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Way of the Cheetah How to Boost Your Productivity

by Lynn Viehl

Copyright 2006 by Lynn Viehl Cover art design by Holly Lisle All rights reserved First Electronic Printing January 2006

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Table of Contents Welcome to the Way………………………….….Page 4 Before You Run With It………………………….Page 8

Part One: Eye of the Cheetah Why Write?…………………………………………..Page 10 The Story………………………………………………Page 13 Method Exercises…………………………………..Page 15 You Know You’re a Writer When……………...Page 17 Focus…………………………………………………….Page 19 Method Exercises…………………………………...Page 23 I Don’t Feel Like Writing………………………….Page 25 Self-Discipline…………………………………….….Page 27 Method Exercises………………………………..….Page 30

Part Two: The Writing Savanna What a Wonderful Hobby You Have!………….Page 32 Work Space…………………………………………….Page 34 Method Exercises…………………………………….Page 37 Houston, We Have a Problem……………………Page 39 Reliability………………………………………………Page 41 Method Exercises……………………………………Page 45 Not So Prime Specimens………………………….Page 47 Mind and Body……………………………………….Page 49 Method Exercises……………………………………Page 52

Part Three: Running Down the Story Now Write……………………………………………..Page 54 First Draft………………………………………………Page 55 Method Exercises……………………………………Page 59 The Daily Edit…………………………………..…….Page 61 Full Manuscript Edit………………………………..Page 63 Final Buff and Polish……………………………….Page 66 Method Exercises…………………………………...Page 67 On the Path…………………………………………...Page 69

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Welcome to the Way

The cheetah evolved about four million years ago, long before lions, tigers and other big cats. When Nature made them, she knew what she was doing, too. These elegant, beautiful felines are the fastest animals on land, with the ability to run at 45 to 70 mph. Their incredible speed is made possible by non-retractable claws and thick foot pads for traction, a long, slim body built on a framework of feather-light bones, a spine like a spring, oversize heart and lungs, and the binocular vision of their sharp orange eyes. Writers evolved around ten to twenty thousand years ago, according to rock petroglyphs found in Australia and India. Nature also had a hand in making us, too, but she didn’t give us much in the way of helpful accessories. Generally speaking we’re not elegant or beautiful. We can’t run 70 mph, our claws are usually of the intellectual variety, and our vision is as varied as the stories we tell. So what do writers have in common with the cheetah? We’re both fighting extinction. Once upon a time reading a book was something everyone did when they wanted some serious personal entertainment. Today people have more fun surfing the internet, playing video games, watching rented movies, listening to downloaded music files or playing with another hundred different gadgets and toys. The publishing

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5 industry is trying to keep up by offering books with significant massappeal potential, but everyone acknowledges that the competition has hit hard, and reading a book hardly makes the top ten of anyone’s fun list anymore. Writers are not exempt from the problems within the industry. We are expected to be more prolific for less money than even twenty years ago. Available slots are narrowing, and more people are pursuing publication, so the rivalry to fill them has gone from fierce to relentless. For every writer who is published, there are at least twenty thousand others ready and working toward taking his or her place. There is no such thing as job security, either. With big chain booksellers ordering to the net to boost their potential profit margins, publishers consolidating and downsizing, and a market already swamped with too many books that don’t earn out their advance, a writer is only as good as his or her last gig. Writers face more than a tough industry and indifferent market. The ever-rising cost of living requires regular, steady income, which is where most writers become trapped. The income generated by writing one or two books a year isn’t enough to live on, so most writers can’t quit their day jobs.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

6 All of this boils down to one thing for writers: Using what writing time you have wisely and effectively is essential if you want a chance to survive in the publishing industry. Depressed now? Don’t be. I wrote Way of the Cheetah to help writers make the most of their writing time. By removing doubt and hesitation, taking care of what’s important to the writing process and discarding what isn’t, I believe that a writer can create the ideal physical and mental environment to produce more marketable work and write better, faster, and cleaner. In this book are writing methods, attitudes and philosophies that I’ve developed over a life time of writing novels. As to how well they work, I can only offer my career as proof. Presently I’m a USA Today bestselling novelist who has published thirty-two novels in six years. Only two of those books were written before I turned pro; do the math and you’ll see that I’ve been writing an average of five books per year since I turned pro. By continuing to refine and improve ways to boost my own productivity, I was able to write seven novels during 2004, and nine novels during 2005 (all of which were sold.) Following the Way of the Cheetah does not guarantee you’ll write five books a year. All writers are different, and what works for me may not be the best method for you. However, by following the way you may identify some of the problems that impair your productivity,

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7 and that self-awareness can help you create your own unique solutions. Although I’m writing this book primarily with writers in mind, you can apply the philosophies from Way of the Cheetah to other areas in your life where you’d like to be more productive. I’ve used these techniques for everything from more efficient housecleaning to motivating myself to exercise, and they still work. Maybe that’s why the cheetah has been around for four million years; it knows exactly what it’s doing.

Lynn Viehl January 2006

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Before You Run With It

Changing how you write by instantly abandoning your own habits and following every step in this book will likely not help you. It may end up slowing or blocking you even more. Change is best made gradually, and when you make ten or twenty changes at once, you can’t tell which are helpful and which aren’t working for you. This is how I recommend that you use the methods in this book – or any how-to book – to improve your writing:

1. Start as you mean to go on: Begin to make changes by trying out one or two new methods. Choose what you feel are manageable, realistic changes for you. When you feel comfortable with using these methods in your writing routine, move on to trying out others.

2. Resistance is natural: Old habits and attitudes are tenacious. If you have immediate problems implementing the new method, complete at least one of the method exercises.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

9 3. If not now, later: If a new method doesn’t work for you the first time around and makes you feel discouraged, set it aside and try it again another time.

4. Nothing is chiseled in stone: if the method isn’t a perfect fit, tailor it to fit your writing, your preferences, and your life.

5. Reward yourself: Whether you succeed or fail in making a change, trying to do so is hard work. While you’re making changes, indulge once a week in something that you enjoy: rent a movie, take a long bubble bath, or have lunch out with a friend.

6. Journal it: Keep a Way of the Cheetah journal, notebook, or weblog thread, and jot down notes on your progress.

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Part One: Eye of the Cheetah

Why Write?

To survive in the wild, a cheetah needs to do three things: focus on a target, run it down, and nail it. If he doesn’t do these things very well, he starves. Surviving in today’s publishing industry means a writer must consistently produce professional-level work, or he’s out of a job. Yet consistency is something with which nearly all writers seem to struggle. The most common excuse I hear for this lack of consistency is that writing is an art. Art cannot be rushed or produced on demand. Writers are at the mercy of their muses, who don’t seem to know anything about the cost of living. By that definition, I am not an artist. Writing is my job, and I pity the muse that gets between me and paying my bills. Too often things other than writing get in the way and distract a writer from their job. The first obstacles we writers must overcome are the toughest ones we will ever face and, ironically, we create all of them ourselves.

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11 Over the years I've asked a lot of my creative writing students, writer friends and colleagues to tell me why they write. Here are the most frequent answers:  To make money  To be respected  To become a famous celebrity  To be recognized for my talent  To win awards  To have lots of readers, fans or groupies  To do something important with my life  To create great literature  To score with pretty girls or cute guys  To get the words out and keep from going crazy  To hang out at writer’s conferences and conventions  To qualify to join a writer's organization All of these motives, for whatever reason, are important to the individual writer and therefore quite valid. Bills don’t pay themselves. Life is short, why shouldn’t we explore what talent we may have? Everyone who works hard deserves a little respect.

