My series for NaNoWriMo on drafting a story continues! My second week of posts delves into some of the more practcal considerations around how to write a story, as well as some motivation for you when you feel like giving up:

• Day 7: What if my writing sucks?
  • The trick is to make it suck deliberately, so you’re not an anxious mess about it.
• Day 8: But what if my idea sucks?
  • It's probably not the idea itself that's the problem, but the way you're writing about it. Here are some practical things to think about to help you approach your idea in a more deliberate way.
• Day 9: Character arcs
  • The way I get into stories is through character arcs, because a story doesn’t happen unless it’s happening to someone, or being told through someone’s eyes. Without a perspective to frame things, there is no story.
• Day 10: Plot
  • Many people confuse 'things happening' with 'plot'. Events =/= Plot. If you learn nothing else from me, learn this.
• Day 11: Setting
  • Your setting can reflect your charcters' internal states, enhance interpersonal struggles, and can cause struggles for your characters to overcome. In some cases the setting becomes a character in itself!
• Day 12: Inspiration
  • Some places I like to go when I'm looking to get out of my own head and motivated to write.
• Day 13: Avoiding the info-dump!
  • Fanfiction has lessons to teach us as writers, and one of those lessons is how to skip the info-dump when you're writing.

I hope you find something useful in these posts, and remember, if you'd like to hire me to be your writing cheerleader and help you finish your story, please check out my writer coaching page and book a mentoring session through my ko-fi!

I'm here to help!

Some of you might already know that November is National Novel Writing Month. Since I already write 15-20k worth of words every week between all of my outlets, I decided instead of setting myself the goal of writing 50k towards a novel in November (the goal of NaNoWriMo), I'd set myself the goal of writing a post every day helping you get there!

Many new writers stumble over ideas of what's 'right' or 'wrong' in writing. Here's a hint: there's no right or wrong. It's whatever works for you. And, most importantly, it's remembering that writing is not editing. They might be related, but when you're trying to get ideas onto the page you cannot also be criticizing yourself, or else you'll never get that story written.

It's okay to write messy, and edit later.

My series of posts is being published on Tumblr, which is a blogging platform I really like! I'll be doing a roundup of my posts there each week, so you can pick and choose what you want to read. If you want to see everything I've written so far on that blog, you can visit my archive. You can also ask me a question through my ask form, and I'll answer it on the tumblr!

Finally, without further ado, my roundup from my first week of posting:

• Day 0: What is a story?
  • A story is a retelling of events that shows a change in the main character. That's it.
• Day 0.5: What's not a story?
  • Some examples from fanfiction, and why not every type of writing needs to be a story!
• Day 1: Where do good ideas come from?
  • They come from you. The trick is to get out of your own way.
• Day 2: How do I pick which idea to write?
  • Try to be as uncritical as possible. Your brain has so many good ideas already, you just need to let them out.
• Day 2.5: Sample brainstorming session
  • I show a sample of my own brainstorming process, and discuss a possible story that I could write based on my idea generation process.
• Day 3: Outlining (pantsing vs plotting)
  • What are pantsers? What are plotters? Why should you be both?
• Day 4: What about research?
  • Two letters: TK.
• Day 5: Outlining (part II)
  • More about how to plan your story to make sure you're hitting the emotional points you want to hit along the way!
• Day 6: How do I get started writing?
  • There's no trick to it. To start writing, you just start writing.

I'll share the next batch of posts next Wednesday, but until then, if you want to you can go ahead and follow me on Tumblr or on Twitter so you can get my posts every day!

i do a lot of other things that i'm guessing you don't expect a 'real' writer to do. for example, i'm rewriting my fanfiction as original fiction.

right now. at this moment.

what? isnt't that... derivative? yes. yes it is. but here's the thing. art is derivative. it has to be. art that's in conversation with nothing is lifeless.

whatever gets you to put words on the page is a good thing. you can worry later, once the work of creating something out of nothing is done. for me, posting directly to a professional blog, with all the associations it entails, is a bridge too far for my anxious mind, so i'll share it to the void of my favorite social media platform first.