Tag Archives: developing discipline in writing

Write the Entire Book #amwriting

The end is nigh! NaNoWriMo 2019 is nearly over. Many books have been written, and many more are halfway done even though they have crossed the 50,000 word mark.

The truth is, ten times as many books were begun as made it to the 50,000 word mark. The reality sets in within the first week. Last year 70 writers in our region never got more than 5,000 words written.

Good first lines are critical. They have a singular duty, to involve the reader and kidnap them for the length of the book. But sometimes, the first lines are all an author has.

I know someone who began writing a novel they were exceedingly passionate about several years ago. But the first lines, introducing the characters, and the first few chapters were all that was ever written.

Yet the author of those few chapters speaks of their barely-begun book with enthusiasm as if they could pick it up and finish it any moment. When they talk about this book, it sounds so interesting; something I would love to read.

I confess I’ve become a little cynical when they talk about their plot and characters because I fear that talk is all that will ever happen. They have the entire book locked in their heads, and no one else will ever read it.

They have been stopped at the end of chapter three for five years. If they haven’t developed the discipline to dedicate an hour a day to writing by now, it’s very likely their book will never be completed.

Why does their book languish unwritten? Drama in their lives keeps them too busy to write. Once in a great while, when they’re bored and can’t find a book they want to read, they will open the file and read it. They will fall back in love with the words they have already written and talk about how they’re going to sit down and finish it someday.

But that won’t happen unless they make the time to do it.

We all have drama in our lives. For me, writing keeps the drama at arm’s length.

Participating in NaNoWriMo teaches authors discipline. You learn to write the entire book before you begin editing.

In your first draft, I recommend that you don’t spend too much time obsessing about the small things and the finer details as these will derail your work. You will never get past the first chapter if all you can focus on is writing a brilliant opener.

NaNoWriMo gives us the discipline to write the entire story as quickly as we can, at least 1,667 words a day. Once you have the entire structure of the novel laid down on paper, you won’t be left wondering where to go next, writing and rewriting the same first chapter.

When the entire story has been written, that is the time to worry about prose and phrasing. The second draft is when we write the words we would want to read.  

The second draft is when you should obsess about the opening line and first paragraphs.

If you are serious about writing, it’s necessary to read, to see how other authors begin and complete their work. It is good to read works published in your chosen genre, but to become an educated reader/author, you should look outside your favorite genre. You might find books that surprise you. You will be amazed at how much some of what you read in these new genres resonates with you even if you didn’t like the book.

This education doesn’t have to be expensive. Don’t spend your precious book purchasing funds on books you believe you won’t enjoy. Do a little advance research via the internet and then borrow the books from the library.

Published authors, whether Indie or traditionally published, have finished their work. Maybe they didn’t do as great a job as some people think they could have done, but they did finish the job.

Grand ideas about what you intend to write mean nothing if you don’t finish the job.

Do finish writing the story before you begin rewriting the first chapter.

If all you have ever written is the first chapter…over…and over…and over…, perhaps you need to set that idea aside. It may be that, at this point in your life, writing isn’t your passion, but reading is.

And without readers, there would be no need for authors.

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Time Management #NaNoWriMo2019 #amwriting

If you are planning to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, you will need to develop some time management skills.

Writing daily is easier once it becomes a behavioral habit. Making the best use of your time requires a little self-discipline.

Most of us have jobs and a family, so our time for personal projects can be limited.

First, you must give yourself permission to write.

Your perception that it is selfish will be your biggest hurdle. Trust me, it is not asking too much of your family for you to have some time every day that is sacred and dedicated to writing.

When I first began writing, I was in high school. I wrote some short stories, but mostly I wrote poetry and lyrics for songs. Later I married the bass player in a heavy metal band and began writing songs with him.

During the 1980s and 1990s, as the single mother of three children, I held down three part-time jobs. I couldn’t afford cable, so with only four channels via the antenna, TV was pretty minimal at our house. Card games, dominoes, books, and the library were our usual evening entertainment.

It was during this time that I began to write fiction seriously. We read books so quickly that the library couldn’t stock new ones in our areas of interest fast enough for us. So, when my children were doing their homework, I sat in front of my second-hand IBM Selectric typewriter and pecked out fairy tales to read to them.

In the summer, I did that while they watched videos or played Super Mario et al., on the old Super Nintendo.

That gave me at least one hour every night in which I could write, sometimes more. Yes, I did have to help with some of their homework but having me there, typing away next to the gerbil cage seemed to keep them on track, and I did get several pages written every night.

It was all crap, but I made it sound better when I read it aloud to them.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was developing discipline and a work ethic in myself as well as in my children.

Two of my daughters write fiction as well as holding down jobs and raising families. All five of our kids are hardworking adults who are raising families and who also have an artistic life in music or writing or both.

Having an artistic life means you allow yourself time to create something that is meaningful to you.

The following is a list of ideas to help you carve the time to write  and still be a full participant in your family’s life.

  1. You must decide what is more important, your dream of writing or watching a television show that is someone else’s dream. Do you want to create, or do you want to be entertained?

Personally, I would say that if you didn’t like the way Game of Thrones turned out, too bad.

It was George R.R. Martins creation, and he did it his way. He has written more than thirteen novels, numerous short stories, novellas, and too many screenplays for me to count.

GRRM did all that by sitting down and writing every day. He is an award-winning author because he makes the time to write despite his heavy schedule as a speaker, screenwriter, and editor.

So, don’t waste your time complaining about how George did it and don’t bother searching for a replacement show. Write your own Game of Thrones and do the way you think it should have been done. Writing fan fiction is a great, time-honored way to start your writing career.

