Month

NaNoWriMo Day 10 (11/10)

Chris 5 Comments

Sometimes, writing rescues me. A lot of the time, it isn’t my prose, but the poetry I write that helps me the most. When I write a poem, I am taking something I’m either currently experiencing or have experienced enough that I can call it up at will and put it outside of myself. I take the emotions stumbling around my head, capture them in specifically worded and arranged phrases, and then can look at them more clearly. See them for what they really are (which is often just something simple blown out of proportion by my mental illnesses).

Last night, I wrote. I spent almost two hours trying (and failing) to write part of my NaNoWriMo project and then gave it up as a lost cause. I was too full of thoughts, emotions, and anxieties. So I turned my mind toward a poem and a little phrase that had been spinning through my head all afternoon and evening, “broken words and broken moments shower me with shattered words.” From this I eventually produced a poem that felt a lot like the mental equivalent of scraping the contents of a can of cranberry sauce onto a plate without breaking or damaging the cylindrical shape it had held for so long. I may never post it, because it’s really only important to me, but it was a lot easier to write after that was done, even if it cost me another two hours to reach that point.

I’ve spent a lot of time wishing that I wasn’t like this. That I didn’t get caught up in horrible, obsessive thoughts until it starts to seem reasonable to knock myself out as a solution to the noise inside my head. I wish I could handle minor changes to things I’ve planned without spending the next dozen hours wondering what the implications of this change could mean for me and my life. I wish I could actually feel better once I get those thoughts out of my head instead of feeling drained and empty until I suddenly realized that I’m as mentally clogged as a shower drain full of hair. I don’t think I have anything else in my life that I wouldn’t give up if it guaranteed that I wouldn’t have to deal with those kinds of thoughts anymore.

Today, I am tired. It was a long night and today promises to be long as well. I can’t change everything I want to change, but I can keep fighting it with my poetry and learning about it through my prose. I hope that, whatever struggles you’re facing this month, that you can do the same.

 

Daily Prompt

Writing, like any other kind of mental effort, is skill that improves the more you use it. Like a muscle, you need to find ways to use it in new and more difficult ways if you want to become stronger. National Novel Writing Month is both a test and an opportunity to train. You will come out of this month stronger for having tried, whether you fail or succeed. Write a scene for you character that mirrors this. Show them striving or training to improve themselves in one specific area. Show them fail or succeed and then realize that the outcome wasn’t the real goal, but that doing the best they could was.

 

Sharing Inspiration

I like to find things that help create the emotional state I’m trying to write about. A lot of the time, I use music. In a broader sense, all of the stories I read do something similar. However, if I need a strong emotion quickly and can’t find a song, I like to look for poetry that fits. It is a lot easier if its something I wrote in the past because it reflects my actual emotions from the past and is easier for me to pick up and carry for a short time, but any poetry with the right emotional resonance will do the same thing. For this story, one of the poems I lean on to help me get into the mind of the protagonist is Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I suggest giving it a read and seeing what it makes you feel like. Or finding your own poems to make you feel the right thing for what you’re writing.

 

Helpful Tips

If you’re staring at the screen and are unable to figure out what comes next, there are a few things you can try. You could try just writing whatever random thoughts come into your head until they (hopefully) align themselves with the story. You could try skipping to a new scene and writing from there. You could, of course, go find a writing prompt and use that to jump-start your writing. Typically, I find that running out of steam and not knowing where to go from there is a sign that you made a wrong turn earlier. I almost always know where it was because something didn’t quite sit right with me, so I head back to that point and explore other options until I find one that feels better. Don’t be afraid to go back and change something, or move in an entirely different direction, if you feel that is what your story needs. Just remember to save what you’ve already written.

NaNoWriMo Day 9 (11/09)

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So, last night didn’t go exactly as planned. I wound up working from home after an appointment and then, instead of going right into dinner preparation or laundry folding or even bill paying, I loaded up Destiny 2 and started playing that. Whoops. I still managed to get some stuff done, though, by applying willpower and making a commitment to not play for so long that I lost all opportunity to spend my time on anything else. I got my bills paid, ate dinner, and wrote a bit. Laundry is going to have to wait until tonight (and I am not allowed to play video games at all tonight).

