WRITING TIPS! THE NEED FOR SPEED – ANOTHER POV BY ALICE ORR

All this week RWA/NYC Members are sharing

their tips and tricks for writing more, better & faster.
Happy Writing!

Being an indie author, I hear a lot about the need for speed. They say there are three major rules for success as an indie. Write in a popular genre. Write a series. Publish every 3 to 4 months. I’ve got the first two covered. Romantic Suspense is a popular sub-genre of a very popular genre. I’ve also already published five novels in the Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series.

I was okay with the timing rule for a short while. A Wrong Way Home – Book 1 launched, and A Year of Summer Shadows – Book 2 came out four months later. But that was an uncomfortable stretch for me. To accomplish it, I did a stupid thing. I rushed both manuscripts straight from my editor’s hands into production and didn’t do the final crucial read-through myself.

I’ve been around longer than enough to know there are edits only the author’s eyes will see.  I rushed it anyway, because I didn’t want to commit the alleged deadly sin of letting too long pass between published books. I’m now having those first two books re-edited, and my eyes are definitely on the page this time.

I’ve also committed another sin that tolls the death knell to publication frequency. I’m guilty of wanting and having a personal life, complete with family and friends and even some fun.

In a previous incarnation, I set those things aside to be a literary agent, all business, all the time. Now I’m experiencing a case of Been There Done That. I’m just not feeling the need for speed in a race toward success.

I know this contradicts my having once told hundreds of writers in my workshops to be Warriors on Behalf of Their Careers. I still stand by the truth of that advice. All the same, I’ve decided not to renew my personal fast-lane pass. Maybe I’ve fulfilled my required quota of attempts, some successful, to set the world on fire. Maybe it’s time, at least for me, to seek another kind of success. The kind that possibly doesn’t involve being a career warrior, or a road warrior either.

Consequently, NaNoWriMo isn’t right for me, and perhaps not for some others among us as well. The rest, I wish the very best, including a super dose of Godspeed.♥

Alice Orr’s latest novel is A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Connect with Alice at all these locations: www.aliceorrbooks.com; http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/; http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/; http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/; http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/.

READ ROMANCE !