How to Enjoy Your Writing Time More

From writerslife.org:

When it comes to writing advice, much of our time is spent learning how to get better, accepting how to take criticism, and hearing about what a struggle being in the writing game is. We read countless articles about how difficult it is to write, and how impossible it is to get published, it’s no wonder this can have an impact on how much we enjoy writing.

But if we aren’t enjoying it, what’s the point in doing it? So here are some useful tips on how to better appreciate the process of writing itself.

Forget about the end goal

When it comes to writing it’s important to enjoy the process. If you keep focusing on the end goal of getting your book published, you could end up putting yourself under too much pressure or feeling like you are setting yourself an impossible task before you even begin. So focus on the process of writing, of the pleasure of crafting your story, and you’ll enjoy it so much more.

Get lost in your world

Writing is a beautiful way to express your creativity and create worlds and characters that are imaginative and powerful, that we can use as vehicles to express ourselves. Try to get lost in your world, to tap into your most creative and imaginative self and recognize how genuinely cathartic that can be.

Start small

Remember writing is a process and if you try to do too much too soon, you’ll only end up feeling like a failure. You can teach yourself how to get better at writing, take pleasure in the practice, give yourself small goals and congratulate yourself as you improve and hit new milestones along the way.

Create a writing routine

Writing will always be a struggle if you don’t make it part of your routine. While it may be tough at first, it is so worth trying to write every day or following a weekly writing schedule to ensure you keep up with doing it regularly. Once writing becomes part of your life, it will feel natural and relaxed and become so much more enjoyable as a result. Remember, the more you do something, the easier it gets.

Have a different perspective

Instead of focusing on yourself and how much you are enjoying your writing instead why not try to focus on what you can do to make the reading experience the best it can be for your readers? This switch in perspective can make you feel as though you are doing something selfless, and in doing so you are bound to feel good about yourself and how your writing improves too.

By following the above tips you can turn writing from a stressful and pressured experience into one that you enjoy, and since writing takes time and effort to do correctly, it’s essential that you do feel positive about it in the long run, and the more you enjoy your writing, the better and more natural it will become!

What do you do to make the process of writing more enjoyable? Share your comments here!

I must admit I have been slacking a little on writing, and even trying to blog here! I really want to get back on my diary novel and begin the sequel. It's weird how I can come up with an ice and be afraid to write it down (but most people get that way, I guess). I'll admit I find it somewhat easier to get lost in the world I'm trying to create that to get it written down sometimes. I should be enjoying this, and I do, but I'm just not doing it as much as I should be. But I'm going to try harder to make it happen. I now really need to push myself. 

I'm trying best to begin without worrying about how to end the story just yet. It will come in time.

A Haunted Wedding?

I saw this picture posted on Facebook yesterday. I just had to share it.

Are they perhaps suggesting decorating a plastic skeleton in wedding attire to display on your porch for Halloween? That could be interesting.

FYI, I have not seen any Halloween stuff in stores just yet, but suspect it will be up any time soon. It's not been unusual to see such merchandise going up in August. But I'm already trying to come up with costume ideas, thanks to emails from Spirit Halloween. And I'm eager to check soon to find where the nearest of their temporary stores will be this year, even though it's been years since I've gone to and bought anything from one of these stores. I prefer to use clothing and accessories from thrift stores to make my own costumes, though I've made no decisions yet, since it's only August.

Unusual Writing Tips

From Writerslife.org:

Getting tired of reading about the same old tried and testing writing tips? Looking to try something more unusual to boost your creativity and writing skills? Try these fantastic, unusual writing tips and see if they work for you!

Go bungee jumping

OK so it doesn’t have to be bungee jumping, but doing something that gets your heart racing and adrenaline pumping can be an ideal way to get those creative juices flowing.

Write a script

Try something different and write a script or a play. Doing so will really force you to focus on the power of dialogue to tell a story and can be a great way to learn how to make dialogue more effective in our work.

Use a dictaphone

Get old school and take a dictaphone with you wherever you go, it means you can easily record anything interesting you observe as well as general musings, or those bolt of lightening ideas that may strike at any time - without worrying your pen is going to run out of ink.

Write in weird places

Don’t just sit at your desk in your home office to write, get out and about and find some weird and wonderful locations to write in. You’ll feel inspired, and no doubt discover some exciting people and places while you are at it - all excellent material for your book.

