How to use this Page

Click here to learn more about the Golden Coffee Cup.

Hi, Golden Coffee Cuppers! We are one third of the way to our goals. We are so awesome. Today's "Live Long and Prosper" high five comes from author Holly Cupala, author of Tell Me a Secret. We are total Trekkie fan girls.


In Holly's words:

A couple of years ago for Molly’s Golden Coffee Cup, as I questioned my sanity for committing to write 25K words on my work-in-progress, I accidently hit on my best writing secret--actually, a couple of secrets—and had my first 5K day ever...

Cracking the Whip with Cherry Caramels.

Ok, so the caramels were great, but they weren't the secret. The secret is this:

I set the timer. For 15 minutes. With a modest goal, 300 words. I usually hit 400 or more, and within an hour, I had over 1500! By the end of the day, I'd hit 5K.

I've been singing the praises of this method ever since. I mentioned the strategy to a new Facebook friend, and here's what she had to say:

I did the egg timer thing and my goodness. It started slow with 96 words in my first 15. The second yielded 193 and so on and so on. My most recent in 15 minutes... 338 words! I was overjoyed.

My crit partner and I have started doing timed writing online at night and comparing counts before dueling again. It's fun for her and working wonders for me.

...Which leads to Secret #2: find a friend to crack the whip with you. For me, this happened accidentally. I posted about my 5k day, and the next day, writing friend Jolie decided to do it, too. The challenge was on!

Jolie is Better Than Bum Glue.
This is the exchange, by the way, that led to the Summer Revision Smackdown, where you will find all kinds of excellent revision tips from favorite authors.

The novel I started with those 25K words (and later revised during the Summer Revision Smackdown) will release Fall 2011, tentatively titled Don’t Breathe a Word. So I guess that would make Secret #3: Cultivate patience…
______

Thanks, Holly. Come back tomorrow for more sizzling stuff!

Here's a good quote: Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.H. Jackson Brown