Tag: lessons

Day Five: Menu

When I was more active and doing things in certain communities, I went to a ramen and sushi restaurant with a bunch of colleagues. One gentleman opened the menu, closed it, and ordered Shrimp Tempura.

I ordered curry, because I was afraid of making a mess and splashing everyone around me if I ate ramen.

Later we learned the gentleman got a menu in full Japanese and ordered what he wanted anyway.

I ordered because I was scared. Perhaps I need to take a lesson from that gentleman, and take more risks.

Writer Life Lesson #8: Work at Your Own Pace

Writing is hard. A lot of readers just think words on a page means instant book, but we writers know that is far from the truth. Writing takes editing, editing takes time and rewrites. Words rarely end up on the page and stay where they are in the first draft. Sometimes, the whole process of writing can be exhausting.

This week’s lesson is: Work at Your Own Pace

This month, I am working on Camp NaNoWriMo, and to be honest, it’s not going as well as I would like. I am supposed to be writing at least 1667 words a day, and my average for the first week is much lower than it should be. But I am not here to complain about how my novel is going this month.

Working at your own pace is important. Sure, some writers write a complete novel in a month, edit it the next month, rewrite the month after that, and on and on until they have a complete novel. That paces is just dizzying to me. Some months, I can barely even get 1000 words on a page let alone 1 word. Some months, days, and even years can just be plain hard. The usual advice is “Write Every Day” or “Write Through Your Doubts”, but those are general tips, by authors and bloggers that don’t know you personally.

There are instances where it is better to write at your own pace. I can think of several instances that I can think of where waiting and not forcing it is much better for my writing. There are several instances where if I had rushed it, the work would suck and need so much more editing later.

Sometimes writing is easy, but a lot of the time it’s not. Some days writing is the hardest thing in the world, and that is totally ok. Writing every day is best to build a routine, but it doesn’t always work. So try your best to write daily, but some days it just doesn’t happen.

When it doesn’t happen, don’t beat yourself up. There will be days, or sometimes even weeks, sometimes longer where you don’t write. When that does happen, try to figure out why you can’t or don’t want to write. Sometimes it’s as easy as “I am stressed” or “I am more interested in doing something else”. One that I face occasionally is “I don’t like where I left off on that page” or “I don’t know whay words to put down”. If you can’t find a reason or it’s just not happening, try and think about where you want to go with your piece or a scene that you want to write and jump around.

If none of that works, try writing one simple sentence. Whatever comes to mind, story related or not.

Happy Writing!

What is your general writing pace?

If you are participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, how is your word count looking?

Writer Life Lesson #4: Write Now, Edit Later

Writing is hard work. On the good days, it’s like playing god in your own little universe, on the bad days, it’s like babysitting spawn from hell. Most of the time it all depends on the words we put (or don’t put) on the page. Writing should come easy. Put word after word until you have a sentence, then a paragraph, then a page, and so on and so on until you have a novel. HA! If only it was that easy!

Sometimes, we make writing harder than it has to be. We struggle with what words to put down on the page, what mood we want them to set, and what order we want them in. Sometimes, we put words down, and cross them out, or backspace until the page is blank yet again. Some days, it’s a wonder we get words down at all.

So how do we rectify this? Easy: Write Now, Edit Later

This lesson comes at the perfect time. The first session of Camp NaNoWriMo starts in April, and writing first and leaving the editing for later is what Camp NaNo is all about. The point of Camp NaNo, and its parent site NaNoWriMo is “literary abandon”. I take this literally to mean “write whatever comes to mind on that page and edit when that piece is done”.

So enough about Camp NaNo (There will be a post about that later this month), let’s talk about how to turn off the “inner editor” and just write.

Set a Goal- Well, look who’s talking about goals again! Laugh all you want, roll your eyes, whatever. Setting a goal works. What works best when having goals is setting one that almost seems out of reach. For some of us, that’s 2000 words and for others that’s 100. No judgement here, some days I can’t even get 5 words down, let alone 2000. So why a goal that seems just out of reach? If the goal is too easy, there is no challenge. If the goal is too hard, you will easily get discouraged. So finding the middle ground will motivate, but not discourage you in your writing endeavors.

Write as Much as You Can- Writing and writing skills, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, is a muscle. If you write as much as you can, you build that muscle and writing becomes easier, and you learn that your editor can take a vacation and you don’t have to doubt the words on the page. It might be difficult, but with time it will get easier.

When you start writing and just writing, saving the editing for later, you get more writing done and you start to finish more projects. When you write without the editor looming over your shoulder, you can enjoy your writing again, and it doesn’t have to be such a chore.Isn’t that what we all want from writing?

How do you silence your inner editor and write now?