I did still get some writing and review (just reading, not editing) done, which was good. Writing my NaNoWriMo project is important to me, even if I never look at it again once it’s done. Primarily because I’ve been away from consistent writing for long enough that I wasn’t entirely sure I could still manage a challenge like this. Heck, nine days into it and I’m still not sure I can handle it… Secondarily because I’m using this writing project to work through some stuff I’ve been dealing with this year. I have no idea where the story is going or how I’m going to wrap it up because everything the protagonist is going through is a metaphor for something I’m going through. I’m hoping that, if I just keep writing, I’ll figure it out for both my story AND for me..

I want to say that I’m confident I’ll accomplish both of those things, but today I am unsure. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m lost because I know exactly where I am, but I am not sure I even suspect where I’m supposed to be going. “Directionless” would be an apt descriptor. I really want to just sit tight and figure out where I should be going, but I’ve been doing that for most of this year and gotten no where. I really need to just start moving and figure out if I went the right way once I get somewhere. Better to fail early and quickly than to spend a lot of time planning and fail too late to fix anything.

 

Daily Prompt

Having a character act in a void can be fun because it makes you focus on what they’re doing and who they are, but it also can make it harder for the reader to feel immersed. By the same token, adding too much description and sensation to the story can distract from the action taking place with the characters. However, if you set the scene beforehand, using narration, you can get the world established enough to immerse the readers but without distracting from the action that takes place later. For today, focus on creating scene settings. Just set up a few important locations for your character until you hit your word count for the day and then wrap up that one.

 

Sharing Inspiration

Today, my inspiration is good friends. It’s a hard thing to share because it takes so much time to build, but having friends and other creators you can talk to can really get you fired up about your project. I couldn’t count the number of times I was able to work through a challenging bit of a story because I had a friend and fellow creator to talk to. The number of times my friends have given me the support I needed to keep going when I wondered if I should just give up is a (sometimes) frighteningly high number. Talk to your friends, find the people around you who love to create, and embrace this aspect of you, them, and your relationship as a whole. The joy and excitement that builds between you will provide you with all the motivation and willpower you need to get to work.

 

Helpful Tips

While the idea of filling every spare moment with writing is not only appealing but also something I’ve advocated here, that strategy might not work well for you. If you’re struggling to actually get something accomplished during your hectic flurries of writing scattered around your day, try making time for writing using a schedule. Specifically, MAKE the time. Scheduled writing time is not something you will ever find because there are so many other things that feel far more urgent. It is something you will need to set aside and wrap in iron so that it cannot be used for anything else. Set up a period of time you can make clear and use it for writing. It doesn’t need to be the same time every day, but actually schedule it into your day, ahead of time. Take the time on every Saturday to figure out what the next week’s writing times will be. A schedule adds a degree of accountability (if only to yourself), and can help eliminate distractions if you actually dedicate the time to writing.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 8 (11/08)

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I’ve got this song stuck in my head, “Older” by They Might Be Giants. Except, instead of the lyrics going “You’re older than you’ve ever been and now you’re even older,” they’re going “You’re further than you’ve ever been and now you’re even further.” I didn’t write much again. D&D ran a little late and things were going so well I was unwilling to end things early. 6:30 to 11 isn’t super late, but it’s definitely later than we’ve played most days. Usually we’d play from about 6:30 or 7 until 9 or 9:30. The longer sessions are definitely nicer as a the DM, but they’re also harder to incorporate into what is a rather busy month for me…

I shouldn’t be complaining. I had a lot of fun, my players had a lot of fun, and one of the characters almost died because he got kissed by a demon (not the first time it has happened to him). I’d like to spill some more details about what they’ve been doing compared to what I’ve been planning, but all my players could theoretically read this blog post and I don’t want to tempt them with meta-gaming knowledge.

Tomorrow night, after my bills are paid, checks deposited, and laundry is folded, I will sit down and write until at least midnight. I should be able to pick up some decent progress there. I will also attempt to do the same thing Thursday night and Friday night. If I can do that, I might be able to recover my numbers to the point where I’m no longer floating around the 50% mark (pretty sure I’m below even that right now…).

