I TRIED WRITING LIKE NORA ROBERTS FOR A DAY // a writing vlog

what would Dora Roberts do 3,000 words written in the wrong tents he's dressed can I even do in one day what she does every day for the ear hey guys I'm Kate welcome back to my channel and today I'm going to try to write like Nora Roberts now if the name Nora Roberts or JD robb sounds familiar to you even if you haven't read her work that's because she's published like ton of books let's see how many books have she published let's find out together how many but says Nora Roberts we didn't all right thank you people in Random House it says author of more than 200 novels there are more than 500 million copies of her books in print and now I really look up to Nora Roberts partly because she is so prolific and as someone who wants to be a published author and have writing be her career to see someone do that and maintain that over decades it's just so inspiring and I also really appreciate Nora Roberts because she does write and like to very kind of distinct genres so she writes more diversely than I see some authors do who was like this is like their thing their only thing I'm not a writer who has like one thing only an only thing what so I love that she's written these you know under Nora birds mostly romance novels but like fantasy romance paranormal romance you know sweet romance but then also that she has this JV Rob name where she writes this kind of futuristic detective series that's quite gory holy crap not the shoes okay look at this I'm on Forbes and Nora Roberts is number 50 on America's self-made women list oh let's let me just shoot some stats at yes publish more than 225 novels writes crime novels under the pseudonym JV raw publishes four or more books a year that's gonna be key her in a second and 11 of Roberts novels have been published for a television including nine for lifetime dang so let's get back to that publishes four books a year thing no I had a commenter Caryl Sykes and she said that I should try Nora Roberts routine and she gave me a link now there are several things that were fascinating about this link because in some part this was nor Roberts own rebuttal to the whole copyright Kris thing that was insane in itself for those who don't know the romance world kind of blew up because some people were stealing words from others and mashing them and putting them into other books and selling them on Amazon but then these popular authors also started pointing at their ghost writers saying no it was their fault so that not only brings into this whole copyright issue but a ghost written books issue it is a mess and Nora Roberts got pulled into this mess because several of her works were stolen and used and apparently because the Internet is a strange place and sometimes not as wonderful though it can't be wonderful but sometimes not as wonderful Noah Roberts was starting to be accused of using ghost writers herself because she is so prolific and that is where Nora Roberts stepped in and said no no no so in this Facebook post that Nora Roberts wrote look at how long this is is that not it's incredible anyways okay she rebutted the claim that she wrote a book every 60 days as has often been misquoted she does write four books a year basically published at a rate of four books a year and now much like both Stephen King and Haruki Murakami noir Roberts believes that routine is God which makes sense if you're gonna write that many books in a year I would be curious if any writer that is that prolific does so without a routine which is the whole point of trying it out no I feel like I've learned a lot trying about Stephen King's and Haruki Murakami's so I'm just so excited to try Nora Roberts someone that I have looked up to and actively read for years so from Nora Roberts own mouth and from a myriad of other sites that I looked information up on I have come up with what I think is close to Nora Roberts routine and I think it includes the most working hours yet because Noor Roberts has as a self-professed morning person she gets up and she's starting to work at 8:00 a.m. now it is 7:30 a.m. so I still have a little bit of time to kill before I start trying Nora Roberts routine but she doesn't stop riding until 3:00 that is 7 hours straight of writing y'all I don't know I don't know that my creative brain works for that long to be honest so we're gonna find out now other things that Nora Roberts hold true are that social media is a time suck you know what Nora I agree so during this experiment I will not be using any of these social media on my phone or obviously I won't be going to any of the web sites no Twitter no Instagram and no YouTube spiraling thank goodness so nor is this with the other key to her success is not only that you know social media is a time set but also that other things are time sucks so she doesn't go out to lunch she doesn't go out to dinner and she doesn't go shopping when it's a workday it's a freaking workday and while she herself says that she writes 4 books a year she says the two are in the Davey Rob series one is a standalone Roberts book and one is a portion of a trilogy I just can't even imagine juggling all that like in my head especially