 70% of the writing process.

I’m now excited and motivated to get these manuscripts polished and ready to submit. I have a journal to track my progress and a plan to make it happen.

Many writers despise the editing phase of writing.  However, because I seem to write in layers, the editing process is where it all seems to come together.  I enjoy the sentence by sentence, scene by scene process of polishing a manuscript.

And often, if I’m not swamped with my day writing job, then the process moves along a lot faster than the initial phase of simply getting the story on paper. I’m sure it takes longer to get the story on paper because there are times when all you can do is sit back and wait for the characters to tell you what’s next.

I find even if I plot the entire book out beforehand on a storyboard or a plot outline, there are still surprises.  At any rate, I’m on chapter four of the latest project, Die Trying, and am having fun.

What about you?

Do you enjoy the editing process?