Isn’t trying to do

something better with our lives than wasting it in a dead-end job that we hate? We need an outlet for our emotions, a grinder for our axes, and a feeling of acceptance among our peers. It’s wonderful to hang

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12 out with other writers we like and/or admire and become part of their groups. All of these things are worth working for, aren’t they? Sure they are. There’s only one problem with all these reasons to write; they have nothing to do with writing. That’s why they so often get in the way. Imagine for a moment our friend the cheetah going after something he wants while worrying about something other than hunting: “Am I getting bigger game than the other cheetahs?” “Is the way I’m running look impressive?” “Will the Lion King™ give me a big shiny trophy for how well I take down this impala?” Would never happen, right? Nor would any self-respecting cheetah sit and watch a gazelle leap by and think “Oh, I won’t go after that because something bigger/juicier/tastier might come along tomorrow.” What if instead of going after a new target, a cheetah kept running back to check how well he did the last time he went after something, and mess with that old pile of bones from last week’s hunt? How long do you think a cheetah would survive if he saw other cats bringing down bigger/juicier/tastier game and thought “Well, that’s it, I’ll never be able to hunt as well as they do. I quit.”

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

13 Any of this sound familiar?

The Story

Let’s look at the writer’s actual job description. A writer writes to tell a story. Making a six-figure advance, being photographed in People magazine, collecting hordes of fans/awards/acclaim, or joining some exclusive writer club are not requirements to tell a story. Being subject to acclaim or condemnation by critics will not outline a single chapter of your next book. Personal problems, triumphs and failures can’t help you out of a plot problem. Anxiety over all of these peripheral, non-writing concerns, however, can kill a story faster than a cheetah can take down an oryx. Just as a cheetah runs to hunt, a writer writes to tell a story. While you’re writing, telling a story is all you should be thinking about, nothing else. When you’re not writing, then you can worry about all that other, non-writing stuff. Good hunting and good writing require the same intensity of desire. Even when you’re not writing, I don’t think it’s healthy to fixate on money, fame, acclaim, fans and acceptance. These things are nice, but they’re not essential to the work. Also, when desires aren’t satisfied, resentment and feelings of inadequacy start popping

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14 up. You start blaming the writing and, by extension, yourself for not fulfilling unrealistic ambitions. Setting a goal you can work to achieve – writing to tell a story – gives you a visible finish line. It’s hard enough to write a complete novel; don’t put additional pressure on yourself by expecting your book to be the next Da Vinci Code. I can already hear the “But . . .”s out there. I’m not here to judge you, or persuade you that your ambitions and desires are wrong or right. Your reasons for pursuing publication are your business, to be validated by your own values and principles, and to be explored or ignored during your journey through life. Nor is it wrong to feel that as a writer you are an artist, or to find inspiration from what you view as artistic elements. You should love what you do, and feel special because you do it. Just don’t let your artistic self-expression interfere with your job. When you sit down to write, forget about yourself, your motives, your troubles and your art, and tell the story. If you have other reasons, worries and/or motivating factors for writing, you don’t have to change or abandon them. Simply leave them outside your writing space while you work. Step One along the Way of the Cheetah: Write to tell a story.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

15 Write to Tell a Story Method Exercises

1. Silence is Golden: imagine your non-writing ambitions are blaring loudspeakers inside your head, and they’re all hooked up to a single mental on/off switch. When you sit down to write, turn the switch to “off” and shut them down.

2. Time Out: designate an uncomfortable place in your house as your worry spot (a straight-backed, hard wooden chair is ideal.) When your non-writing ambitions make you feel anxious or worried, make it a rule that you have to go and sit in that spot. When you leave that spot, imagine leaving your non-writing worries behind in it.

3. Writer Mantra: create a personal mantra about writing that reminds you of your purpose as a writer. Repeat it to yourself whenever you feel distracted by non-writing ambitions, and tape a typed copy of it somewhere in your writing space (my own mantra is: “I’m here to write.”)

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

16 4. Unwind: When your muse or other entities/situations/conditions involved in your artistic process frustrate you, take ten minutes and have a long, warm shower or bath, go for a walk, or sit outside and look at the sky (or any other non-harmful indulgence that relaxes you physically.) While you’re relaxing, breathe slowly and deeply. When the ten minutes are up, hold on to that feeling and go back to work.

5. Advanced: Each week, write a scene, dialogue or short story as writing practice and/or for your own enjoyment. Put the work in a file labeled “Personal Work” or “Not for Sale.”

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

17 Eye of the Cheetah

You Know You’re A Writer When…

When you see a cheetah on television or in the movies, the fast cat looks gorgeous: pretty colors, sleek pelt, arrogant stare. There’s an undeniable urge to reach out and run your hand over this gorgeous feline’s fur (which I do not recommend you ever try, unless you’re not particularly attached to your hand.) You don’t see all of the cheetah’s fine attributes when he runs; instead he becomes almost a blur of motion. It’s not how he looks but what he does that enables this feline to survive. I’m sure being a good-looking cat is nice, especially around mating time, but a tasty steenbok isn’t going to come over and offer to be lunch just because our friend is a very attractive feline. No matter how pretty he is, the cheetah still has to hunt. A lot of people find the idea of being a writer exotic and exciting. To these folks, a writer seems to be someone who is a sensitive, lonely, romantic, deeply intellectual soul, always a bit tragic but bravely struggling with forgivable addictions to drugs or alcohol while trying to enlighten the masses. It’s common knowledge that writers are sexy, wrenchingly lonely people closeted off from the rest of the

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18 world, courageously braving isolation as they pour their genius out onto the blank page, usually in ink that is tinted red with their own blood, which they turn around and sell the rights to for eight million dollars. Sort of like Lord Byron, only minus the poetry, club foot, and deportation scandals. Everyone accepts this image but me and, hopefully, you. I’m sorry to say that I have none of these attributes or addictions. When I’m not writing, I’m a housewife and mom. I keep a stash of M&Ms, not Jack Daniels, in my desk. I’m about as sexy as a scuffed bunny slipper. I try not to bleed on my manuscripts, because that would gross out my editors. I’ve made a national bestseller list twice, and yet to date the largest single book advance I’ve ever signed for was $25,000.00. However we delude ourselves as to what being a writer is, being paid is the ultimate goal of most people who aspire to write for a living. Those big money deals you always read about in Publishers Lunch are nice. Until it comes down to crunch time and the would-be writer actually has to, you know, write something. Then along comes the dismaying discovery that writing isn’t very glamorous. It’s not daydreaming or fantasizing, either. It’s the physical act of putting together words on paper and creating a story out of them.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

19 Dear God, the aspiring writer thinks, no one told me I’d have to work. Now here is the real, daily glam of writing: you park your backside in a chair, uncap your pen or put your hands on the keyboard, and get those words on the page. P.S., the words you write aren’t just words. They have to form coherent, related sentences and paragraphs and scenes and chapters. They must convey and makes sense of what you’ve imagined to any reader. Those words are your characters, your world, and everything that is around them and changing them from page to page. Your words are required to form conflicts, and the twists and turns of a good plot, and many other reasons to keep your reader reading. All that, plus your words have to be as well-written or better than anything 150,000 + published writers put out in print every year. No pressure, right?