I know I can do this. I wonder if that knowledge is making me over-confident? I suppose we’ll see.

 

Daily Prompt

Every character has strengths and some of them are even fully aware of these strengths. Today, write a scene in which a character not only knows and relies on their strengths, but also gets over-confident and fails because they took their ability for granted. Show them failing when they should have succeeded, not because the task was simple but because they approached it without due care.

 

Sharing Inspiration

If you’re having a hard time coming up with interesting characters, one of the best places to find inspiration (and make sure it stays only at inspiration) is on forums of table top RPGs. My personal favorite, for use as both a DM and a writer, is ENworld.org.  There are just so many wonderful resources for world building and so many well-crafted NPCs and characters lying around that it is almost impossible to browse the forums without being inspired to take your character creation to the next level.

 

Helpful Tips

 

One of the keys to “originality” is to take stuff that already exists and combine it in new and interesting ways. Find five characters you like and mash them all together, trimming off the extra bits and filling in the gaps until you have one fully solid and new character. You can even do this with plots, cultures, and even entire worlds. Mix and match until you’ve got something wonderful and new. There’s nothing wrong with taking notes from existing works or creators, just make sure that all you’re taking is notes and not entire characters or places.

NaNoWriMo Day 7 (11/07)

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Well, I’m officially further behind now. Another evening of video games (Destiny 2 and Overwatch) means little writing was done. I did a bit, thankfully, so I’ve managed to hold on to my “write every day” goal, but tonight looks like it won’t be any more productive. I’ve got D&D this evening and I realized this morning that I never actually prepared the dungeon my players are investigating. Sure, they started it last session (which was a while ago), but starting a dungeon is WAY easier to wing than doing a whole dungeon.

Because of my daily blog updates, I’m guaranteed to get writing in every day. That’s certainly helpful, but it also means that I need to write 2200 words a day to stay on schedule. More, now that I need to catch up. Given that I’ve got a lot of commitments coming up, I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to take much time on the weekend to catch up either. Part of me wants to give in because, even after 5500 words, I’m still kind of hating my story, not mention the whole “half the words I should have written by now” thing.

That being said, I feel its important to acknowledge that I hate my story because it’s about aspects of life that I find challenging. All of my reading and video game escapism is to escape exactly the things that I’m writing about. I have to go into my head, where all my worst problems exist in their strongest forms, and get close enough to them to write about them without getting so close that I get caught up by them. It’s a very fine line and, as I found out Sunday, getting caught in them has consequences that last for days.

Writing can be dangerous. I can’t try to ignore my problems if I have to walk among them. My mind is my strongest ally and my most dangerous foe. It provides me the weapons to fight back while supplying the energy my problems need to wear me down. I am my biggest problem.

This reflection on living with mental illness has been brought to you by National Novel Writing Month: “an incessant reminder that everything has a cost.”

Gee, this would up being way more maudlin than I intended.

 

Daily Prompt

Most people enjoy action. A good action sequence can take place in almost any kind of story because there’s so much than can cause an action sequence to unfold. Chase scenes, fight scenes, races of all kinds, sports, shootouts, head-to-head combat via video games, and more! Write an action scene for your character today. They don’t need to be the primary actor in the sequence, but they should be observing it.

 

Sharing Inspiration

As a not-typically-cheerful person, I’ve often struggled with our culture’s focus on the common interpretation of what the founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness.” As creators in general, we’re often not prone to being the most cheerful sorts. We all have our bouts of melancholy or severe/crippling periods of depression (Ha ha ha…). When I start to feel like the pressure to embrace this undefinable idea of “being happy,” I often turn toward The Oatmeal for my dose of cynical–often scatological–humor to remind me that life isn’t always about being happy and that, sometimes, all that matters is to feel energized and content. I suggest you check it out (this comic, specifically) if you’re struggling to feel alright with being unhappy.

