Yes, it’s that simple. There are so many writers that want to make the merge to title “author”, but never achieve their dream. Why? Their work not good enough? Their characters not likable? Nope, because they don’t write.
Writing is fun to talk about. Sometimes plotting is fun to do or doing a lot of character development can sidetrack you. Talking about writing, plotting and character development is not going to get your published. Once again, writing is going to get you published.
I am all about the excuses when it comes to my writing. I don’t know enough, so I need to focus on reading everything that I can about writing and THEN writing. WRONG!!! While it is great and can be very helpful to not only study craft books, but also the craft of your favorite writers, it can be detrimental to your writing. When you are reading, you are NOT writing.
Also workshops can cause some major problems. When I first started to write, I took ten to twelve workshops and believed that “this” workshop would make my writing better so that I could get published. Again, WRONG!!! Workshops are amazing, especially for growth and learning from your mistakes, but too many, deletes any time in the day that you have work writing. I learned this the hard way.
So what are some tips to help you get writing? I’ve learned as a hard lesson, because I haven’t been writing nearly enough. I just keep restarting the same darn old story again, when I just need to finish the darn thing! Then it’s called revision, which a whole new blog topic. If and when I ever hit that stage, I’ll write about it. :)
I have done some Internet surfing to find some of the best ways to get you writing:
Write everyday. Yes, every single day. Even if it is only 100 words, it’s 100 words more than you’d normally have.
- Set a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly goal.
- Be realistic. We all lead crazy busy lives with things like health problems, sudden surprises, chores, jobs, etc. that tend to absorb a lot of our time. Again, committing to 100 words is doable in pretty much any situation.
- Find a writing support group - and use them. I have been bad with that. A writing support group is there to cheer each other on through the good times and bad times. If possible, meet a few times a week for an hour or two and sprint. That means type as many words as you can within that time frame without interruptions. Sometimes doing it alone is just too much and a cheerful support group is just what the writing doctor ordered.
- Do not go back and edit the scenes, chapters, etc. that you already wrote the day or time before. This is my major problem because I am a perfectionist and I keep tweaking and tweaking, or I throw about that scene or chapter and never move on. Read the last three or four lines or write a brief sentence at the end of your writing to job your memory of where you left off. Then start writing fresh and new words. If you keep rewriting and revising your previous writing then you may never get past Chapter 1.
So that’s all the tips that I have, but if you have any great tips, please feel free to share them.
Thanks for reading!
RJ
1 comment:
BICHOK - Love it!
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