Focus

A writer has to write. Thinking about writing will not put the words on the page for you. Posing as a writer won’t; no Bestselling Novel Fairy is going to show up and write your story for you while you’re out being fabulous. And, unless you’re a famous celebrity, a

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20 publisher will not hire a ghostwriter to do your job. You may think all writers do is hang out at the Hard Rock Cafe spinning tragic writer stories for their giggling groupies, but the reality is we’re at home, writing (although if anyone is interested I’d love to have some groupies. They could help me out around here with our new puppy, doing the laundry and washing the dishes.) The most productive writers are focused people. They are consumed with their work. Writing is the number one priority in their careers, and they will sacrifice what pleasures they must to in order to write. When they have a little spare time, they may indulge themselves with some of the vanity perks in the industry, but it’s not a necessity. The bottom line is that nothing gets between them and their work. Nothing. What about networking, schmoozing, work shopping, awards todos, and putting on the glam at industry events, you ask? I once shocked a bunch of writers all over the net when I suggested that for every writer’s conference they go to, they finish writing at least one manuscript; the point being that networking and schmoozing aren’t going to help you much if you have nothing to sell. About the most valuable thing I ever got out of a writer’s conference was the chance to talk for an hour with bestselling romance author Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I asked her what was the most

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21 important thing I could do for myself as a writer, and she told me what another author had told her: “Whatever happens, protect the work.” I though about getting that tattooed on my body somewhere, but my mother would have amputated whatever limb sported it, so instead I branded those words on my brain. Focus also produces results. A lot of writers have admitted being floored by the amount of work I’ve produced over the short course of my career. How can anyone write and sell so many novels so fast? It’s true that I’ve refined my writing methods to produce the most work in the shortest amount of time, but the writing itself has always been my primary focus. So when I’m being a writer, I’m writing. While my peers are out at signings and conventions and schmoozing, I’m in my office writing. When they’re cruising around the internet having important discussions about writing, I’m offline doing the real deal. And while other writers are spending months selfpromoting a single book, I’m home writing four or five. Not everyone agrees with my philosophy that a writer should be focused on writing books, but no one can argue with the results. Your self-esteem will also get a boost from working as a writer instead of posing as one. No glam is as thrilling or as satisfying as a finished manuscript, which says you are a writer like nothing else. The more manuscripts you complete, the more confidence you’ll gain, and

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22 a story that has 100% of your focus will always be better than one that only receives 50%. Also, while your peers are out there running around and posing as writers, you’ll be at home producing real work that results in manuscripts, queries, proposals and contracts. Publishers aren’t interested in posers. They’re interested in producers. Don’t act the job or be the job – do the job. Step Two along the Way of the Cheetah: Give writing your full attention.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

23 Give Writing Your Full Attention Method Exercises

1. Envy Buster (this is especially important if you belong to a writer community, organization, or socialize with other writers.): stop comparing yourself to other writers in any/all ways and resolve only to compete with yourself. Track your productivity by noting your completed word count for the day. Challenge yourself each week or month by trying to equal or exceed the previous week’s or month’s total. When a friend signs a contract, wins an award or receives some recognition, congratulate him or her and then let it go.

2. Take Pride in Your Accomplishments: Make a notebook of signed title pages of all your completed writing projects in chronological order. Make your own chapbooks of short stories or novel excerpts. Hang framed copies of checks you’ve earned as a writer on the walls in your writing space, or post scans of them on your desktop. Display published books you’ve written on a shelf within view of your writing space.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

24 3. Self-Resume: Keep a running list of the writing projects you’ve completed, as well as any sales you’ve made. Post this in view of your writing space.

4. Celebrate: Too many aspiring writers never finish what they start, so when you complete a writing project, you’ve truly accomplished something. Celebrate it in a significant manner. Throw a party, take your loved ones out to dinner, buy yourself a big treat, and/or tell all your friends.

5. Advanced: Write up an annual business plan. Commit to a reasonable number of projects and work out a writing goal quota for each month. Outline a submission plan with the names and guidelines of agents and publishers to whom you can send your work. Work out a budget by forecasting contracted income, overhead expenses and investments you plan to make in your writing career.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

25 Eye of the Cheetah

I Don’t Feel Like Writing

In the wild, most animals compete with each other for territory, mates, and food, and the cheetah is no exception. Generally a solitary hunter, the fast cat pursues his target with single-minded intensity. Cheetahs are successful with their hunts only about 50% of the time, and they don’t defend or conserve their kills, so they usually have to hunt at least twice each day. That they fail half the time doesn’t discourage them; it’s not like they can go to MacDonald’s to pick up a Happy Cheetah Meal. Writing demands a lot from the writer: time, emotion, originality, solitude, imagination, curiosity, daring, and endless creativity. Our vision of the story is often much more perfect than our realization of it. At times that blank page seems like a big rectangular white eye glaring back at us. Add to that the depressing state of the industry, and the dwindling amount of income, respect and recognition writers receive for our efforts, and it seems hopeless and useless. How many times have you heard or read a writer who says “I don’t feel like writing today”? How many times have you said it yourself?

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26 Writing is hard work, and certainly there are a thousand other things that you could be doing that are more fun, feel more rewarding and have little to no stress involved by comparison. Why write when you can call a friend, watch television, go shopping or fix a snack? It’s not like there’s a law that you have to, or some boss is hovering and expecting you to punch in on time. Sometimes you just know it’s not going to be a good writing day. The weather sucks. You don’t feel well. You’re depressed. There are too many other things waiting to be done. Your day job has exhausted you. Your writing time is making your spouse or partner feel neglected. Your friends are out having a good time while you’re stuck in the house. It isn’t fair. So you’ll write something tomorrow, or the day after. Or maybe next week. Or next month. Or next year. Not like writing is a real job, right? Tell you what, if you do this often enough, you’ll save me and the other working writers out here the trouble of having to compete with you, because you will not get into print, or if you’re published, you won’t stay in print. Because writing demands so much of us, writers who don’t feel up to the task counter the requisite daily commitment with procrastination. They think up excellent excuses as to why they shouldn’t work. Yet beneath the excuses is nothing more than a yearning for something more pleasant than facing themselves on the

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27 page. Procrastinators are swamped by a sense of their own imagined inadequacy, and will do anything to escape it. Like a soldier who doesn’t want to fight a bloody battle, they shoot themselves in the foot so they don’t have to march their words out onto the blank page. Our lives are insanely busy, too, with many demands on our time. We have to devote so much of our time, energy, and attention to our loved ones, the day job, the kids, the family, the friends, the pets, the hobbies, the neighbors, the church group, the club meetings; the list seems endless. There’s nothing left over for writing, and we feel selfish and guilty when we take even a small amount of time for ourselves. Why write when we could devote that time to fulfilling someone else’s needs? This sort of emotional self-sabotage works just as effectively as talking yourself out of the job. Trust me, if I came to your house and set your office on fire, destroying all the copies of everything you’ve ever written, I’d probably do less damage than you can do to yourself.

Self-Discipline

Like cheetahs, human beings are creatures of habit and routine, attuned to behavioral rhythms from birth. The easiest way to combat fear-induced procrastination and to stop taking all those guilt trips is to

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28 make writing such a routine part of your life that you don’t even think about it. In other words, writing should feel as comfortable and natural to you as eating, sleeping and bathing. This means developing ruthless self-discipline and writing on a regular schedule. Some pro writers set up their schedules to follow a traditional five day work week; others with day jobs write on nights and weekends. I advocate writing every day, even if it’s only for ten minutes. You should also be considerate of your home situation, and it’s all about balance. Spouses, partners and family members should respect your writing time, but you have to respect their needs, too. I write before my family wakes up in the early mornings, and while my kids are in school. I devote afternoons and early evenings to my family, and then edit after they’ve settled down and go to sleep. However you decide to schedule yourself, you should also determine what is your ideal writing time by writing at different times during the day and seeing what feels right and when you are most alert and productive. Don’t be afraid to experiment, either. For years I wrote at night and edited during the day, until another writer suggested I might be more productive if I turned it completely around. I was definitely not you’d call a morning person, so I doubted it would work, but I gave it a try anyway. What a difference – by writing in the