 

Helpful Tips

Writing can be a difficult task when so much competes for our attention every time we sit down at our computers. If you’re having trouble focusing, I definitely recommend turning off the internet for a while. Disconnect your computer from the wi-fi or landline, turn your phone on airplane mode, and turn off any other devices. Turn off your second monitor (if you’ve got one), load up some CDs or setup your iPod, and then just get to work. Eliminating distractions can help you push to reach higher word count goals in less time.

NaNoWriMo Day 6 (11/06)

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I actually got a lot done yesterday, at the coffee shop. Boosted my numbers by about 2000, which is pretty good for writing in a public space surrounded by my friends. Typically, in a situation like that, I wouldn’t get much done at all, being too busy chatting with my friends or people-watching. But it was good. Then, when D&D got cancelled last-minute (one player had homework he needed to finish, and that takes priority), I saw the entire evening stretching out before me, tantalizing as it offered the opportunity to not only catch up, but get ahead.

So I spent the entire evening playing Destiny 2. Even the period from 10-12 that I’d planned to fill with writing. So I’m still a bit further behind that I’d like to be on day 6. At the same time, I spent most of the night awake and sick because of what is likely food poisoning. I’d love to spend my time today writing, but its been hard to focus because I’ve spent so much time feeling pretty miserable. I’ve been reduced to reading and browsing the internet and even that is hard because of all the awful stuff happening in the new. Also, the book I can’t bear to leave alone is going through a super sad and tense bit that makes it simultaneously hard to put down and hard to continue reading. If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” trilogy by Tad Williams.

Maybe I’ll just play video games or brainstorm up a bunch of writing prompts. Or maybe I should clean my room and fold laundry. I’ve got plenty to do, I’m just pretty worn out so its hard to pick something to do. Food poisoning can be really draining. Yes, that was a joke.

 

Daily Prompt

Few characters can survive on their own. Even beyond the worries of physical survival, it is difficult to show a character acting in a world without someone to react to or play off of. A good book is going to have a mix of characters whose interactions can help fuel the plot and protagonist(s) growth. Write a scene where your character spends time with someone else and either/both characters grow as a result. Show a new relationship developing or an existing one growing stronger.

 

Sharing Inspiration

One thing that gets me really excited to write is consuming other stories, through things like books, movies, TV shows, or video games. If you want a good story that’s relatively easy to work through (in terms of time), I cannot recommend either the manga “Fullmetal Alchemist” or its anime counterpart, “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” (and seriously just watch Brotherhood, don’t watch the other one… It isn’t worth it). The storytelling is absolutely stellar and the art is phenomenal. 10/10.

 

Helpful Tips

This probably counts as a little bit “cheatier” than most of the tips I’d post, but those of you doing your NaNoWriMo are probably constantly reminded to “write now, edit later.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not very good at doing that. Going back to re-read what I wrote the day before is an important part of getting myself into the right headspace to continue writing. Part of that, of course, winds up being some small amounts of editing. However, your goal for this month is to just produce 50,000 words, not 50,000 post-editing words. I use the strikethrough font styling to show words I want to later remove because, that way, they still show up in my word count. I don’t think it really matters so much for me because I’ve always finished with enough words over the goal to remove all my strikethroughs without jeopardizing my win, but if I wound up throwing out an entire section or chapter because I realized it wasn’t going to work? That could easily save me 1000-5000 words.

Remember: the delete key is forever and some things don’t need to be erased to be improved, they might just need a little more time.

NaNoWriMo Day 5 (11/05)

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As I predicted, I did not get much done yesterday. I don’t regret it, though. I really enjoyed my day and feel rested and charged for a full day of writing and then running my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. A full day of storytelling! My favorite!

I realized this weekend that I have a tendency to make a lot of time commitments. I like to fill my time with projects and things to do so that I’ve got very little time to sit around and wonder what to do with myself. I’ll admit it is definitely conscious on some level since my depression and anxiety tend to take any time that I’m not occupied and fill it with fretting and too much thinking. If I don’t have the time to sit and stew in my maudlin musings, I can avoid ruining an entire day with, as John Green quoted in a recent video, “melancholy, minus its charm.”