after so many books like this this is the thing that's so incredible and she also starts her next book while waiting for her editor so there is not just some amount of overlap but like a lot of overlaps she also says that she only takes like three drafts to write a book which Nora I guess what do you have it fine-tuned after you know decades maybe I'll be there too in the spirit of writing for books a year I'm going to be working in four different projects a day since she obviously does have overlap so one I will be writing my April camp NaNoWriMo words I need 888 words in project death - I'm going to be revising chapters of murder-mystery Tennessee a current project and obviously a mystery at that in a nod to JD Robb if you will three I'm going to finish editing a fun personal essay and I will see about like just posting that and then for an honor of the romance Queen I'm going to work on revising the fourth draft of the first book in my college romance series to be published next year I need to get used to saying that so I'm making myself say it now it's gonna be published next year and they'll be other thing I still question son is that Nora Roberts still works on WordPerfect which I have not even thought of in a decade over a decade but it was WordPerfect a long time ago and now unlike Steven Keeny I'm not gonna say she allows herself room for distractions because quite frankly I don't think she does she talks on and on about her dedication and her work ethic and if you're writing over 4 books a year I believe you like I think that's what you have to have but unlike Stephen King she does allow herself the internet in case she needs to look something up not the looking thing up is of course only for the book that she's writing it's not just a free-for-all distraction I don't have WordPerfect but what I'm gonna do to keep myself in the most nor Robert see kind of way I can do this I'm actually going to not use this dual monitor at all I think that'll help me realize when I am Google spiraling rather than actively working on finding something for my story or research or what-have-you and then also I'm going to keep Scribner up in you know full-screen mode while I am working I think that's the closest I can get to emulating her system within my own system in 15 minutes I will start working and it will work from 8 to 3 now the other thing she does at the end of her days that she works out for 90 minutes the 68 year old woman I'm telling you she is my hero and then she says that she also on the weekends bakes bread but like more or less she doesn't really have weekends if you will because it sounds like this is her day-in day-out routine it's a Friday I'm gonna bake some bread and she also three times a week signs books and just to get them shipped out and you know that's really cool I don't have anyone who wants a signed book from me because I don't have any books out and that would have to be like one of the books that I own and that makes no sense so what I'm gonna do instead is I will actually give myself some time to respond to some comments in my head it theoretically shouldn't be that bad but just like I found with Stephen King and Haruki I'm able to be very productive in the morning and then it kind of goes downhill coinciding with just feeling like I've gotten a lot of words in for the day I've revised a lot for the day I've done whatever in the day so seven hours straight it's going to be interesting and I'm also going to be interested to see in the grand scheme of things how many words I actually end up writing or rewriting since I'm in the revision stage for most of these projects just to see how that compares with theoretically four books a year and Nora Roberts schedule can I even do in one day what she does every day for the ear I think probably not probably not but we'll see but mom do we just of this look Nora Roberts so I'm excited because I get to start a new chapter but I also have just kind of been sitting here about time 8:04 so is it okay that I haven't started writing it I have been in the story though and I think that's what's key I've just been trying to figure out what exactly it needs to happen next this is the hard part about zero drafting or passing a project is like I'm not quite sure but once I figure it out I'm gonna be on a roll so just gonna hope that it doesn't take that much longer to figure it out I have not even made that much of it oh my coffee nope okay I got it now I am at 170 words and this is kind of made me wonder if Nora Roberts uses word sprints at all because that's what I'm about to do I can tell that if I don't just like charge through this scene it's going to take a lot of effort you'll have seen it's like that I'm not crazy I have 420 words and I am once again a little bit stuck a little bit so just like before in the no distractions tide I'm finding that when I'm stuck on something what I really want to do is reach my phone and play around on that or I want to like pull something up on my computer or watch something just to get my mind off of it in the hopes that in distracting myself maybe the answer will come to me but obviously I can't do that now and while I'm allowing myself research