Write in the middle of the night

Set your alarm for midnight and wake up to write in the dead of night. You might find your sleepy state unlocks new ideas and allows your writing to flow, or just writing when everyone else is asleep could give you more focus and will enable you to be more productive too.

Get relaxed

OK while we shouldn’t advocate heavy drinking, lots of writers do find they are more creative if they settle down to write after a nice glass of wine! Of course, it doesn’t have to be alcohol that does it for you, anything that gets you into that relaxed and carefree state of mind will help your creativity flow.

Work backwards

It might seem unnatural to start a story at the end, but doing so can give writers a fresh perspective and a new insight into the way they write. Why not give it a try?

Read before you write

Every writer knows that reading can help inspire you and give you great ideas too. But have you tried setting some time aside to read before each of your writing sessions? Doing so could help you to get focused, get into the creative mindset and be inspired to write your very best.

These unusual writing tips are well worth trying out; they’ll help you to gain a new perspective, experiment with different techniques and have fun with your writing too!

Do any of these ideas seem unusual to you? Reading before you write certainly isn't an unusual one. I must admit I want to gt out somewhere to try writing, though I tend to forget about this idea whenever I go on a walk. It's so easy just to step outside to begin walking. An using a dictaphone, or a tape recorder--how I would love to do that if I could find one and some tapes, of course. I remember just recording nonsense onto a tape recorder. Perhaps I could dictate a whole story onto tape and then transcribe it. This might be easier than trying to write my ideas on paper, though I definitely would not make a habit out of tape-recording stories, as I can see myself getting annoyed from doing this many times. 

I'm definitely not brave enough to even think of trying to bungee jump, and wine is out for me. But if I wanted to, maybe I could try writing plays or scripts. I can easily wake up in the middle of the night without setting my alarm, though I have yet to try writing then. I now want to do it this way! Working backwards--I would never have thought of that one. Start with an ending and then work backwards as to how you came to that ending.

How many of these ideas have any of you tried or now want to try?

How to Keep Your Writing Simple

From Writerslife.org:

It’s so easy to make writing overly complicated, and one of the great dangers writers can come up against is trying to make their work expressive and creative without being overwritten.

While one might think it is harder to make writing complicated than it is to keep things simple, because writers want their readers to see, to believe and to feel everything about their world and the characters within it, it is, in fact, all too easy to create overly complicated and even confusing prose.

So how can you avoid this?

Don’t use five words when you can use one

It’s easy to use too many words when trying to describe our characters and the worlds that they inhabit. We so desperately want the reader to imagine it the way we do that sometimes we ruin it by describing things too much, not allowing them to use their imaginations, telling instead of showing and giving huge descriptions instead of choosing the best words to explain succinctly and accurately what we need the reader to know.

Don’t keep switching points of view

Change points of view over and over is only going to confuse your reader and possibly even yourself as the author! Stick to one point of view or switch character points of view when you being a new chapter.

Use time carefully

Going back and forth in time can add layers and depth to your story, however, if you choose not to keep time linear make sure you are smart and clear about it. If you keep jumping forwards and backwards in time, your reader will soon get confused and quickly lose interest.

What does the reader need to know?

When you are writing, you should always have the reader in mind. Look at what you have written and be honest with yourself about what the reader needs to know. Kill your darlings, cut unnecessary words, paragraphs, scenes, chapters and even characters if they aren’t important to your story.

Make every word count

Your book can’t go on forever; even the longest books have a finite amount of words, so it's imperative to make each one of them count. If you find yourself writing for the sake of it, or to draw out a scene to boost your word count you are almost certainly making your writing too complicated.

Use ‘he said’ ‘she said’

Many writers fall into the trap of adding unnecessary adverbs after a character has spoken. Done too many times and this distracts the reader from the story. In most cases a simple ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ will do.

These tips are ideal for writers looking to simplify and neaten up their writing. Writing that is direct, smart and interesting is so much more likely to capture readers attention than writing that is convoluted, complicated and overly descriptive. So next time you sit down to write, keep in mind these tips to keep your writing simple, straightforward and ultimately far more effective.