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29 morning and editing at night, I doubled my productivity within a couple of weeks. Turns out that my feeling grumpy in the morning – something I thought would railroad me – actually had no affect on my work. Also, being able to work for a couple of hours before I had to interact with my family helped me “wake up” better, and now I am one of those annoyingly cheerful morning people. Using self-discipline to be a more productive writer has to be a daily commitment on your part. If your goal is getting a paycheck for writing, you must treat it like a real job instead of a hobby. Remember your competition, too. Every time you ditch writing to watch TV, shop or hang out with your friends, we’re putting in the hours and writing our stories. We’re submitting our proposals to editors to whom you want to sell. Our work is getting into print while yours is languishing in your hard drive or filing cabinet. We’re running toward something; you’re running away. If you truly love to write, don’t run from what you love. Go after it with everything you’ve got. It’s worth it. Step Three along the Way of the Cheetah: Write every day.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

30 Write Every Day Method Exercises

1. Block Buster: Make today’s writing goal a single, meaningful sentence, ten words maximum. When you’ve written that, you’re done for the day. Tomorrow, double your quota and write two meaningful sentences. The day after tomorrow, write four. From that point, keep doubling your quota each day until you are producing three to four pages of writing at each writing session. If at any time you begin feeling frustrated or don’t want to write, stop increasing your output and stay at that level for a week before trying to increase again.

2. Write or Nothing: Go to your writing space as scheduled, and if the words don’t come, sit there and do nothing but sit there for the length of time you’re supposed to be writing. I do mean nothing, too: no surfing the internet, no talking on the phone, no reading, no trimming your nails, no staring out the window. Your only choices are to either sit and look at your computer, or write.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

31 3. Dangle a Carrot: take your TBR (to be read) pile of books or something else you enjoy doing in your spare time (watching videos, playing video games, cruising on the internet, etc.) and designate it as your carrot stash. From this point on, you’re allowed to enjoy something from your carrot stash only after you complete your writing goal for the day.

4. Write or Consequences: Every time you deliberately skip your writing time, give yourself a consequence: scrub the kitchen floor on your hands and knees, do all the dirty laundry or dishes (including folding/putting them away) or unplug the television on the night of your favorite show (and don’t tape it for later viewing.) It helps if the consequence is something that you genuinely dislike.

5. Advanced: Plan and write up a weekly schedule of carrots (#3) and consequences (#4), and post it in your writing space where you can easily see it while you’re working.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

32

Part Two: The Writing Savanna

“What a Wonderful Hobby You Have!”

I rather doubt that the cheetah considers hunting his hobby. He doesn’t appear to do it for fun, practice, or just because he had nothing better to do. When you see a cheetah running across an open plain, you know he means business. Nothing that expends that much energy is going to do it merely for kicks. Writers who pursue publication as just as serious, but don’t get much respect for their efforts. Part of the problem is the way society views those whose work doesn’t produce a reliable paycheck. Being paid for what you do is validation of your work, and yet no one is paid for writing a novel. Professional novelists are paid only for the rights to print finished work. Another writer will know exactly what you do, but non-writers make up the rest of the world, and frankly they don’t have a clue. At best your writing will be generally seen as an interesting hobby, and at worst, as an utter waste of time. I’m a self-taught writer who has been writing since I was a kid, and the most respect I ever received for it before I turned pro was being patted on the head like a clever child and praised for my wonderful hobby. Most of this crap came from a wealthy and

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33 important brother-in-law, who also cautioned me not to get my hopes up, because of course I was a woman, I had no writing education and it wasn’t like anyone was ever going to read books written by a housewife from South Florida. After my tenth book was published, that brother-in-law stopped speaking to me. Let me tell you, success is the best revenge. The lack of respect writers receive before we’re published is hard enough to tolerate, but we often try to avoid it or compensate for it by hiding our writing, keeping silent about it, showing no one our work, or writing furtively when no one is around. I understand this better that you think – because I couldn’t show a paycheck for it, I always felt guilty about the time I spent writing. I never wrote when my spouse or kids were at home. I made the smallest possible writing space for myself by using a typewriter and the end of any convenient table. I never talked about my work or showed it to my friends (who mostly thought it was weird) and I laughed along with the jokes my family made about “Lynn’s little hobby.” I was so intimidated by the enormity of what I was trying to do – join the ranks of the published – that I never sought out other writers for advice or any reason (just in case my brother-in-law was right about me.) Even with all my caution, people still patronized me and talked down to me about my writing. When I think of the number of times I

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34 was tempted to give up solely because someone else who knew nothing about the publishing industry told me I’d never get into print, I could tear my hair out. The non-writers out there aren’t going to respect you for pursuing publication, and even supportive family and friends won’t understand what you’re doing. If you want to write, you have to set down the rules and tell them what you need from them in order to do your job. If they don’t understand why, or tell you it’ll never happen, let them read this chapter. Begin with the basics: you need a place where you can write.

Work Space

Writing space can be made anywhere. At home you may write in a spare room you’ve designated as your a home office, a desk in the living room or bedroom, or one end of a kitchen or dining room table (that was my only writing space for fifteen years.) Away from home, you may write in your cubicle or workspace at your day job, at a picnic table in a nearby park, or in a quiet corner at the local bookstore’s coffee shop. Your writing space should be devoted to two things: you and writing. Is your work area cluttered or disorganized to the point of

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35 where you can’t find anything? Most writers seem to have a “nesting” instinct where they surround themselves with books, paper, art, and other inspirational objects. If that sort of clutter provides the hominess and comfort that makes you want to write, I’m all for it – but if it’s getting in your way, or making you waste time looking for things, move it out of your space. When you’re in your writing space, are you trying to write and do something else (your day job, care for your children, answer phones, etc.) at the same time? Whatever else you’re doing is a distraction; as we talked about with focus your writing should have 100% of your attention. When you’re writing, do you experience regular interruptions by phone, family or coworkers? If you’re writing at work, there may be nothing you can do about it except to wait until your lunch break and work in a more private area. At home, the other people in your life should respect your writing time and space, but it’s up to you to enforce that. If you don’t wish to, or the people in your life ignore your wishes, then you have two options: schedule your writing time when they’re not around, or find a writing space outside your home or office that provides more privacy. If you still have problems finding a space that works for you and your writing, it’s time to get creative and try alternative spaces. Drive

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36 down to the park, sit on a bench or at a picnic table, and try writing on your PDA or a legal pad. Go to your local library and use a student/research cubicle or the quiet room to do your writing. Many writers I know like to do their writing at book store coffee shops or at the local Starbuck’s. Last year two different hurricanes brought some of our relatives to stay with us for several weeks, and I had to convert my office into a guest room. I found a small office space in town, arranged to rent it for a couple of weeks, and used that as my writing space until the relatives were able to return home. Step Four along the Way of the Cheetah: Make your writing space work.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

37 Make Your Writing Space Work Method Exercises

1. Lighting: try writing under incandescent lighting as well as fluorescent lighting and see which makes you feel more at ease (I try to keep a window near my writing space open when weather permits to bring fresh air and sunlight into the room.) Check the lighting fixtures and how they’re positioned as opposed to your working area. Is there adequate light for you to see without effort? Is the light too low or too bright? If you wear glasses, is the light glaring or reflecting on them?

2. Distraction Removal: Look at the contents of your writing space. Are there any phones, pets, televisions, stereos or any other distraction-creating items that can be safely relocated? If you find yourself staring at paintings or other items around your working area, try moving them out of the room.