questions or to Google something if I need an answer to something and that's not my problem right now my problem is just that I haven't figured out what I want to do with the scene and I that's it what is a girl trying to be Nora Burt's - what what Dora Roberts do that being said 420 words in the span of 30 minutes not really that bad actually pretty great but I would love to know where I'm going with this next and I don't know all I've been doing is literally I would be the most annoying person if anyone else was here no I applied myself so it's fine let's see how much longer this takes me shall we I've saved this document like five different times now just staring at the screen so Nora Roberts credits the 3ds to her success which is discipline drive and desire and now this is a moment that's testing my discipline I feel like because the drive is there the desires there's the discipline to stay in this moment as arguably uncomfortable as it is right now you know that's what it is the fact that she does this every day is a testament to her work at that quit she really touts I think it's like a point of pride which if I had her work out that could be a point of pride too but I don't I have mine yikes a burn of myself how much coffee left at this point all right update I am now at 533 words I have whoa I have finished my coffee it's 8:40 a.m. just now this is what are those weird things that's like kind of frustrating because I know I can get 533 words during a 10-minute word spray when I'm on a roll and it's just that I'm not on a roll and I can't tell what that signifies you know what it means how bad is that does it mean the scenes bad does it mean I'm just struggling this morning doesn't have nothing to do with the actual story I'm writing and it's all me what gives okay so I am at seven hundred and forty seven words and it is just now 9:00 a.m. I'm gonna go ahead and actually finish this up I feel like I'm on a roll finally it took long enough dang it and then switch projects and then do this for another six hours ooh okay I got 889 words right now but I'm actually semi on a roll so I'm gonna actually finish the scene and we'll just see what I leave office yay all right I'm ending this with 1022 words for this project for the day y'all think that putting that into the camp NaNoWriMo website could technically count as like research is it a distraction I don't know but I'm gonna go ahead and do it but I won't in fact look at what my cabin has been saying I feel like that kind of falls into the category of social media maybe not it's just like chatting with people but I know Nora doesn't do that in fact her whole thing is like loving when her husband leaves for the day just so that she can start working because she likes to do it by herself without distractions without anyone else interrupting her like she's very much a lone wolf II type so yeah I feel like texting and anything else would kind of fall under that umbrella okay nineteen thousand four hundred and twenty three words and my camp NATO project okay nineteen for 23 and update look at that look at that looking good and now it is time to save this one and open up something new and like I said in honor of Nora Roberts aka JD Rob I'm gonna be working on my murder mystery Tennessee project but I do think now's a good a time as any to go ahead and get breakfast food ah what you doing buddy [Music] it is now 919 oh I got notifications what are they are they important oh I'm really tied me in the post I want to see it but no all right now the great thing about doing this revision work is that I think I could actually eat while I'm revising I need to reread the chapter chapter 14 or 13 I have effed up some stuff oh I got to fix that but I gotta read to find out and also now I can eat so yeah happy to have ever popped oh my gosh he is alright so I got to actually read all of the chapter which was fun the pool be about revisions that sometimes I forget like exactly how I got to certain like story beads you know and I think that's the key so long as I like what I'm rereading it's a good sign right well now I have to actually fix this entire chapter three thousand words written in the wrong tents and I still have a scene that I need to put in somewhere and I think it might need to be in this chapter but you know I'm making it better making it better I will say also that there is something about not having this on that does keep me more focused I guess because I don't have this up to distract me so that like put I'm stuck here it's not like I turn having to actually force myself to be right here the whole time is pretty great but this is a similar thing with like Stephen King and haruki murakami where I'm at the point where I know how to not distract myself but I continue to allow distractions to like take up more of my time and I think it's because it's just harder this way this way that I just don't want to change even though I would be a lot more productive if I did so that's seen one done scene two fixed it is now today I'm nine fifty-nine whatever okay for the first time I'm actually googling something I was trying to remember like what all you could do with latte art what in the hell I mean