The Importance of Having Writing Habits

As we’re coming up on National Novel Writing Month (also known as “NaNoWriMo,” or as I call it, “the most stressful month of the year”), creating habits will be vital to success. A published writer once told me about writing, “If it’s important to you, you’ll find time for it.” There’s plenty of truth in that – without finding the time, the writing isn’t going to happen at all. The words are just going to ferment in my brain until it explodes and I give up on ever starting.

Even when I find time to write, though, I usually find myself getting distracted by…everything. Oh hey I should check my email. And my other email. And Slack. And Twitter. Ooh there’s a pigeon on the roof across the street! I should send a photo to my friend. Haha that’s a funny cat meme she sent back. Wait, how did an entire hour go by and this darn Word document is still blank? It’s a disaster.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, and to help myself with writing in general, I’ve spent some time developing habits over the past couple of weeks. I picked a writing spot in my house where I can be alone (the bedroom) and I turfed out every distraction I could identify. Can’t stop the pigeons from landing on the roof across the street, but oh well.

So, every day before I sit down to write, I start by making the bed. I can’t focus when there’s a job to be done that would make the room neater – I’m the kind of person who, if I have to stay home sick from school, I end up cleaning the house. But also, doing so is a mindless activity – it helps prepare my brain for writing by emptying it out. And now that I’ve been doing this for a few weeks, every time I strip the pillows off the bed, it gets the writing juices flowing. By the time it’s all tidy, I usually have a few good ideas bubbling up.

The second thing that has helped a lot is using an app that prevents me from going to time-wasting sites on my computer and phone. I use Forest, which allows me to set an amount of time I want to work and then plants a little tree that will die if I leave the app. Guilt is a great motivator for me, so this works very well. Don’t die, tiny shrub ☹

The last thing I’ve been doing is working by time rather than word count. I like to use the twenty-five on, five off method, so I get a break twice an hour. When I paced myself by word count, I had a lot of problems: I’d write bad scenes just to reach my word count, I got frustrated when I didn’t reach my count, I’d sometimes have to delete words and then I’d get set back. For me, setting timers works much better. Even if I barely write anything, I usually find that I’m prouder of one hundred words that I carefully crafted than I am of five hundred mediocre words.

There are still a couple weeks until November 1, so now is the time to start getting your own habits ready! Do you have anything that works well for you? Have any other suggestions? Leave a comment!

2018 Resolutions #1: Focus on Craft

I love New Year's resolutions. They're a great excuse to evaluate the past year, decide where I want to be at the end of this year, and figure out a game plan to get there!

I have four writing-related resolutions this year, and I'll share one every week in January. This week, I resolve to WORK ON CRAFT.

I'm not talking about grammar or punctuation. I'm talking about narrative structure, plotting, and characterization... big picture things. I want to find four great craft books and read/work through one every quarter of 2018. I love Donald Maass' THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION, and I'm going to start with re-reading and working through the exercises in that one. Then, I'm hoping to find a book about world-building (I write mostly contemporary, but world-building can be just as important in real-life settings as fantasy settings). After that, the sky's the limit - I'll see where 2018 takes me!

Are you resolving to work on craft this year? Do you have any recommendations for books on craft?

Using our Better Selves to Sort Through our Lesser Selves

As writers, we're constantly confronted with what we do well in craft, and what we don't do as well (this ratio might be higher if you're part of a critique group or an MFA program).

The thing is, most writers know what they need to fix. But the problem isn't in the knowing. It's figuring out how to execute the things we have trouble with. For example, I've consistently struggled with character development, one of the basic corner stones of any story. The gist of my feedback usually goes along the lines of, "I don't really know this character..." or "I don't really care about this character..."  or "I'm not sure what this character's motivation is..."

But I think my favorite was the most recent feedback I got from a writing instructor: "What will she sacrifice or learn about herself to meet her goals? Give the girl a STORY!"

And it's not like I hadn't thought about ways to enhance my protagonists. But even after that, I still had trouble translating them to the page.

Then it occurred to me. What if I used what I did well to help the things I didn't do as well? Used my better self to sort through my lesser self?

Like this, but much more convoluted.

I've been complimented on my world-building, so I decided to use that as my catalyst, and see how my characters were affected by the places I'd created for them.

When I did this, I discovered the following: 

My external worlds played directly into my protagonists' main motivations

Both my current works-in-progress deal with characters who feel trapped in their situations. And I realized--the settings I'd created for them had no literal windows. None.

It turned out my world-building self was trying to tell my character development self something. That these characters wanted windows. Wanted options. And I could use that to motivate their actions and move their stories forward.

My external worlds demanded that my characters take action

One reason my characters tend to fall flat is I put them in these rich worlds but don't let them do anything. It's almost like I'm afraid to give them freedom to move within the spaces I've created.

So today, when crafting a scene where my protagonist finally has to confront the antagonist, I had her speak up and be an active agent of change in her own story.

While it was harder to write because I was stretching myself to places that weren't as comfortable, it helped me get more into her head. I ended up writing a scene where she actually had to struggle (I'm also way too easy with my protagonists a lot of the time).

Instead of taking the usual advice I've heard about character development, I made it work for me by putting it in terms of world-building, something I knew inside and out.

And now, I pose the following to you all:

1. First, consider which writing aspects you receive the most compliments on.
2. Now, consider something you don't do as well.
3. Consider how you think through the thing you do well. For example, if you're good at characters, how do you build them? If you're good at plotting, how do you develop it?
4. Use this same thought process for the thing you don't do as well, and discover ways to perceive it in a newer light.
5. Apply this to your writing.  

What do you struggle with in your writing? What strategies do you use to work through challenges?