3. High/Low: is your desk or workstation at the correct typing height? Look at the chair you use in your writing space. Is it a spare chair, or does it match your work station or desk? Does the chair have proper lumbar support? If you have to sit with a

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38 pillow at your back, it likely doesn’t. Do your feet touch the floor, or do they dangle? (this is a problem for short people like me, and some office chairs can be lowered to get your feet back on the ground.) One way to know if your writing space furnishings are working for you: you shouldn’t notice them at all while you’re writing.

4. Room Temp: Adjust the room temperature to various set points and find the one that makes you feel most relaxed. Check to see if any air conditioning is blowing directly on you (a/c tends to irritate and dry out sensitive or tired eyes, so you may want to adjust the vents around your space to keep the air out of your face.)

5. Advanced: Remove everything from your workspace except for a desk, chair, and your computer or typewriter. Try writing with only those three things in the room for one week.

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39 The Writing Savanna

Houston, We Have a Problem

When crouching down into launch position, the cheetah does not doubt its ability to run. Evolution honed our feline friend from his toes to his nose into the perfect speed machine, and the cheetah’s lifestyle is all about always being ready to run. You’ve got your writing space set up to work for you; now you need something on which to write. The writers’ tool of choice these days are word processing programs, but some folks prefer to write using typewriters or by hand. I have arthritis damage to both of my hands, so for the last year I’ve been using voice recognition software, which types for me. Aside from the personal convenience, I think modern technology gives us have a distinct advantage over our predecessors because we can so easily create, store and revise our work. I started out typing my books and correcting mistakes with Liquid Paper, so I really love my equipment and the many programs that help me write. Yesterday’s writers might look at our wireless keyboards, PDAs and voice-activated recorders and freak out, but science has provided the writer with almost everything we need to translate our vision into

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40 words with efficiency and ease (although I think the idea of thought transmitter implants so we can write telepathically is probably a bad move. Remember what happened to the natives of Forbidden Planet when they fell asleep and their subconscious minds took over.) The biggest complaint writers seem to make about their computers, printers and other writing-related equipment is that it’s not dependable. Their computers crash, their printers smoke, or a power surge comes along and wipes out an entire week of work. Inevitably the equipment gets blamed, but when the equipment failure is due to age of the equipment, lack of maintenance or data backup neglect, you really can’t point a finger at the hardware. Writers who don’t care about reliable, well-maintained equipment and regular data backups may slide by for a while, but eventually they crash and burn. If you don’t think reliable equipment makes a difference, look at it this way: trying to get a major New York publisher to take you on is like competing for a chef job at a five-star Paris restaurant. Even if you’ve trained in the finest culinary schools in the world, hand-selected your ingredients from the best market in town, and invented a stunning and unique presentation meal, would you then try to cook your audition meal in a rusty tin can over an open campfire? I think not.

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41 Reliability

You are only as good as your equipment is reliable.

Whatever

your preference is for writing tools, it is essential to maintain your equipment and your knowledge of your equipment. This is such a nobrainer that you think no writer would ever have a problem with it, but how often have you heard a writer friend tell you they lost a WIP because of power surges, forgetting to backup or some catastrophic equipment failure? Once I toasted three computers in a single day because I didn’t understand how much damage a computer virus combined with a drive burn-out could do (and then stupidly tried to fix it myself. Huge mistake then turned colossal.) Writers don’t need a lot of hardware to do their job – a good computer and decent printer are the basic standard equipment – but they should set up and maintain their hardware so that it performs for them without fail. When an editor who liked your query calls from New York asking for the whole manuscript, the last thing you want to tell her is that you can’t send it because the printer isn’t working (and yeah, that happened to me, too.) I’ve learned my lessons the hard, expensive way — in that one instance, $1900.00 just to recover the eight years of writing from a badly damaged hard drive — and I made myself look at and put

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42 together the equipment I needed to write and that would protect my writing. I started putting together my setup back when I had only two books in print, and I hadn’t sold anything but SF, so I didn’t have a lot of money to throw around. Yes, it was a definite gamble, but I looked at it as investing in myself. Every year I allocated a certain amount of my earnings toward equipment, slowly acquiring and upgrading my equipment until I had what I needed. This is my present equipment set-up: 1) An internet-dedicated computer 2) A separate work computer that is never connected to the internet to keep it virus-free. 3) A laptop computer for backup/emergency/out of town use 4) Power surge suppressors – a must as I live in the lightning capital of the US 5) An auxiliary battery for each computer to allow me a few minutes to backup after a power failure 6) A battery-operated PDA to work on when all the computers are down 7) Three laser printers, one commercial quality, one home-use quality, and one reconditioned for emergencies 8) A daily data backup system 9) Archive (print) copies of everything I’ve written

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43 10) Electronic and archive copies of everything I’ve written stored away from my residence

It does sound like a lot, but I need a lot. I sell and write over a million words per year, and sometimes I have only twenty-four hours notice to make a production deadline (a few times I’ve had six hours.) I also maintain a writing inventory of seventy-two novel manuscripts, seventeen years of research files, eleven e-books, five + years of content from my various weblogs and websites, and over 1000 novellas, short stories, nonfiction articles etc. Worst case scenario, if the house burned down, I could still recover about 85% of it (some of my oldest work I’ve not bothered to copy or scan as it is not professional level writing.) Your writing income may not cover keeping three computers and/or printers on hand. That’s why it’s even more important to maintain the equipment you do have. If you’re working with one computer, you want to make sure you backup your active programs at least once a day and maintain a separate archive of some sort of all your work. If you have two computers, I strongly recommend keeping one internet-free to avoid virus contamination and other problems related to internet use. I never have problems with my work

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44 computer, ever, and I firmly believe it’s because I keep it disconnected from the internet. You should also have some way to write when your computers are down, and I recommend battery-operated devices. During the 2004 hurricane season, three hurricanes hit my town within a six-week period, and our power was out for a total of twenty-one days. I had to write most of my novel Afterburn on a battery-operated Palm m125. Also, buy the brands of equipment and software that is easy for you to use and maintain. I know there are computer wizards out there who will scoff at this, but I buy the basic Dell Computers has to offer and use Microsoft programs like Windows. Top of my equipment priority list is that it be made by a manufacturer with a decent service department and that it be simple to use. Why? Because I’m not a computer wizard, and I don’t have the time to devote to learn to be one. Keeping your writing equipment maintained and upgraded should be a career-long task, so it’s best to establish good habits now. Consider the money you spend doing so investing in yourself and your equipment. You may find it’s better than trying to cook a gourmet meal over a campfire in that rusty tin can. Step Five along the Way of the Cheetah: Maintain your equipment.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

45 Reliability Method Exercises

1. Equipment Routine: Backup your data every day that you work before you shut down your system. Perform a complete system backup at least once a week. Clean each piece of your equipment as per manufacturer’s specs as needed (I clean mine out once a month whether they need it or not.)

2. Stock Replacements: keep on hand at least one extra of each of the supplies your equipment requires to function (i.e. laptop battery, printer toner cartridge, typewriter ribbon.) When you use the extra, buy a stock replacement immediately.

3. Internal Housekeeping: you computer users, have you done a disk clean and defrag lately? How about a live update on your anti-virus program and a virus scan on your full system? On many systems you can now set up some of these maintenance and performance functions to be done automatically. Typewriter lovers, when was the last time you had your machine serviced and cleaned?

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46 4. Check it Off: put together a daily, weekly or monthly equipment maintenance needs checklist and hang it on the wall near your writing space. Before you start writing each day, consult the checklist and perform the scheduled maintenance task.