that's amazing so one try as I might I myself cannot actually achieve latte art yet I'm determined but I have my accidental pie sitting in this cafe that is across the street from where she lives and she's actually like kind of getting along with the owner in my head they're gonna be kind of recurring minor characters that are really sweet so anyways they're giving her a free drink and because the old lady who runs the cafe it's like practicing her latte art because her daughter told her that it would bring them more customers you know that kind of thing and so I was trying to think of like what you could possibly make latte art out of and what you could make it if it did not work hi this is incredible so these people if I could just do hold on where's the what I want to try honestly if I could just get this one I would be happy but ok I'm gonna say what are you kidding me a dragon I'll say a leaf that works now seeing a leaf Oh hopes if you spell it right last scene and end of the chapter done at 10:31 file and X out of that so I've kind of just been chillin for a hot minute like staring at the screen at nothing and I decided that I would go ahead and reread some of Nora Roberts interviews that I already had pulled up and there's a part I want to key in on specifically well let me show ya you're going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder I think the muse will be an awfully fickle character to depend on for your livelihood that's not the way I work I built a story which I think goes right back into her whole discipline desire Drive sort of thing I think I've always agreed with Nora Roberts principle that you can't wait for the muse to strike now I don't have her dedicated focus just yet I think um building that up I'm trying you guys but I definitely agree with her on principle and also I do appreciate that Nora Roberts refers to her first draft as the discovery draft piece draft because same except mine so bad I call it a zero all that said I think at this point I'm procrastinating I think it's just helpful sometimes to remind myself of what Nora Roberts is saying because I find that it's very true and her end product is one that I enjoy and no one can deny how many books she's written how many books she's sold and so it's just a kind of fun person to look up to especially since the in death series is one of my favorite series I wish that you had like you yell find a place on my wall so like put a quote by her or something discipline drive dedication no that wasn't it well of it what is it well this discipline drive desire so now the desire I feel like is definitely there that one is not one that I have to work hard at obviously I think a lot of writers have the desire aspect there it's the drive and the discipline that's the hard part so maybe if I could just put discipline cover all this up and just put discipline maybe it would actually remind myself of it but it is now time to work on the third project of the day gay before I start that I think I'm gonna make myself some time you know do I want mint or macro Vaughn or raspberry hibiscus what am I feeling what about this one or I could get the passion mmm vanilla bean macro and it is actually after a fair bit of time staring at the screen as you can tell by how much TF Drake I'm going to switch projects instead so he'll little plane where you at oh my gosh it's right there well I actually caught it instead I'm going to work on my romance series feeling very Nora Roberts inspired right now so let's do it all right I added 750 words this is one of those instances that I feel like it always goes by really quickly because at this point in this story I know everything like I have figured out the beats I know like what needs to happen when I've been over the story so many times and like tried to make it work and it not worked that now it's like I got it all figured out it's always fun to write this part because I get to I feel like I get to relive what the characters but I don't have any of the struggle of being like how do I do this thing you know what I mean so this is the final draft II almost Fogel draft the almost final draft before I go over it like line by line so I'm just having a grand old time haha it is now 12:45 I'm very hungry and I think I am going to actually bake some bread since Nora Roberts likes to bake bread occasionally and have that for lunch and you know what kind of bread I'm gonna bake Brazilian cheese bread you're right every time but while it is cooking I will finish this up so I got 20 minutes worth of a word spray I'll take it at all put together [Music] all right I got 18 minutes left after I cleaned up all that stuff so I'm going to set this up on a time-lapse I'll probably end up just finishing the chapter and moving on to something else I guess we're going to find out together look at it yeah 1320 words down I'm getting to like the penultimate like arc up does that make sense we're reaching kind of the height of the drama we're getting there we're on the last little hump before the ultimate like claw so that's always so much fun to write I watch this one now it is 114 now the crazy part is I only have an hour and 45 minutes left but also I'm so