I often feel like I’m spreading myself thin as a result of this desire to fill my time, and that often results in me spending my time doing nothing. I hope that, since I’m more aware of it now, I can find a way to better balance my proactive time and my rest time so I can eliminate those periods of time lost to depression. There’s no time like the present. Maybe I’ll make it through an entire month without looking at my entire library of video games and sadly thinking that nothing sounds fun and I should just go to bed at 5pm.

Daily Prompt

Today, consider a situation where your character can show off their growth to someone who knew them before they became a protagonist. Show them overcoming a challenge that someone close to them thinks should have stopped them, and specifically focus on how their relationship with this person changes as a result of this person’s reaction to your character’s growth.

 

Sharing Inspiration

My inspiration is, you guessed it, this John Green video. I had the opportunity to see John and Hank Green touring for John Green’s new book, “Turtles All The Way Down” and had this amazing moment where I heard John Green walk up on stage and talk about problems I’ve struggled with for years. He came out later and told us a story about a friend of his who passed away earlier this year and a song she reclaimed for him. I’d suggest watching the video if you have not already, because I can’t improve on the way he tells the story so I’m not even going to try. It was this amazing moment for me that came at a time I’d been struggling with my own depression and invasive thoughts. He immediately followed it up with a song with his own twist. Hank played Sweet Caroline and, at the bits everyone loves to shout, everyone was supposed to be silent instead of shouting back. As he said, you never really know that everyone is participating when people are shouting but you know that everyone is participating when you’re being silent. It was this amazing moment of connectivity. It was an amazing night and it was the reason I decided to do NaNoWriMo and post every day. Because I’m here and we’re all here and sometimes it is nice to just reflect on that and embrace it as much as you can.

 

Helpful Tips

Today is day five. If you’re sticking to the NaNoWriMo recommended daily word count, you should be working on words 6,665 through 8,330. If you’re ahead, good job! If you’re behind, don’t sweat it! You’ve got 25 more days to go! If you’re struggling, try a change of scenery! Go out to a coffee shop! Find a nice, cozy library to hole up inside! Move from your writing nook down to a public area around your family/friends! As urgent as this feels, remember that life should not support art, art should support life. Don’t hide away from everything around you as you write, losing touch with the world is only going to negatively impact your writing.

NaNoWriMo Day 4 (11/04)

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Day 3 was not nearly as productive as I’d have liked. I got a little ahead in terms of posts and support, but I’ve fallen behind in word count. Today promises to be rather unproductive as well. In a certain sense, anyway. I’ve got a couple of events throughout the day and some travel to do, but I’ll have my laptop and I’ll try to get some writing done in what spare time I have. Tomorrow, though, I’ll have all day and should be able to get some real progress made. It all remains to be seen, of course.

“Writing every day is the real goal of NaNoWriMo.” I’m pretty sure that, for every day of NaNoWriMo, I can come up with a different thing to say is the real goal of the month. Really, though, there are a lot of goals. There are a lot of reasons to do NaNoWriMo. Right now, as I’m trying to pick my writing back up after way too long away from it, I think my reasons for doing it are going to be all of them.

Daily Prompt

Your character obviously has more going on than the story can tell. There must have been some formative experience in their past that pushed them to become the person they are today. What was their most important moment in their life, that led them up to the story? Write a scene as a flashback, where they reflect on that moment and how it has influenced the decision they’re about to make.

 

Sharing Inspiration

In a year where I’ve struggled to do any kind of writing, one book was enough to reach into my heart and stir my desire to create again. “Creativity, Inc” by Ed Catmull (that tells the story of Pixar and its journey from a hardware developer to the movie maker we know today) was a constant reminder of the lessons I’d learned during college about creativity and how to harness it. It also provided me with a useful reflection on how I thought about my own creativity, pushing me to reexamine my old ideations and produce new ones that better reflected my more experience look on life and more difficult creative process. If you’ve got some time to read this month, I recommend picking up a copy. If you don’t have time this month but still want to examine how you create, I suggest reading it next month or early next year.