5. Advanced: research the cost of best equipment for your needs and calculate how much money you’ll have to put aside each week in order to purchase it. Write up an equipment purchase list with items listed in order of most necessary. Each week set aside the appropriate amount in an equipment upgrade fund until you’ve saved enough to buy the next item on your purchase list.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

47 The Writing Savanna

Not So Prime Specimens

There is no such thing as a fat cheetah in the wild. On average, our friend only eats every other time he tries to catch a meal. Living to pursue what sustains him keeps him trim. If they lose a hunt, cheetahs don’t take a week off to lie around and watch soap operas and feel sorry for themselves. They also don’t stay up at night worrying about the success of their next hunt. Writers are far less active, far more cerebral creatures, which is great for writing, but not so good for our general health. The average age of a bestselling author is 50 years old – a time of life when health problems start becoming more of an issue – and I can assure you that middle-age is a tough place to start making radical changes in diet, exercise and mental attitudes. Writing is not the sort of profession that turns out prime physical specimens. Because writing is a sedentary occupation that requires many hours of solitary, limited physical activity, writers of all ages wrestle with being overweight, repetitive movement injuries, migraines and tension headaches, eye strain, and back and shoulder problems. Several studies have also indicated that creative people are more

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48 susceptible that non-creative folks to a variety of mental health problems, with depression and bipolar disorder topping the list. I can’t think of a pro writer I know personally who hasn’t experienced some sort of health problem. Headaches, insomnia and digestion problems run rampant through my circle of writer friends. A good portion of my colleagues are slightly to moderately overweight, which they themselves attribute to lack of exercise and poor diet. As for the mental health side of things, an editor once told me that all writers are such messed-up people that we should all be in psychotherapy for life. I can’t say I agree with the statement – plenty of my colleagues are stable, well-adjusted folks who seem quite happy with their lives – but if you’re trying to write while dealing with something as serious as depression, ignoring it won’t make it go away. For the young, and those who don’t presently have serious health issues, taking care of mind and body is something that you think you can put off until it becomes a problem. The thing is, what you let slide today will come back to haunt you tomorrow. I’ll use me for an example. I was a reasonably healthy young woman who liked to work hard, play hard, and never took care of or even worried about my health until I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age twenty-eight.

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49 By then the damage was done, and combined with RA quickly developed into joint replacement surgeries, chronic insomnia, poor eyesight, hearing loss, stomach ulcers, blinding migraines and 75 lbs. of excess weight. What I did to myself in the first five years of my adult life resulted in fifteen years of serious health repercussions, all of which I’m still battling. I’m also one of those annoying people who can’t take most prescription medications, so I’ve had to become quite creative and address all these problems with alternative treatments via nutrition, exercise, physical therapy and meditation. It’s unlikely that I could have done anything to prevent acquiring rheumatoid arthritis, but if I had lived a healthier lifestyle when I was younger I wouldn’t have had to deal with so many complications along with the RA.

Mind and Body

Good health is like a daily gift. If you’re actively caring for your physical and mental health, you’re giving yourself insurance against future illness and potential injury. Protecting yourself is the same as protecting the work, because nothing will railroad your work faster than health problems. Get lazy about your health for a few weeks or months and nothing may happen, or you may very well end up sitting

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50 next to me in the orthopedic doctor’s office swapping knee surgery stories. To get your mind and body in shape, first see your primary care physician and have a full physical. Let your doctor know any problems you’re really having, and ask for treatment options. Even if you don’t have any serious physical problems, talk to your doctor before you go on any new diet and/or exercise plan. I lost 50 of those extra 75 lbs. I’d put on thanks to my doc referring me to a nutritionist who specialized in treating RA patients. She helped me switch to a healthier, low-fat diet that slimmed me down gradually while it boosted my immune system, and had me swim twenty minutes a day versus risking further joint damage via aerobic workouts. Ignoring mental health issues can result in as many repercussions as neglecting your physical health, so if you’re experiencing any emotional or mental problems, you can also ask your doctor for a referral to see a therapist. Maintaining good mental health also includes treatment for any substance abuse or addiction. I know there is a long-standing tradition of romancing alcoholism and drug abuse among writers – so many great writers have been drunks and addicts that some idiots consider it a prerequisite – but any substance you abuse is definitely going to damage your brain cells, and you need all of them up and running to write well.

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51 If you don’t have medical insurance because you can’t afford it, and are not receiving standard medical care as a result, I urge you to make health insurance the number one priority item on your writing budget list. Too many writers end up in dire financial straits because they have no insurance coverage (and probably thought they wouldn’t need it until they were older), so it’s worth investing in. Many writers organizations offer advice on insurance issues, and some even carry group insurance plans for members, so do your research. Writing space can be rearranged, and better equipment can be purchased, but you are irreplaceable. Be diligent about caring for yourself. Step Six along the Way of the Cheetah: Stay in writing shape.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

52 Mind and Body Method Exercises

1. Weight/WIP Goals: If you’re overweight, set a health goal to go along with your daily writing goal, such as going for a brisk twenty minute walk or having a low-fat meal after you’ve finished writing.

2. The H2O Switch: If you drink a lot of tea, coffee or soda, switch to drinking chilled water every other time you go for a drink. If you don’t like plain water, try flavored, zero-calorie bottled water. If you don’t care for drinking that much water, trying chewing a piece of sugar-free gum instead.

3. Snack Wise:

If you like to snack while you write, remove all

the high-calorie snacks from your writing space and replace them with healthy low-fat alternatives such as mini rice cakes, veggie sticks or roasted soybeans.

4. Zen Revenge: When you’re feeling depressed or angry, do something positive for two people you like, and one person you

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53 dislike, or perform a random act of kindness for a complete stranger.

5. Advanced: After you get your primary care physician’s approval, work out a monthly schedule of diet, exercise, and healthy changes to your lifestyle. Start slowly with small changes so that you don’t become discouraged. Give yourself a small reward for every positive change you’re able to make.

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54

Part Three: Running Down the Story

Now Write

Up to this point I’ve talked about how writers can learn from the cheetah and how it hunts. The fast cat is a good role model for the more nebulous issues along the writer’s path, from motivation and focus to self-discipline and maintaining your health. I’ve tried to give you my attitudes and philosophies as well as the reasons behind them, but all of these things can be creatively applied, adjusted and debated ad infinitum. In short, you can prep yourself however you like, and with whatever works for you. Now it’s time to write the way the cheetah runs. The mechanics of the actual writing are very simple. Just as the cheetah takes off and runs, you sit down and you write. I have a lot of fun when I write, but writing is also my job, so I’ve gotten it down to a personal science. The way I work is very methodical, and I haven’t deviated from this process in more than a decade. This routine is not what I’d consider exciting or very artistic, but it allows me to produce marketable novels on a dependable, consistent basis. That pleases my readers, allows me to be more competitive with other writers in more than one genre, and looks very

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55 good on my publishing resume. All of which, in my opinion, are more important than appearing artistic, impressing everyone with how wildly creative I am, or sacrificing a regular income to the whims of an imaginary, temperamental muse.

First Draft

Perhaps you’ve done two years of meticulous research, or maybe you just got a brilliant idea yesterday. Whatever the circumstances, you’re ready to write a story. You’ve put together your outline, read through your notes, or you’re just pumped full of enthusiasm and creativity; nevertheless you’re at the starting gate, ready to rumble. Your task now is not to talk about it, think about it or be afraid of it. You only have to write. After all the previous steps, creating the first draft is when you’re really working as a writer. This is the beginning of the actual job. Treat writing your first draft as seriously as you would anything you love and at which you’d like to be a success. When I’m writing, this is how I do mine: 1. I start up the computer and open two files: the first draft and an edit file. I write in the first draft file, but when I’m finished writing I’ll save what I write to both.