This came just after I edited my memoir. There were many times when I found myself cutting down words in a sentence that I found unnecessary  or repetitive, or combining two sentences to avoid overusing phrases such as "This was why..." I saw that I'd used that one quite a bit. 

Switching points of view was not an issue, since this is a memoir. Also true of a diary novel, since both are about one person. I haven't decided if I want to attempt writing from multiple points of view, which would be for an whole new novel. I've read a few such books recently and have found it interesting to see more than one character's view of the story.

"What does the reader need to know?" I have asked myself that many times while going over the memoir. I just cut a chapter that  felt was repetitive of what had been told in previous and subsequent chapters, but put moved of the information from that chapter into other chapters where I felt it would fit. 

I have been trying to neaten up my writing as well as tighten up some sentences and paragraphs, and trying not to be overly descriptive. These tips, however, came after I had begun doing such, but are still good to know.

Still More Stuff Cut Out

Yesterday during my memoir editing, it occurred to me to delete one chapter as I felt it was too repetitive of what I had already said. Some of the info contained in that chapter was moved to other chapters or to the epilogue. The page count and words count thus decreased even more. I've been printing the new chapters gradually since yesterday since I'm not sure how much paper I have for the printer and will have to get more soon. And I'm now wondering abut how much black ink I have right now.One of the things I get anxiety over while writing!

As always, I can not be certain how much more editing I need to do. But I think I've written all I want to say on the matter. Now I want to get on with my next thing, the diary sequel.

Still trying to find a title for my first diary novel, BTW. A few more that have just come to my mind:
Learning to Smile Again
A New Way to Smile

August Bookish Bingo

Click on the card to download (or right click here and save-as).

Mark up the card however you wish to claim the squares.

Here’s a recap for clarity (with specific dates for example):

AUG 3 – new bingo card available

SEPT 2 – Julie and I will post our August completed bingo cards. You can link up your bingo cards in this post

SEPT 3 – new bingo card available

OCT 2 – Julie and I will post our September completed bingo cards. You can link up your bingo cards in this post. We will also be posting the August winner of the most squares in this post.

And so on and so forth.

Here is what I am reading:

1. The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri (2 squares): Physical Book, Shelf Love
2. The Truth About Forever--Sarah Dessen (5 squares): New-to-You Author, Library Book, Contemporary, New Adult, Not in a Series
3. Girl, Interrupted--Susanna Kaysen (2 squares): Free Space, Empowered Female
4. When Life Gives You Lululemons--Lauren Weisberger (7 squares): In a Series, Woman on Cover, Pop Culture References, Past Rears Its Ugly Head, Band/Musician, Society
5. Summer's End--Danielle Steel (3 squares): Character Goes on Vacation, Steamy, Outdoor Activity
6. The Wedding Date--Jasmine Guillory (2 squares): Engagement, Food on Cover
7. Havana Bay--Martin Cruz Smith (2 squares): Suspense, Deception
8. We Are All Welcome Here--Elizabeth Berg (1 square): Audiobook
9. The Romance of Lust: A Classic Victorian Erotic Novel--Anonymous (1 square): Free Book

25 squares completed on August 30

Heavy Editing and Deleting

For two or three days now, I have been editing my memoir even more. Some  two weeks or so ago, I looked over for typos and other errors, but did not get around to correcting them on the computer until now.  I did more today than I had done in previous days. I was up to nearly 10pm last night editing, and even in the summer I have not felt compelled to start up the late. The earlier I get up in the morning, the sooner I get tired and want to get to bed. I then decided that since I knew I'd be up early this morning, I get to editing as early as possible. I ended up beginning the process for today about an hour after getting up. As such, I got a lot of it done and now only have one chapter left along with the epilogue.

I have asked myself how much to cut. It's my decision, of course, but today I did do a lot of deleting, including at least one long paragraph. I decided to edit some content that I felt I did not need. The word count and page number both have thus decreased. I've ben told the longer a manuscript is, the more turned off some people will be to reading it. But do I really need to follow this? the length should not matter more that the content, and I have been trying to delete any content I think the story could do without. Just another part of the process. 

I want to get this done by the end of this week, as I want to get it ready to send to the publishing contest at Blydyn Square Books. I'm still a little hesitant about this idea, but others have said I should give it a go. The deadline is at the end of September.