Do you consider yourself to be a good writer? Great! Keep writing.
Do you consider yourself to be a poor writer? Hey, me too! Keep writing.
YOUR GOAL TODAY IS ONE SENTENCE.
If you can write more than that, that’s AMAZING, but if you hit your goal then you’ve hit your goal and you’re on the right track and deserve accolades for simply opening your word processor.
Don’t believe in yourself? Believe in me, who believes in you!
Sometimes all it takes is the right place to inspire your writing. For example, I had the general idea for my latest book, Cricket Song, in my head for a good few months already when something interesting happened in my life and I found myself back in Washington State, the land of my childhood. While I now consider Montana my home, I spent the first ten years of my life in Washington among the seagulls, the overcast skies and the biggest trees in the world, and it was as I was traveling over Deception Pass that I suddenly realized that this was where I needed to set the book. I wanted it to have a magical, childlike quality and what better way would there be to evoke that than to attach my own emotions and childhood to the project?
Giving the book a special location really helped to cement its themes and ideas and give it a unique flavor.
Is this something that should be applied to all of your writing projects? Not necessarily. But give it a try the next time you’re stuck or even just trying to think of a way to add to your current project. You may be surprised how much life a specific and memorable location will give to a story.
We all have our preferred writing soundtrack, but what if you need something appropriate to your scene on the fly? That’s where Songza comes in. Head over, click on Film Scores, pick the appropriate mood for your scene, and off you go. If you’re feeling fancy go ahead and take a look around the other playlists as well.
The only real downside is that the soundtracks aren’t quite as varied as I’d like and you’ll wind up with a lot of music from the same movie. Still, it’s good at grouping moods and themes together, so if you’re writing a tense standoff you’ll have some tense standoff music ready to go. Same with a major epic battle or some ominous plot twist.
P.S. I know this is terrible to say since I’ve just recently started blogging again, but I may not be around quite so much for the next few weeks since I am hosting a very special visitor. We’ll see how things go, however!
Did you know that if you write, then you are a writer? Pretty great, isn’t it?
On the flipside, though, if you do not write then you are not a writer.
Don’t be an “aspiring writer”. Just be a writer. Yes yes, I know, writing is a pain. It never stops being a bit of a pain. But I’m certain that you can manage a few sentences today. Even if no one else believes in you, I totally do!
If you need a boost today, here’s WrittenKitten. It generates a kitten image when you hit a target word count. You’re welcome.
Writing is a pain in the butt. No, really, it is. And it never stops being a pain in the butt. No wonder we put off doing it so much.
I have a way to trick yourself into it, though. Ready?
Your goal today is to write one sentence in your current project.
That’s it. One sentence. That’s easy, right? It takes ten seconds, right? Heck, it takes longer to open up Scrivener/OpenOffice than to actually write one sentence.
So go do it. Done? CONGRATS! You’ve hit your goal for the day! Great work!
…but notice now that your brain sort of doesn’t want to stop writing now that you’ve started. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Go try this method. No, seriously. Then report back to me with results.
I don’t care what you write. Fanfiction? That’s awesome. Blogs? Super cool. Original fiction? Sweet. A 200-word long short story? Just as valid.
The important thing is that you are writing. That you sat down, pushed away any distractions, and put words onto paper. …or, y’know, screen.
Isn’t that great?
We humans have this cool thing where we can express our thoughts and share it with others to read. Where we can create things.
And I dunno about you but I think that’s super awesome.
Did you write something today? Then I’m proud of you.