fourteen sleeps

...until deadline.

This has been my shortest time to write a book ever. Two months from the finsih of my last book. So for some odd reason, instead of relying on old habits I decided to try things differently this time around. These are the three "C's" that I have leant on over the past 6 weeks.

collaging

After attending Barbara Hannay's fabulous workshop at the Romance Writers of Australia conference, I cam hom,e with a gorgeous collage. I loooooved it. Loved the feel, the emotion (everyone who saw it said it was so obviously meant to be for a "Romance" novel) the colours, the pictures which gave me lots of nice ideas for small scenes in the book. But I found I couldn't connect with the hero and heroine as depicted. Tricky!

So I went back to basics, and picked one hero pic, one heroine pic, both of which give me a snapshot feeling of what my two main characters are about adn I'm much happier. Though I will definitely collage again, only next time perhaps before the book has begun so I can start from scratch.

calendar

I printed out a page for October, listing down every appointment, work shift, lunch date, Pink Heart blog day, football match, babysitting my friend's gorgeous little boy Tom, my hubby's days off and due dates for things like proof edits, dear reader letters and tax. And I have kept track of exactly how many words I have written each day.

This way I can give myself a nice pat on the back when I do well (~5000 words) and a slap on the wrist when I do bad (zilch). Looking back I have started 2 new books and written ~ 30,000 words on this book in the last three weeks. Happy with that!

chocolate

Okay, so that is nothing new,. though I have bracnhed out in my tastes. As well as my usual classic M&Ms I have been eating nut M&Ms, mint KitKats, crunchies and pink Tim Tams (10c from every packet goes to breast cancer research which I thought was very giving of me).