  1. You have the right to take an hour in the morning and the evening to use for your own creative outlet. Get up an hour early and write until the time you would normally get up. That will be the quietest time you will have all day. Give up that 9:00 p.m. TV show and write for one more hour. There are your 2 precious hours.

If you use those two separate hours for your stream-of-consciousness writing, you could easily get your 1,667 words written every day, possibly more. I am a slow keyboard jockey, and I can do about 1,100 wonky, misspelled words an hour during NaNoWriMo.

But they ALL count, misspelled or not.

  1. Write for five minutes here and ten minutes there all day long if that is all you can do. Every word counts toward your finished manuscript.
  2. I took my lunch to work and wrote during my lunch half-hour whenever possible.
  3. I also wrote on the bus when I didn’t own a car.

You don’t have to announce you are writing a book if you don’t wish to—I certainly didn’t feel comfortable doing so. If you want to spend your lunch time writing, politely let people know you’re handling personal business and won’t have time to chat.

Some offices will allow you to use your workstation computer for personal business, but most of my places of employment frowned on that. I brought a notebook and pen as I didn’t own a good laptop. By writing down all the thoughts and ideas I had during the day, I had a great start when I finally did get a chance to write. If your work allows, bring your laptop or your iPad/Android. So you don’t get into trouble with the boss, sit in the lunchroom (if you have one).

You can also set aside a block of time on the weekend to write, though that can be difficult, as setting aside an uninfringeable time on a weekend can become a hardship, especially if you have a young family. This is where getting up early for that one quiet hour can really keep your story flowing out of your head and into the keyboard/notebook.

Writers and other artists do have to make sacrifices for their craft.

It’s just how things are. But you don’t have to sacrifice family for it. Sacrifice one hour of sleeping in, and sacrifice something ephemeral and unimportant like one hour of TV.

By  writing in short bursts whenever you have the opportunity, you might get your first draft finished, and get that certificate that says you completed 50,000 words in 30 days.

But more importantly than any winners certificate, you will have created something special, something unique that is a piece of your soul, your intellectual child, as it were.

A novel is nothing but an idea and the discipline to sit down and write it from start to finish.

Inspiration and self-discipline—that ability to start and finish a project that began as an idea, a “what if,” is what creative writing is all about.

You can achieve your goal of 50,000 words in 30 days if you give yourself permission to create and make the time to do so.

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The habits of productive writers #amwriting

I am friends with many productive writers, people who publish two or more good, high-quality books a year. One thing they have in common is discipline. They have a grip on time management. They understand that if you set aside a block time that is just for writing, it becomes less of a chore. It becomes part of your daily routine, habitual. Some writers have office hours, others must carve time outside work and family obligations.

Productivity is relative. I feel productive if I publish one book a year and sell a short story or two.

I write every day, and I also work on other aspects of book production every day. But I am not prolific. I always have several manuscripts in various stages of completion, which is why I can get one out the door every year, even though it takes me four years to write them.

Barbara Cartland dictated over 700 novels, and her secretary typed them up. In 1976  she published 23 novels. I think that’s crazy dedication to the craft, and I don’t have that many ideas, lol! Productivity depends on what you decide you want to achieve for your writing career.

Author Simon Wood writes to an outline. He publishes regularly, but not as often as some authors do. He gets at least one book published every year, sometimes two. Simon keeps to his production schedule, which is why he publishes regularly. He was kind enough to talk about how he plots his novels for my post in September of last year, Author Simon Wood on Plotting. In that post, he offers some awesome advice on how he uses pre-planning to keep the momentum going.

For Indies, writing involves more than just laying words on paper. It requires a work ethic and the commitment to doing the dirty work as well as the fun stuff.

  • We must find time to write,
  • Find editors to work with,
  • Carve out time to make revisions,
  • We format our books,
  • Arrange for cover art,
  • Arrange for tablespace at conventions and book signings, and market promotions and appearances.
  • Purchase swag (I use bookmarks as my business card) to give away, banners to dress up the booth, and make sure we have a reasonable stock of hardcopies of our books to sell at personal appearances. (Yes – we do have to pay for this.)

Each of these tasks requires discipline, sitting down and doing it.

It’s a time consuming business, and while you are doing these things, you aren’t writing. SO that must be fit into the process too.

Goals are good.

Many authors set deadlines, arbitrary dates for each aspect of the book to be finished. Be warned—to achieve your deadlines, you may have to establish firm boundaries to limit incursions into your writing time by friends and family members.

Consider establishing a dedicated working space—someplace where you aren’t bothered by the TV or ambient neighborhood sounds. Also, it should be strictly off limits to others, if possible. This will protect your files.

  • Finish the work, whether it’s a novel or short story.
  • You aren’t productive if you never finish the work.

One final thing I’ve noticed—productive authors are also dedicated readers. As a young adult I read every sci-fi or fantasy novel that came out in paperback, budgeting for books the way others of my acquaintance budgeted for beer. I’ve never stopped reading and researching great literature.

Reading for entertainment is my happy place. In the old days I jonesed for new books by the great ones, Anne McCaffrey, Jack Chalker, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, and Roger Zelazny, reading and rereading them until they were shreds held together with duct tape. Now I have the Kindle eReader and I still read two or three books a week.

Self-discipline and love of reading are common traits that the most productive authors of my acquaintance have in common. Realistic expectations and the ability to set goals and achieve them are also common traits.

We will be talking with two highly productive authors about how they work over the next few posts.

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