glad food is coming out soon maybe that will help me and I never did finish that team I have found that I think once I tally everything up this will have been my most productive day in a while certainly of these I tried writing likes time that well days let's see oh look at them they're so cute oh my gosh I've destroyed them I haven't even done anything I'm just sat here at 8:00 it's not hungry okay I'm gonna go get some more than that I really will start writing for real this time I'm doing an overhaul of this like a fun little article about Netflix cheaters but it is an overhaul like it's one of those where I just need to sleep on the revision of it a little bit more I guess so I'll get back to you later the question is that's my phone I charged it or I was charging it since I obviously didn't need it today it's 141 which means that I still have an hour and 20 minutes so now the question is which project do I want to work on project one two three or four and the full spirit of JD row up rather than or Roberts I think I'm gonna work on murder mystery Tennessee again because it's always so what it's just not fun to have to work on tense changes but it doesn't actually take a whole lot of mental power and also because I wrote it so fast there were scenes that are missing that part I actually do find is pretty fun kind of trying to bridge the gap between scenes it's always it's interesting at least changing tenses is not interesting it's just tedious I think that's what I'm gonna work on I've talked myself into it also known as cyber stalker sleuth that's what I haven't saved as and you know what I think I'm gonna get myself more of these I've decided I've earned it alright I'm chapter 14 for that yay there's been a lot of notifications that have come in that I have just like decided to erase from my phone I just it's somehow more annoying seeing it when I know that I can't do anything about it and up until this point I actually didn't think I used social media that much but then I realized that if you count things like reddit as social media or YouTube or stuff like that that I'm on it all the freaking time that's usually what I have up on this extra monitor my attention is waning but I'm hoping I will be able to get it back with this project so oh my mind also this chapter in itself is so long I'm trying now to break things up into scenes this isn't some that I did when I was initially writing this story but is something that I like to do now because I find it's easier to drag and drop if I already have the scenes separated rather than just keeping them within individual chapters especially when using Scribner so I've seen at a time let's see how many scenes are there this one's four three three scenes let's see okay we're gonna keep track again it is 146 right now let's see let's see how long it takes yeah kind of looks like you smiling if this was the eyes alright it's time for my confession I went to YouTube so I'm having honestly this is like here's something this is the time that I my body naturally likes to nap anyways so I always get kind of a midday low from like 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. it's not great and now if I am writing it like or doing stuff by myself what I tend to find is that I start off really strong in the morning and I get a lot of stuff off my list and then I don't do anything in the afternoon and then I can kind of do stuff again in the evening if I need to right but I just how does she concentrate for this long how does she do it I'm actually gonna X out of YouTube now I'm sorry for doing it I just had to show you guys what I done this is my confession okay and now I'm procrastinating because like I don't want to honest I don't want to do anything I want to take it out that bad looks so good no it's fine it's cool I got this maybe calling myself out is the trick maybe I'm not getting it better I promise I just need it to grab stuff to record what the bed does look nice alright I like I am getting in the bed but since I'm only using this guy you know and not my dual monitor I can do that I have the freedom to do it alright it is finally 3 p.m. and I finished a whopping one of those scenes I you know what okay I'm gonna do my 90 minutes of exercise I'm gonna go on a walk or a run it's a really nice day out you just see another house it's like just trust me it's a nice day out so I think that'll be fun but after that I'm going to tally up how I did on everything I'm gonna see how many pages I revised how many words I've written how many oh yeah I feel very productive I also feel like mentally done but I think after working out I might be restored we're gonna find out it'll be interesting but I'm also doing a 12-hour write Athan tomorrow so I you know what even if I was feeling up to it I think I might conserve my imagery and what word was that supposed to be energy I will probably conserve my energy we'll see time for that look let's do this and I'm just outside hoping that it's too late it's gone a little bit of sunscreen probably not enough after I got Burton that time look at them they're so cute look at all the girls did you miss me a little bumpy all right so I have completed the Nora Roberts