About the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood’s Winter Writing Festival

Craving some serious writing productivity this winter? Need to clean up the mess you left in the second half of your Golden Heart full entry? Want to finally, finally fix that pesky plot hole in your WIP? The Rubies have your back!

Through the bleakest part of winter–January 10, 2013 thru the end of February–the much-anticipated Third Annual Ruby Winter Writing Festival will be here to keep your creative fires burning, with support, advice, inspiration, frequent live chats, fun prizes for participants, and as much virtual hot-chocolate (or virtual champagne or virtual cookies) as you please. ‘Cause nobody’s Muse can resist a party!

Here’s the beauty part: unlike NaNoWriMo and other writing challenges that have a one-size-fits-all approach, the Ruby Winter Writing Festival is designed for you.

No matter what stage you’re at right now (brainstorming, plotting, free-writing, fast-drafting, slow-drafting, revising, layering, polishing…or any combination of the above) the Ruby Winter Writing Festival can help.

We’re going to work with a “point” system, with a goal of earning one point per day.

Everybody gets one bonus point on the first day for stopping by the Ruby blog and making a public commitment to take part in the Festival. Then, for each of the 50 days of the Festival (including January 10), you work to earn an additional point—and you define what it takes to earn that point.

Here are some examples of the sorts of things you might define as worth one point (you fill in the variables with the amounts that work for you):

writing X number of words or pages
deep revising Y number of pages
polishing Z number of pages
freewriting / brainstorming for Q number of minutes/hours
doing R number of 20-minute writing sprints
keeping butt in chair and hands on keyboard for S number of hours

For instance, one person might commit to earning points according to the following terms:

writing 500 words per day OR
deep revising 10 pages per day OR
doing a final polish on 25 pages per day

Any day that person meets ANY of those goals, she gets a point.

You set the goals that work for you. Check in on the blog every Thursday during the Festival to report your progress (and have a chance to win some fun prizes)! If you reach the end of February with at least a nice round 50 points, YOU WIN!!

We’ll be here each day of the Festival with words of inspiration and support, craft pointers, and bits of wisdom from our own writing lives. We’ll be posting some excerpts from our own works-in-progress, and offering participants chances to ask for specific advice with their own plot problems or style snarls.

The chat room will be open, with plenty of writing sprint challenges for those who want them.

Everyone who commits to participating on January 1o will be able to download a cool “Ruby Winter Writing Festival Participant” icon to post on their own website or blog.

Plus, everyone who checks in on a Thursday reporting that they’re on track with earning points will be entered in random drawings for cool prizes, like copies of Rubies’ books, gift cards, and expert critiques from the Sisters!

If you check in on February 28 and report you’ve WON, you’ll be able to download a “Ruby Winter Writing Festival WINNER” badge to post on your website or blog. And of course you’ll have the satisfaction of achieving a small boatload of wonderful shiny writing progress (not to mention eternal fame and glory).

What’s not to love?