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56 2. I run through my mental vision of the scene (something I think about often before writing a word) until I can see it clearly from start to finish. 3. I ego-blank, or empty my thoughts of thinking about myself, that I’m going to be writing, if I’m writing well, and whether or not I’m going to nail the scene. My full focus is on the story. As I write the scene, I try to stay as ego-blank as possible, as if I’m not there at all. 4. I begin writing by entering the scene as late as possible; preferably with dialogue or action. This eliminates any temptation to write novelist security blanket stuff like setup narratives, weather reports or info dumps that isn’t necessary for the reader. 5. I don’t plan dialogue ahead of time, so I let the characters take over my active thoughts while I transcribe what I hear them saying in my head onto the page. When I’m typing, I’ll often say the dialogue out loud as I write it (not a problem when I’m writing with my voice recognition software.) 6. If I hit a block of any kind in the scene, I tag it with a rewrite note and move past it. Example: while I’m writing a scene, I have to describe a rain shower in the desert, but the descriptive

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57 words aren’t there. I type this rewrite note: [***description of rain shower in desert***] and continue on. 7. I write straight through the entire scene without stopping for anything except rewrite tags. I do not backtrack or reread what I’ve written. I do not edit anything I’ve written or edit myself as I write. 8. I keep writing until the scene is finished, which takes approximately twenty to thirty minutes. 9. When the scene is finished, I backup everything I’ve written in the first draft and the edit files, and if I’m done writing for the day, I backup the entire WIP onto a floppy and the primary and the secondary hard drives. 10. I put the computer on standby and leave my writing space for a short break, usually five to ten minutes. If the scene riled me in any way (frustrated me, got me teary-eyed, or tied me in tension knots) I have a cup of tea or talk a walk outside to unwind. When my break is over, I consult my notes and research before I sit down to write the next scene.

My present schedule is to write new material from 4:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., with an hour-long mid-morning break, and then I edit what I’ve written that day from 7:00 p.m. until 10 p.m. – midnight. Let me

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58 stress this: I do not recommend my schedule as a model for other writers, especially new writers. Set up a writing schedule according to what you’re able to manage without burning out. When you write for long periods of time as I do, breaks are important. You should also get up and stretch now and then, and there are exercises you can do to help prevent stiff muscles and repetitive movement injuries. Keep drinking fluids and eat something nutritious every six to eight hours. Step Seven along the Way of the Cheetah: Write straight through your first draft.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

59 First Draft Method Exercises

1. Take Five: Look at an image that appeals to you for five minutes, and then put it aside. Go to your keyboard and write a description of how the image looks. When you’ve finished that, write how the image might smell, taste, feel and/or sound.

2. Memory Test: Without watching it first, start typing a description of a short scene from a recorded copy of your favorite television show or film. Print out your scene and read it, and then watch the recorded scene to check your accuracy. What details did you get correct or incorrect? What did you add, or miss, from the scene?

3. Celeb Chat: Set a timer for ten minutes. While the timer is ticking, write a dialogue between you and a famous celebrity figure (i.e. U.S. President George Bush, baseball player Nolan Ryan, actress Jennifer Aniston.) If you’re not sure what to talk about with your celebrity, make the dialogue a job interview where you’re hiring the celebrity to work for you as a secretary.

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60 4. Divine Interrogation: You have been granted the right to ask God any five questions. Once you’ve written down your questions, play the part of God and answer them.

5. Advanced: Turn off your computer monitor before you begin writing your responses to any of the above exercises, and keep it off until you’re finished.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

61 Running Down the Story

The Daily Edit

Editing styles and methods are as individual as the writer editing their work. I am not a believer in endless editing; I think it can lead to way too much second-guessing and getting caught in rewriting loops. This is why I do only three edits:

1. A daily edit of material I’ve written that day 2. A full manuscript hard copy read-through and edit 3. The final manuscript buff and polish

The daily edit is very quick, one-shot editing. I perform the daily edit on the computer screen without printing out the work (I save that for the full manuscript read-through.) Each evening I pull up what I’ve written that day, read through one time, and make word, phrase and placement changes as I go along. While I’m doing the daily edit, I stay in the ego-blank mindset I had while I was writing the new material. I'm not thinking about myself, how I’m writing, whether it’s good enough, etc. Daily editing is just cleaning up the wording, filling in rewrite tags, and performing

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62 spelling and grammar checking. Once I’ve read through and made the appropriate changes, I save the edited file to the edit file I set up when I began writing the new material, and I'm done. I leave the original material intact in the other file so I can go back and see how I wrote it in first draft form (sometimes important during the final full manuscript editing phase.) Once the daily edit is complete, and I’ve saved the edited file, I won't read that portion of the book again until the entire novel is finished. This takes a certain amount of self-discipline, as the temptation to back read and re-edit is always there. I think editing the first draft once only makes you sharper at editing; you know you’ve only got one shot at it before you have to move on. Once I've written a complete first draft of a novel, I try to put a little time and distance between me and the book before I begin the second, full manuscript edit. When possible, I take a week or two off from working on it; if I don’t have the luxury of time I still take two or three days off.

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63 Full Manuscript Edit

When it’s time to do the full manuscript edit, I print out a hard copy, grab a highlighter and a red ink pen, find a quiet, comfortable spot, and start the final read-through and edit phase. I read through the manuscript one time, using the highlighter as I go to slash words, sentences, paragraphs and whole pages. I highlight typos, grammatical errors, repeated words, poor word choices, things I find myself skimming through versus reading, and things that for whatever reason don't hit me the right way. This is not the time to be ego-blank anymore; all the things I refused to worry about while I was writing and doing the daily edits I allow to come out now: 1. I look at my voice and how it sounds on the page. If the book is a new venture, is it different from the other books I’ve written? If the book is part of a series, is my voice consistent with the other books I’ve written in that series? 2. I analyze how strong the story is by how caught up I get in it. Other than saving time and grief, the biggest benefit of not backtracking while writing your manuscript is that everything you wrote seems fresh because you haven’t read it to death.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

64 3. I check how the story flows, as in am I getting too wordy in any places, or am I being too terse. 4. I take a hard look at my characters to see if they’re remaining consistent and distinctive. With only one writer working on the manuscript, often characters’ dialogue can become repetitive, and they start sounding interchangeable, so I give that particular attention. 5. I look for words I know I tend to repeat, and echoes of words on the page itself, and the demon of all writers, eye references. I weed out as many as possible. 6. I look for writing weaknesses I know I have, such as skimping on setting and emotional arcs.

Editing the full manuscript is when I finally let myself get emotional about the work, but my internal editor is very different from my writer side. When I edit my own work, I am demanding, merciless, and often downright nasty. I don’t give myself any excuses or an ounce of slack. If I've not captured my vision of this story, I rewrite. If I spot trouble areas, I fix them. If I find myself skimming a scene or a chapter, I’ll slash the whole thing with the highlighter, which means a massive rewrite. If a chapter is utter crap, and fixing it

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

65 will make it read like patchwork writing, I will throw it out and write the whole thing over. I don’t try to preserve writing that I don’t consider to be professional level work. Once during a full manuscript edit, I tossed out 175 manuscript pages and rewrote them from scratch. After the full manuscript edit is done, I take a break for at least twelve hours. I shift back from editor into writer mode, and think about the major changes and how I want to handle them. If the manuscript has major problems, I kick myself a few times, but then I let it go. Part of the writing process is to learn from each mistake, which means learning from each edit. The harder I am on myself when I edit, the more I learn, and the better a writer I become. I also look for ways to avoid problems that came up with this edit so that I don’t repeat them with the next book I write. When I go back to the manuscript, I start correcting things on the hard copy. Small corrections I make on the page, major changes I'll rewrite by typing large sections of revised work on the computer and clip the new pages to the old ones. When the hard copy corrections are complete, I do a type-in to revise the manuscript file and print out a second, corrected hard copy.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

