The Write Stuff

Day Nine

It has only been nine days into November and I feel like I have written over a million words. I have around about twenty columns all ready to go, I just have to do some tweaking. While I am not writing for this blog (or reading other blogs) I am furiuously writing my NaNoWriMo novel. What is this you say? This is a fantastic writing experience. You start a novel November 1st and write 50,000 words by end of that month. This is my second time and I am really excited with the amount of content I have been pulling out. I encourage you to check out the site. If you want to be a writer this the perfect way to practice. They have a great support group, lots of fun articles and a way for people to interact. I decided to join up on a message board to get to know some people and to share experiences. Check out their site for more info: NaNoWriMo

Last Saturday afternoon some of the board members decided to meet up at Borders. We were short in number but it was well worth attending. There were six people and we all shared our word count and what our stories are all about. There are two murder mystery/crime novels, two fantasy books and one comic book novel. Can you guess which one was I? Yup, I am all about the superheros. Every author was passionate about thier work which in turn makes me more excited to get some typing done.


Left to Right: Tyler, Kyrie, Destiny, Justin and Liz.

We plan on meeting once a week to share ideas, get feedback, express frustrations and of course to write! I think this will be a rewarding experience for me and everyone involved. It will be neat to see how our work improves.

Staying motivated and on target is not as easy as one thinks. Even if you feel like you were born to write it can be difficult to keep up. So what keeps me going? Here are 3 things that help me write. You may find these helpful.

1) Surround yourself with writing:
Hearing other writers talk about writing really motivates me to do my own writing. That is the biggest reason I decided to go to the meetup. Having someone share your passion and goals help. You can also find interviews or read/watch biographies of your favorite writer. One of my favorite quotes comes from the musical Evita: "Sometimes it's very difficult to keep momentum, if it's you that you are following."

2) Write what you want, when you want.
Now this doesn't necessariliy help too much if you are writing for NaNoWriMo, when time is a factor but the principals apply. I write what interests me at the moment. If you hit a writing wall and become stuck, write a different scene. Even if that scene is far in the future of your current point. Act the scene out if you have to. Want to know my little secret? Sometimes when I get stuck I talk the dialogue through to myself but what helps me the most is one of my old GI Joe action figures. I will dig him out and pose him out and use him to play out the story. I often repeat scenes as well, so I get the perfect dialogue. I cannot believe I just admitted that! But it works. Also take time out to brainstorm. If nothing works and you are stuck, forget about the word count. Take the day off and brainstorm. You can easily make up what you lost.

3) Music.
Music really helps me pump out the words. I try to avoid songs that have singing in them because I usually end up singing along and not typing. I listen to a lot of movie soundtracks. Especially if I am writing an action sequence. I have a playlist on my iPod that is my favorite soundtrack songs and I put that on repeat. Lately I have been into E.S. Posthumus's Cartographer and Elliot Goldenthal's Alien 3. Both fantastic soundtracks, Alien 3 is very underrated. Any music that makes you write is good, you don't have to listen to stuff that I do. Anything that helps you get in the zone!



You can click on the pic above if you are curious to see what I listen to.

Hopefully this makes you want to complete your novel or to keep up with the 365 Blog Challenge. Now I better get going and crank out some content for my novel.