writing routine experiment I have learned a couple things through this process and I've had some distance since then as I'm filming this I today it's almost been a week since I did this experiment so here are the things I want to say one I did struggle with where I was at and one of the projects and that was interesting to watch back because I don't think it had anything to do with the day I think it more had to do with where I wasn't the story and I think it just goes to show you when you feel like you have to be productive in a certain way but you're not able to do that it lends itself to just being like a little bit agonizing so the other thing I want to mention and something that has been true of the other two routines but this one specifically is that no matter what you're doing trying to stay focused for seven hours on one thing even across multiple projects I'm talking about one thing being the writing it is hard I even when I was working corporate like sitting and a cubicle I still was able to pull stuff up on the screen that was something other than work for just the times when I was in between calls or I was not answering an email right at that moment or not in a meeting or whatever else okay you know you have a little bit where you get a reprieve I glanced at my phone for a second I might scroll Instagram Paul I'm waiting for the beating to start like these are the things that you do to just get your mind off of something for a while but I couldn't do that and I am not good at not doing that the point in that is that I do think it's hard just in general to stay that focused on something but also that clearly this is a problem I have with concentration so then the question is how does a girl get better at that and to be honest I think the answers the thing I don't want to do which is just more writing routine sort of experiments like this taking what I've learned from all of these experiments and putting them to the test so I guess I've got to see more of that in the future as I try and figure out a way to stay more focused and also blend that in with my own natural writing routine right because that's the point is that like I gotta take snippets from people that I like and enjoyed their routines and mesh it in to one Kate Kavanaugh routine I think it's also important to note that I think hundreds of other published authors could do the same routine and not have the results that Nora Robert does I don't want to say she's a freak of writing nature but at a certain point you got to give people their own like tears and I think Nora Roberts is in a tier or class of all her own and her sheer amount of productivity output concentration whatever else like hi yeah this is something else this is something else my final realization kind of going in with that is that my mmm there might be some reasons to the core of Who I am why I prefer the Stephen King routine versus the Nora Roberts the Stephen King routine being that I just had to get X number of words and then I could do whatever I wanted versus Nora Roberts which was a time thing I am this is true for me for a lot of things like running I'm better at being like okay I will run a mile and a half and then I'm done versus okay you're gonna run for twenty minutes and then you can stop my brain it prefers the task that's a distance that's a like finish line sort of thing versus a just continue to do it at whatever pace for this video is like and I don't know why so this is true of all so like put I'm revising I'm not like let's spend X number of hours revising I'm like okay I'm gonna go through this many pages today or this many chapters today it's very like let me be able to cross through my list so I I've already said it and I actually think this will be a great experiment for me in the future but camp NaNoWriMo July edition I think I'm gonna stick with the hours I'm gonna really settle into this feeling of discomfort like I did within the Nora Roberts experiment and see what the heck is up because there's some amount of like this is just how I like to work versus like probably there's a block here or like my concentration or I like to pretend I don't know I don't know that Amy's please do comment down below let me know if you're the same way are you more distance oriented or time oriented does that make sense yeah let me go well but that's gonna be it for me thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you all very soon with a new video bye even if you've never read a Nora Roberts Brooke Brooke book to go and make copy copy what so this is what was happening

Channel: Kate Cavanaugh

Views: 85,150

Rating: 4.9457755 out of 5

Keywords: writing vlog, kate cavanaugh, nora roberts, nora roberts writing routine, writing routine successful authors, stephen king on writing, stephen king writing routine, author vlog, authortube, writing, how to write a book, freelance writer, freelance writing, #amwriting, writing challenge, publish novel, publish book, indie author, writing routine, writing habits, haruki murakami writing routine, i tried writing like, i tried writing like nora roberts

Id: j7O0OVgkC78

Length: 36min 2sec (2162 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019