66 Final Buff and Polish

Once I’ve printed out the second, corrected copy of the manuscript, I read through it one last time. The final buff and polish edit is mainly for typos or errors the revisions may have caused, so this one is not half as taxing as the full manuscript edit. The third stage of editing is also when I separate myself from the story, and let go as a writer. Because I’ve spent the last six months to a year thinking about this book, it’s hard to do this. A few times it’s been like ripping out a piece of my heart. Still, I believe you have to mentally release your story to the fates, or you end up obsessing over it and you’re not able to mail it off, withstand the inevitable revisions, or handle criticism of it when it hits the shelf. As I read through the manuscript, I make any changes on the pages and set the changed pages aside. When I’m finished, I do the last type-in on the pages that need changing, print out the third and final hard copy of the manuscript, and box it up to ship it out. Step Eight along the Way of the Cheetah: Edit efficiently but thoroughly.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

67 Editing Method Exercises

1. Search, Destroy and Track: do a search for words you know you use too often, or hunt for repetitive descriptions like eye references (i.e. search for “look” and “eye”). Before you edit them out, count how many times you use these repeater words and phrases in the manuscript, and keep a running tally. When you move on to your next project, study your repeater tally sheet before you work on each scene, and consciously try to avoid these words and phrases as you write.

2. Audio Edit: if you’re having trouble editing a scene, read it out loud into a voice recorder. Take a break, and then listen to the recording without looking at the scene. Take notes as you listen on what doesn’t sound right.

3. Edit Swap: if you’re bogged down with an edit, offer to swap chapters with another writer friend and edit and/or critique each other’s work. Sometimes getting another pair of eyes to look at a chapter can give you a fresh perspective.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

68 4. Edit Away: take a chapter from your manuscript to a peaceful, quiet spot outdoors, or a coffeshop, library, or other place away from your writing space and edit it there. Compare that chapter to one you’ve edited in your office or writing space, and see if the outdoors made a positive difference. If it did, consider editing away from your writing space.

5. Advanced: Flex your editing skills at least once a month by offering to edit chapters from writer friends, or by editing something poorly-written that you read on the internet or in a newspaper.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

69 On the Path

Writing is a worthy and respectable profession, but for those of us who choose to be writers for life, it is also an abiding passion. We can never learn everything about writing, so our curiosity must be constant. With every story we begin, we discover new truths about ourselves and our world. Each story we finish becomes another marker on the path of our careers. I wrote my first novel on a second-hand manual Royal typewriter my mom gave me as a gift. I taught myself to type, first pecking with two fingers, and then gingerly adding two more, until I finally learned to use eight fingers on the keyboard (to this day I still don’t use my pinkies to type.) Mom couldn’t afford typing paper, so she gave me scrolls (not the papyrus kind, but long rolls of leftover accounting paper from one of the bookkeeping machines at her job.) I would type from one end of the scroll to the other, and then cut what I’d written into pages with scissors. It took seventeen scrolls to write my first novel. I still feel like that kid every time I sit down to write. Only now I suspect the scroll of paper inside my head from which I cut my story pages will never need replacing, because it hasn’t run out for thirtytwo years.

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

70 May the scrolls of your stories and the markers on your path be just as endless.

Lynn Viehl

Way of the Cheetah ~ Lynn Viehl

About the Author

Since 2000, Lynn Viehl has published forty-six novels in five genres. On the internet, she hosts Paperback Writer, a popular publishing industry weblog which she updates daily. Lynn’s StarDoc science fiction series has been a genre bestseller for seven consecutive years. Lynn’s Darkyn series novels, If Angels Burn, Private Demon, Dark Need, Night Lost, Evermore, Twilight Fall and Stay the Night all made the USA Today bestseller list, while her last four Darkyn novels appeared on the New York Times extended bestseller lists. In July 2008, Lynn was officially recognized as a New York Times bestselling author when her sixth Darkyn novel, Twilight Fall, debuted at #19 on the Times mass market bestseller list. Readers are always welcome to send feedback on this e-book to [email protected].

Note to Readers If you’ve enjoyed this e-book, please let other people know about it, as word of mouth is the best advertising a writer can’t buy. Also, if you’re interested in reading other books I’ve written, here’s my public bibliography: Science Fiction (writing as S.L. Viehl) StarDoc SF series: StarDoc January 2000 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451457730 Beyond Varallan July 2000 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451457935 Endurance January 2001 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451458141 Shockball August 2001 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451458559 Eternity Row September 2002 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451458915 Rebel Ice January 2006 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451460626 Plague of Memory January 2007 Roc SF/F ISBN# 9780451461230 Omega Games August 2008 Roc SF/F ISBN# 9780451462244 Crystal Healer August 2009 Roc SF/F ISBN# 9780451462855 Dream Called Time August 2010 Roc SF/F ISBN#9780451463463 Other SF novels: Blade Dancer August 2003 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451459261 Ring of Fire (Anthology; short story: A Matter of Consultation) January 2004 BAEN ISBN# 074347175X Bio Rescue August 2004 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451459784 Afterburn August 5, 2005 Roc SF/F ISBN# 0451460294 Romance (writing as Gena Hale) Paradise Island April 2001 ONYX ISBN# 0451409825 Dream Mountain August 2001 ONYX ISBN# 0451410033 Sun Valley June 2002 ONYX ISBN# 0451410394 Romance (writing as Jessica Hall) The Deepest Edge February 2003 ONYX ISBN# 0451207963 The Steel Caress May 2003 ONYX ISBN# 0451208528 The Kissing Blades August 2003 ONYX ISBN# 045120946X Into the Fire March 2004 ONYX ISBN# 0451411307 Heat of the Moment October 2004 ONYX ISBN# 0451411587 Dark Fantasy (writing as Lynn Viehl) If Angels Burn April 2005 Signet Eclipse ISBN#0451214773 Private Demon October 2005 Signet Eclipse ISBN# 0451217055 Dark Need June 2006 Signet Eclipse ISBN# 0451218663 Night Lost May 2007 Signet Eclipse ISBN#9780451221025 Evermore January 2008 Signet Eclipse ISBN#9780451222848

Note to Readers (cont.) Dark Fantasy (writing as Lynn Viehl) Twilight Fall July 2008 Onyx ISBN# 9780451412591 Master of Shadows December 2008 Onyx eSpecial release Stay the Night January 2009 Onyx ISBN# 9780451412669 Shadowlight October 2009 Onyx ISBN# 9780451412782 Dreamveil June 2010 Onyx ISBN# 9780451412881 Frostfire to be published January 2011 Onyx

Christian Adult Fiction Series (writing as Rebecca Kelly) Grace Chapel Inn Series/GUIDEPOSTS Going to the Chapel Midsummer Melody Portraits of the Past

Home for the Holidays Promises to Keep Life is a Three-Ring Circus

Free e-books (all of these e-books can be read or downloaded for free; get the links here: http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/p/freebies.html) Deimos The Devil's Publishing Dictionary Do or Die Familiar Have Mercy Incarnatio llumination John and Marcia ~ The Novel Crash Test Dummies John and Marcia, Together Again ~ The Novel Crash Test Dummies II Left Behind and Loving It Virtual Workshops Lunar Marshall Midnight Blues Night of the Chameleon Near Dawn Now or Never Rain Lashed Ravelin Red Branch Roomies Sink or Swim Sink or Swim 2009 Reissue The Novel Notebook Wanted Worthy Willing Happy reading! Lynn Viehl