National Novel Writing Month

Dec 10th

Don’t Neglect the To-Do List

Dec 3rd

Writing Up a Frenzy

Nov 26th

Letting it Flow

Writers often complain about the act of writing. Even Charlie Brooker, columnist with The Guardian, will say that when a deadline looms he will do just about anything to keep himself from writing, until he actually has to sit down and get his copy sent in.

It’s a common complaint among writers, one only need to glance at the hash tag for NaNoWriMo on twitter to see how paricipants in this year’s National Novel Writing Month are all tweeting on this very thing. Actually sitting down and writing.

It’s much easier to sit down with a pen and paper than typing, most of us were brought up writing like that, but if like me you’re handwriting has become more like ancient hieroglyphics than an eligible grouping of letters, then this method can be the most stressful when converting it to type.

Other people suggest talking into a dictaphone and typing it out later. Having interviewed countless number of people and transcribing the interviews I can assure you this is the most tedious operation out there.

So here’s a method I have developed and have since found that it is a method employed by many writers. Letting your consciousness flow.

Preparation.

There is very little preparation. Sit down at your computer and depending on how easily you allow yourself get distracted shut down your twitter client, your web browser, your instant messagning applications, and perhaps your mobile phone (and any facebook clients, feed readers, etc.).

Also, when typing on a computer be mindful of what you use as a text editor. Microsoft Word has too many buttons and shiny things to distract you and allows you to play with formatting, that won’t be used, too much. I use a program called WriteRoom it makes the entire workspace go black except for the text, you type.

Now you can find yourself in comfortable position that for the next period of time you’ve rationed from your routine to writing, possible distractions are now lowered. The only way your computer will distract you from here on is if it’s not working properly. In that case throw it out the window and get a new one because you won’t get any writing done.

Where to start?

Whether your writing a report, a review, a feature, a screenplay, a novel a film script it’s very important to have a loose starting point. Normally with reports and reviews it’s easy to know what the theme will be. The central story is what is neign reviewed/reported so a loose stating point is clear.

But as with many of this year’s NaNoWriMo contestants, the idea was there but there was no loose starting point any many budding writers now find themselves faced with the impossible task of completing a 50,000 word novel by the 30th November. Some writers have even mentioned starting again because they ran with the wrong idea.

All I had from NaNoWriMo was an absence of distractions, my main charachter didn’t develop a name until I reached something like 17,000 words. until then I marked his name with an X, and he will remain to be called X in the first 17,000 words until I embark on draft 2.

Don’t Edit

As I just mentioned before don’t edit, editing is for afterwards, when you’ve finsihed typing. Hence why I’m leaving my main charachter with two names the one before 17,000 words and the one after I came up with one during the flow of typing.

Once you start typing, don’t stop, even if you know that you have spelled a word incorrectly, leave it there, it in all liklihood won’t be the only word that will be incorrect but that’s what draft 2 is for.

Just allow yourself enough time before a deadline to do a draft 2. Phrases, sentence structures, wording, everything can change in draft 2.

Don’t stop

If you feel you language weakening but your ideas are coming out don’t stop to consult a thesaurus that’s what draft 2 is for. Sure you’re language might be very repetative and simple but what you need to remeber is that when you start typing don’t stop until what you set out to do has been done. The comes the changes and refining.

Pace

There’s aliitle voice in all of us telling us to stop when we start with a stream of our conscious. It tells us that we said that wrong, we used the wrong word there, that paragraph should have been earlier, all those things. Remeber, just write for now, the little voice will get it’s turn once draft 1 has been complete.

Don’t be afraid

It’s natural that some people like to be steady, safe and to follow a structure. Many writers do it, and if that works for you then use it. But the next time you have writers block tory to streem your consciousness through your fingertips onto a keyboard and see what sort of a srtory comes out of you about having writer’s block.