Write With Me!

This is my low point...so what?

First drafts are not meant to be good, let alone perfect. Keep writing, don't listen to that inner critic. Everything gets fixed later. Now, during the draft writing, your task is to get your ideas and thoughts down on paper. That's it!

You don't have to write in chronological order! If you feel inspired, feel free to write a scene that comes later (or earlier) than where you happen to be in your timeline.

Stay the course! Keep writing! The first draft isn't your best work! You can do it! If writing were easy, everyone would be an author!

Every protagonist exhibits strengths or weaknesses in: proactivity, relatability and competence. Figure out their strengths and lean on them; determine their weaknesses and show their growth.

As you write your first draft, it's helpful to consider the role of plot. Not only in how it moves your story forward in a rewarding way but how it's essential to make sure that each scene is serving both the "little p plot(s)" and the BIG P PLOT.

There is nothing new in the zoo today, just a discussion of the fundamentals of getting your first draft completed. From consistency to outlines to character generation, I discuss the various topics that I've been keeping in mind as I press on to complete my first draft.

This is it, the last day of daily podcasts! We now shift to weekly episodes where I will spend 10-15 minutes talking about things I've learned about the craft of writing. But I won't get too technical, after all just getting a story down on paper (or digitally) is the aim of a first draft. But the day will be coming when we need to edit this draft so we may as well start the conversation a...

Ever notice that movie credits have a "Story by" and a "Screenplay by" or "Written by" and these can each be attributed to a different person? How can that be? Isn't the storyteller the writer? Not always, sometimes the storyteller is simply the person that comes up with the idea and someone else gets does the actual writing. Well, if we think of it that way, this...

A quick and easy reminder to get your 5 minutes done today and make sure to figure out how to get it done consistently on the weekends (if that's an issue for you as it is for me).

I'm getting excited not only for the upcoming writing duration increase but also for some tips and tricks when it comes to effective storytelling, which I'll dole out in bits and pieces soon!

I am locked and loaded, how about you? I'm excited to test out my 5-min schedule with a 15-min schedule soon. Those words are going to really fill up the pages!

I will discuss again towards the end of this week but I'm thinking about implementing 2 rules for when we bump the writing time up to 15 minutes per day (for me only, you can adopt only if you want to): 1) 15 min is a minimum 2) if you happen not to write on a day, don't sweat it, skip it and move on.

This is it,final week of daily podcast episodes which means that we are getting ready, soon, to shift to longer writing sessions and weekly episodes. For now, continue to focus on finding a habitual time to do your 5 minutes of writing.

It's the weekend and I struggled to find a time to write...again! I'll figure it out, I hope you are having better luck.

I did some quick math on how many words you may have written over the past 23 days. And it's not nuthin!

Habits, habits, habits. The most critical part of finishing a first draft is to write as consistently as possible. Day 22, let's fo!

3 weeks in, have you got your writing schedule nailed down? I have weekdays completely figured out, still have this weekend to experiment.

Mission accomplished but I don't like my outline. It isn't giving me the confidence that I am moving the story in the right direction so I'm gong to take some time to speed read my draft and come up with an updated outline.

I did a rare thing and wrote this morning during breakfast. And it actually felt fine! At least now I know that I have an optional writing time if I don't want to write at noon.

It finally happened, I forgot to write for 5 minutes. I thought I did but clearly I didn't. Seems the weekends are still an issue for me.

I did not write at breakfast I did not write at lunch. But I did write before making dinner. This seems to be shaping up as my optimal weekend writing time.

Don't like what you are writing? Doesn't matter. Don't like your choices in adjectives or adverbs at the end of dialog? Doesn't matter. Feel like you are just writing for writing's sake? Fine. We are still trying to establish a daily rhythm. So get writing!

With 2 weeks to go, have you found your writing time yet? Get after it!

The writing is starting to feel automatic, what about you? It seems that all it took was 14 straight days of writing to settle into a groove and I hope you are starting to settle into your own rhythm, too.