 

Helpful Tips

Don’t forget to take breaks. Trying to cram now and get as much done as possible has value as long as you can maintain the enthusiasm, but don’t burn yourself out. Take time for something fun and don’t sweat it if you don’t do all of your day’s writing on one day. That’s why we have 30 of them. It’s okay to have a make-up day.

NaNoWriMo Day 3 (11/03)

Chris 1 Comment

 

Yesterday, I made the mistake of eating too much for dinner before settling down to work. It took almost two hours to go from having finished eating to actually productively working on something. Two long, sleepy hours of trying to decide if more caffeine or a quick nap was what I needed. Needless to say, I was quite glad I got started earlier, especially because I knew I’d need to write more blog posts ahead of time since I wanted to have a few drafts of prompts, shares, and tips prepared for the days I was going to have trouble getting reliable internet access. My writing laptop intentionally sucks at pretty much everything but playing DVDs and word processing programs.

My laptop can travel with me anywhere, but a lot of the stuff I want to do with my blog and the community I’m trying to build require the desktop/browser applications. Writing on a phone is doable in a pinch, but I’d rather have a dedicated laptop signed by my favorite authors and giving me their best instructions on how to be a writer (Patrick Rothfuss signed it and then just wrote “WRITE!” on it. Super simple stuff.).

Daily Prompt

We all enjoy stories about triumph. We all enjoy seeing characters we love succeed. In order for that to happen, however, we need to see them challenged. If we really want to see them grow, that often requires we see them fail. Today, write a scene where one or more of your characters are struggling or failing. Set the stage for a later success by showing them in a situation where they are out of their depth.

 

Sharing Inspiration

There’s a meditation technique used in various psychological care settings for returning to a calm, centered mental state while trying to work through some of the thornier types of problems. The idea is to build a place in your head that has all of the things that most relax you and then to tie it to a single word so that mentioning the word or focusing on it can bring you back to that calm place and feeling. Doing something similar is super useful for writing because relaxing and helping to clear away the mental clutter that accumulates makes it easier to get the words onto the page. If you like rain or thunderstorms like I do, there’s a wonderful website out there that can provide the perfect backdrop of sound for your writing sessions. If you want some good (video game) music to go with it, check out this playlist I made on YouTube.

 

Helpful Tips

As you get further and further into your writing, don’t forget that there is no one way to successfully write a story. To some writers, it is like a grandly designed building: everything planned out before construction starts so that everything falls into place exactly where it is needed as it is needed. To others, it is like a patchwork quilt:  entire segments are done cohesively and together, but there is no real rhyme or reason to all the parts until you start sewing them together at the end. To me, it is like climbing a mountain: I know the mountain is there and I know my goal is at the top, but the exact path isn’t something I necessarily know before hand, so sometimes I take wrong turns and need to double-back or spend a lot of time trying to overcome an obstacle before I can get back to trailblazing. You are not obligated to do it in any particular manner. Meander or make it up as you go along. Do what feels write (ha) or abandon it at the side of the road when you feel it’s not working. All you need to do is keep working.

NaNoWriMo Day 2 (11/02)

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Yesterday, I began writing. I was up late, into the early hours of yesterday, getting my community all set up and wound up feeling exhausted all day because I’m apparently an old man who can barely function on 4-5 hours of sleep. As a result, I’m a little behind where I’d like to be in terms of word count. Not too far, maybe 500 words, but far enough that I really had to struggle to decided whether going to bed was a better decision than just powering though until I reached 1,666 words. Unfortunately, the decision was taken out of my hands once I started dozing off around 11:30pm. Sometimes, I can write quite proficiently when I’m dozing off. Last night was not one of those nights.

That being said, it still felt delightful to be getting back to writing, even if I’m still not sure where my story is going or what it’s really going to wind up being about. The verb tense and narrator have changed twice so far. The person (as in, first person or third person) has only changed once so far, but I wouldn’t bet against it happening again. I’m excited to get home from work and get back to writing this story! I hope your writing efforts are starting off well!

