By Heather Blanton
If you feel like you’re
writing life is about to go flying off the rails because you JUST CAN’T GET IT
ALL DONE—maybe I can help.
The last year has been
pretty hectic. I released two novellas and a novel. I guest blogged so many
places I can’t remember them all. Like 90% of all authors, I do my own
marketing, maintain my own blog, and I recently (finally) started a newsletter.
I exercise four—sometimes five—days a week (because sitting is the new smoking
and I don’t want my dream job to kill me). I read and listen regularly to
podcasts from authors and marketing gurus. And somewhere in this crazy mix is a
husband, two kids, a farm, and a Youth Sunday School class.
Allow me to share some
time-saving tips I’ve picked up over the last couple of years that have kept me
from pulling out my ever-thinning hair. Maybe you’ll find them helpful.
Outlining – probably the biggest improvement in my
productivity. I discovered that if I sat down and actually tried to think a
novel through, lo and behold, I wrote more. Faster. This from a formerly avowed
pantser. No longer. I get a pretty tight outline/synopsis/storyboard going
before I write the first sentence anymore.
Scrivener—let
me just say, I have not been paid to endorse this wonderful, magical,
brilliant, labor-saving software. However, they should pay me.
I am a Scrivener evangelist. For the uninitiated, Scrivener is a word
processing program that, among so many other capabilities, lets you write in
scenes—even create 3x5 note cards of the scenes—and then move those scenes
around simply by dragging your mouse. The ease with which I can organize and
navigate through an entire novel leaves me breathless.
Evernote—Honestly, I’m
just beginning to scratch the surface of what this nifty little free program
does. It saves webpages, images, PDFs, audio recordings, and notes (typed or handwritten).
I can write notes on images, which is awesome. I can even drop audio into the
same file with the image or notes.
I tend to leave a
gazillion tabs open in my browser because, you know, I might need that website
in six months … if ever. Before Evernote, I kept a Word document entitled “Web
Pages.” Brilliant, I know. Just a list through which I had to scan to find the
desired web site. Evernote saves the URL as its own file and in various
formats. Things are so much easier to find now.
I can set reminders in
Evernote, too. This is helpful when I want to schedule time to look at research
or listen to a podcast.
Did I mention this app
is free?
iPad—Because my iPad has Siri, I’ve started using it
to dictate emails and responses to things on my social media sites while I
simultaneously work on my laptop.
Help—literally, I got help. I have a dear, dear
friend who works for peanuts (when I pay her) a few hours a week. She helps me
with the newsletter, blog, giveaways, and a little social media. She is a
godsend.
These aren’t
earth-shattering, super-illuminating lifehacks, but they’ve created some extra
time for me. Maybe they will spark some great time-saving ideas for your life.
Now get back to writing.
No. Seriously.
Get back to writing.
______________________________________________________________________
A former journalist, Heather Blanton
is an avid researcher and skillfully weaves truth in among fictional story
lines. She loves exploring the American West, especially ghost towns and
museums. She has walked parts of the Oregon Trail, ridden horses through the
Rockies, climbed to the top of Independence Rock, and even held an outlaw's
note in her hand. She is the independent bestselling author of several
Christian Westerns, including the Romance in the Rockies series. She writes
Westerns because she grew up on a steady diet of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and John
Wayne movies. Her most fond childhood memory is of sitting next to her father,
munching on popcorn, and watching Lucas McCain unload that Winchester! Both men
inspired her love of guns. Heather lives on a farm
outside Chapel Hill with three boys, ages 13, 16, and 56, and too many animals
to count. She can be reached several different ways: Blog: http://ladiesindefiance.com/ SocialMedia: https://twitter.com/heatherfblanton
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