Deck The Halls: A Christmas Blog Party -Itinerary-

December 1st-

• Usual First of the Month Posts (New Month, New Material, Anticipated Releases, and Author of the month) Along with the Event Announcement 

December 2nd-

• Holiday Recipe #1
• It's Party Time...Christmas Party Time!: Throw a Holiday Party
• 85$ CSN stores Giveaway
• Reader's Choice Award poll (goes up at Midnight)

December 3rd-

• Holiday Recipe #2
• Collection of Christmas Themed Historicals: Part 1

December 4th-

• Holiday Recipe #3
• D.I.Y Christmas Gift Idea #1: Christmas Baskets

December 5th-

• Holiday Recipe #4
• X-mas Guest post with KT Grant

December 6th-

• Holiday Recipe #5

December 7th-

• Holiday Recipe #6
• X-mas Guest Post and Giveaway with Shannon Stacey

December 8th-

• Holiday Recipe #7 (Given as a lesson by the Hunky Nicolas Klaus) 
• Christmas Party Interview and Giveaway with Penny Watson

December 9th-

• Holiday Recipe #8

December 10th-

• Holiday Recipe #9
• Rita's Favorite Holiday Reads (spotlighting the Holiday reads that never cease in warming my heart)

December 11th-

• Holiday Recipe #10
• Last Minuet Gifts Ideas Under 20$

December 12th - December 18th: Christmas With The Novelist Week

December 12th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Anna Campbell
December 13th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Patricia Rice
December 14th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Lila DiPasqua
December 15th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Margaret Mallory
December 16th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with  Tessa Dare
December 17th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Miranda Neville
December 18th- Author Preview and X-mas Guest Post with Cathy Maxwell
December 19th- BONUS Guest Post and Giveaway with Nicola Cornick

**December 19th**- Giveaway Winners Announcement [edit: pushed back all deadlines to the day before X-mas eve, December 23rd]

December  20th- Christmas Book review 1
December 21st- Christmas Book Review 2
December  22nd- Christmas Book Review 3
December 23rd- Deadline to enter any/all Giveaways

December 24th- 

• Giveaway Winners Announcement (All Winners!)

December 27th-Rita's Choice Awards
December 29th: Voting for the Reader's Choice Award ends @ midnight

December 30th- Announcing of the Reader's Choice for 'Best Book in 2010' (historical romance)

UPDATES:
12/2: The Poll will go live at midnight for the Reader's Choice Award
12/2: Decided to increase the deadline for all the giveaways to the day before Christmas Eve, so all the lucky winners will be informed of their prizes the night before Christmas!! Plus, some giveaways are just beginning a day or two before the cut off, and it wouldn't be fair to have some giveaways ended prematurely.
12/7: Some of the post that were on the same day as special guest posts have been rescheduled for later in the month. Spreading the fun for the month ;)
12/10: Decided to make the Collection of Christmas-Themed Reads a yearly thing. Editions (or Parts) to the collection will be made every Christmas! Send in your suggestions and it might make the collection next year!
12/15: Another Author has been added to the Christmas With the Novelist week!! Her post will go up Sunday!
12/15: There will be no X-mas Eve facebook chat this year since I will be working the overnight shift at my real-life job. =( sorry! The Winner Announcments for all the giveaways WILL be made, though!

Oh! The Places You'll Go!

So I don't want to get pedantic or preachy today, but I want to address this post to those writers who are afraid to plot because they think that it takes all the surprises out of writing.

Well, I'm here to say that I don't plot every little thing that happens in my manuscript before I write. I imagine that would be exhausting and take all the fun out of the journey you've taken with your characters. But there is a happy medium between and unplanned road-trip and an over-planned tour. Think cruise ship.

Taking myself for example (since I've yet to set up my experimental laboratory full of guinea pigs-- er, I mean writers-- for less biased research), I recently added some scenes to my wip AFTER I thought it was finished. I didn't plan to skip these chapters, but when I read through my printed copy of my first draft, I knew something was missing.

My initial notes for these new chapters?

Cast more suspicion on red herrings. Develop E and M's friendship.

While I've covered those bases-- I think ;)-- I've also packed even more plot into these chapters than I ever thought possible. I've done horrible things to my mc, caused her anxiety and pain, and even made her debate ending her life! I'm so cruel. But it's all for the betterment of the story.

The point is, I didn't plan any of these things. I'm the type of writer who NEEDS (with a capital N-E-E-D) to have some idea of where I'm going. An itinerary, to keep from abusing the inappropriate term "outline", and to go along with our "cruise" metaphor. This itinerary keeps me hopping from one important destination to another, making sure I see all the important sights and scenery.

But there's plenty of time to visit the places not on the itinerary, see the sights that make the trip really worthwhile. These surprises are what give your work life and flavor, real color and craziness. Isn't it always the kooky side-trips that you remember the most about your vacations? The unexpected adventures? It's the same way for me when I'm writing. I can never have everything planned, and so while I feel the safest when I'm writing the scenes that I've already planned, I have the most fun writing the scenes that are "off-itinerary".

And having an itinerary means I won't wind up in the doldrums with writer's block.

Give it try sometime! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the places you'll go. ;)