Daily Prompt

As writers, or creators in general, we often feel we do our best work in a safe space we’ve identified. Be it a quiet office, the privacy of our bedroom, or the bubbly atmosphere of our favorite coffee shop, we all have a place we feel is key to doing our best work (or maybe even key to doing any work at all). What places does your character have that make them feel comfortable like this? How do they handle when one of these spaces is invaded? When one of these spaces is taken from them? Write a scene about your character dealing with the loss of one of their favorite places and how they try to protect or reclaim it.

 

Sharing Inspiration

I am a giant nerd. There’s no pretending that’s not true and I like to embrace it when I can. If this case, I embrace video game music from games I’ve enjoyed. Good video game music is obtrusive enough to be noticed, but not so much that it demands focus until you actively put the game aside to listen to it, at which point it reveals its hidden depths. This makes it ideal for me when it comes to writing or focusing on a difficult task. One of my favorite collects (partially for nostalgia and partially because of the variation in the music) is a one-hour video of route music from various Pokemon games. Check it out and see if it helps you buckle down and focus when your mind begins to wander away from your writing.

 

Helpful Tips

The best trick I have up my sleeve is perseverance. Write every day, even if it’s not a “full” amount. Sit down, open your notebook or word document or whatever, take a look at what you’ve got so far, and add to it. Repetition is the key to building a good habit and even a few minutes here or there is enough to keep it up. Write every day and write everywhere. Don’t skip a day because you’re busy. Bring a notebook with you or find a way to get your document onto your phone (google drive is excellent for mobile document editing) so you can write on the go. Write on breaks, between meetings, and while waiting for the bus (I don’t think any of you take the bus, but you know what I mean). Just write. As Shia Lebeouf famously said, “Just DO IT.” Or, if you’d prefer, as every author I’ve ever asked for their best advice has said: “WRITE!”

 

NaNoWriMo Day 1 (11/01)

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Hello Everyone! It has been a while since I posted. I’ve been rather busy with moving and getting over a toxic situation, along with starting something new and wonderful. But now it is November and that means it is National Novel Writing Month! As I’ve done the past couple times, I’ve given myself a challenge on top of writing the 50,000 words of a new story. This year, I am doing 50,000 words AND managing/leading a small support community of other people participating in NaNoWriMo.

Since I hate to waste, I’m going to share the tips, suggestions, and writing prompts I posted for that community on my blog every day, along with a small commentary on what I’ve been doing or how writing is going for me. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo as well, good luck and I hope some of my stuff helps!

Daily Prompt

As a Human, we have more senses than we typically consider. We wrap them up in a neat little package as “The 5 Senses,” but isn’t hunger a sense? What about how you know where all of your limbs are when your eyes are closed? How you can feel the passage of time? Today, write about your character feeling something through their senses. Pick one to focus on more deeply or make one up for them to have that no one else does and explore what’s that like for them.

 

Sharing Inspiration

This is the song that I heard today that helped me narrow the focus on my story. I’m not entirely sure how yet, but I know that I’ll figure it out as I go along so long as I get going.

 

Helpful Tips

I don’t know about you guys, but having a blank page on my computer screen, staring me down, is super terrifying. If you’re having a hard time facing down an intimidating blank page, I suggest starting your writing with a bunch of notes about thoughts you’ve had. Just jot some things down as quickly as you can. If you’re working on world-building, start a glossary. It’ll get you past the blank page AND help you keep track of important events, places, or people you mention or create. If none of these help, just find a bunch of text, copy it, and paste it into your document. Once the page is no longer so blankly white, it’ll be easier to face.

If you’re having a hard time staring at your computer all the time, or your eyes start to feel super worn, or you start getting a headache after sitting down to work, you’re probably struggle with the dreaded blue-light issue. Monitors create a huge amount of off-white bluish light that is (no joke) scientifically proven to be bad for your eyes and to negatively impact your ability to sleep. To counteract this effect, I recommend the program f.lux. It is available for free and the website is super friendly. I have this program on literally every screen-bearing device smart enough to run it. The ability to chance the color temperature of my monitors lets me work on a computer all day and them come home to more computer work without developing migraines. I highly recommend it. If you get it and want suggestions, feel free to ask.