Writers’ doubt and how to live with it
Doubt is normal. All writers have it, get it, live with it. Published, unpublished, still thinking about doing it and/or starting it one day. But when it strikes, and I’m not talking about the little itty bitty strikes of ‘oh, perhaps if I change this one word, oh, yes that’s it, it’s perfect’, I’m talking […]
Finishing and the writing diet
Stephen King was right. I was re-reading his book ‘On writing’ and he talked about getting the first draft of a novel done as quickly as possible and in one go because the longer it took, there would be loss of momentum, loss of attachment with your characters and their plight and everything would become […]
Struggling to finish
I remember doing one of those personality tests years ago and I remember ignoring the results. It was something like…I was good at starting and investigating things but poor on completion i.e. finishing. So when I struggled to finish the second draft (second attempt at second draft) of my second novel (note: first novel still […]
Time to write, Time to blog
I haven’t written a blog post in many months. I did however complete one novel and begin another. So the question I’m asking is if authors of years gone by didn’t spend their time on social media, why was that such a bad thing? I already know the answer to my own question. The market […]
The positives of procrastination
The byline of this blog is simple ‘Writing and the art of procrastination’ and yet I’m loath to admit that I get more productive after I’ve procrastinated a bit. After all, we’re supposed to be productive all the time, you know, bang out the 5000 plus words of our target before lunch. Every day. Simples. […]
Tackling writer’s block
We can spend days, weeks, months, or years blocked as we get through our novels. Some of it could be due to not knowing. Not knowing how to write, not knowing how to craft a novel, not knowing what happens next… In a previous post I wrote about being stuck, the responses that came out […]
When writing stops in turmoil
Up to last Sunday, I always found that my writer’s block came from within me, from a fear of not being able to write or writing properly or writing wrong or the wrong thing or the constant interruptions of everyday life that jolts me out of the writing routine, but now I add another one […]
Getting over the initial fear
Getting over the initial fear of putting pen to paper, placing my fingers onto the keyboard, opening up the last draft, checking my notes, starting the corrections, adjustments, editing my work, working on the millionth (it feels like it) revision of a chapter or a scene, some days feels like the hardest thing in the […]
First novel going nowhere? Write another one.
If your first novel is driving you demented, stop and write a second novel. Even the act of writing the first draft of a second novel can be liberating. It tells you that there is more than one story inside you and you have the capability to produce it. Now it doesn’t mean that you […]
Struggling to revise
Revision is tough. I’ve done very little over the last week, couldn’t write at all for four days. Felt bad. Tried to be positive. Did not work. I’d decided to aim for a target of 10,500 words to be revised every week and I’m not making that target. My aim was to complete the second […]