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soldouthaz · 4 years ago

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hi!! these past few months i’ve gotten several asks about all different parts of my writing process and i thought i’d go ahead and make a full post that i can refer people back to in the future! with the fests coming up as well hopefully it may help someone because i know i always love reading about author’s processes! feel free to let me know if i’ve forgotten anything :)

DISCLAIMER: this is MY writing process. these are my own opinions and maybe not methods that will work blanketly for everyone. writing is different for every person and you should always do what works best for you personally!

this post will be split into four parts - before, during, after, and other tips and things to remember :)

inspiration & idea

this is typically either the easiest or the absolute most difficult part of writing a fic. sometimes you begin with an exact idea and other times you want to write but have no idea where to start. personally i tend to draw inspiration from a few places in particular. writing prompt and dialogue blogs, although sometimes a bit cliche, are a huge help when trying to come up with ideas for scenes and outlines. these are some good ones – here, here, and here if you need some inspiration! pinterest and weheartit are also great places to search for inspiration both before or after you’ve settled on an idea. find an aesthetic you like and base the characters around it, do some world-building, create folders for your characters - this is a good place to reference back to while you’re writing! at this point i just try to pick something that i feel like ‘calls to me’ and leave the rest for later. the last avenue that i use to think of fic ideas is real life. i think of small things that have happened to me or to someone i know and make them much more dramatic and layered. add in some fluff or angst or whatever aspect fits and usually a storyline begins to carve itself!

outline

once you have an idea, making an outline can help you figure out if it’s going to work for you or not. nailing down the important details and plot points before you begin writing is crucial so that you have a purpose to your scenes, so that things don’t feel repetitive or pointless. when i outline i tend to organize by word count. for instance, by the 5k mark let’s say i’d like to already have established what character A does for a living and some of their interests, and i’d like character B to be vaguely introduced. by 10k i’d like the characters to have formed a friendship and for the conflict to have been introduced, so on and so forth. the plot spacing may differ based on the goal word count for a fic (do things happen quickly or is it a slow burn? etc.).

next I make a tentative timeline for the fic. I have to give myself sufficient time to plan and to write without rushing myself, but also make it reasonable enough that i can still look forward to it! writing takes different amounts of time for different people, but the more you write the more you’ll be able to estimate how long a certain word count is going to take you to complete. also, as far as advice goes, decide if you’re going to write everything and publish at once or if you’re going to upload weekly chapters, etc. i strongly recommend publishing a full work at once. typically people shy away from unfinished works and it can be very disheartening when there are almost no reads. publishing all at once will raise the chances of your fic being read and shared and will also help you as a writer not to make mistakes because you are able to go back and fix/edit certain plot points as you write.

organization

if you have more than one wip at a time, it can be really helpful to have some sort of organization in place. i write primarily in google docs, so i have one master doc with all of my wip information inside of it. i use a numbered chart (the docs themselves are titled with numbers only and correspond to the number in the chart) that has the tentative title, the goal word count, the current word count, which pov i plan to write from, and an estimated posting date. you can also limit the number of wips you have this way.once a work is published i move it from my wip list to my completed list, with the title, the final word count, and a link to the posted story. this part is optional, it just helps me to be able to see all of it in one place. i’ve found this method to be much more helpful than just making random notes on my phone that i forget about within the hour!

research

depending on the topic of your fic and the setting, you may need to do some research beforehand. if it’s historical, I brush up on the history of it and watch some films or read some books about the time period to get a feel for the vernacular and style, etc.. if the protagonist has a job i’m unfamiliar with I search up what they do, how much they make, where they work, and things like that. it’s unlikely that someone is going to fact check every little thing, but accuracy when it comes to these topics is very admirable and i feel like it really adds a lot of depth and authenticity to a fic.

another fun activity for this portion of planning is designing the characters. i try to do this for a lot of mine and experiment with personality traits, quirks, and appearances, and to create a character that feels layered as opposed to just surface level. it’s fun for me to figure out their morals and motives and opinions and to play around with those and see if they can be changed throughout the course of the story. an interesting activity here is to take personality tests from what you think they would answer about themselves! then, even if only subconsciously, your character now has interests and hobbies and feels more real, which will definitely show through when you write. there are some for you to take here, here, here, and here, and this is also a good resource.

atmosphere

(meaning in real life, not the setting of a fic). i tend to produce what i feel is my best work at night, after dinner when i have nothing else to do for the day and i can just relax. having a designated time and space to write really helps with motivation and focus, and can be the difference in accomplishing your time goals for the fic. feel free to try different things like adding music while you write (i write with headphones in and music blasting!) and adjust your surroundings to your liking. put on noise cancelling headphones, stop the clock that keeps ticking in the background or turn up the floor fan to drown other things out, or play some ambience videos from youtube to help you focus. whatever works! sometimes i also create playlists for my fics that i listen to while writing them which can add some more depth to the story too! being comfortable and not distracted are my two main requirements. also, unless it’s for music or research purposes, i would suggest distancing a bit from your phone as well!

word vomit

this is one of the most frustrating parts of writing but i can’t explain how many times it’s helped me, especially when i’m trying to reach a certain word count. i like to do an exercise when i don’t know what to write or i just have a vague idea where i sit down and just write. i don’t let myself backspace anything (unless it’s a small typo or something minor like that) and i just see where i end up. the reason why this is so helpful is because a lot of times subconsciously our brains already have some kind of idea of a direction to go in or what should be included. though this rough draft almost never makes it into my final piece and frankly doesn’t make much sense, i’m able to go back and read over it and think oh! that’s a good point, i can also write about [random plot point] here! as i think of it.

dialogue

the very first part of a scene that i write is the dialogue. personally i find it the easiest, and it helps me make a skeleton of a scene where i only have to fill in the descriptions in between. most of the time getting the dialogue written can help to visualize a scene and make conversation flow easily when you aren’t distracted with everything else going on in the scene. a lot of times if you’re focused on what a background character is doing the actual speaking may end up choppy or not make sense when you’re finished with it, which is usually my issue. this method is a good idea to use if you find yourself stuck on a scene or if you don’t know what you want the setting to be yet. if the dialogue you wrote doesn’t fit just right once you’ve added in the rest of the scene, you can always alter it to your liking.

taking breaks

this is the key to staying motivated for me. if i push myself too hard or write for too long i get frustrated and struggle to keep the flow going. it’s important to take a break when that happens because it becomes very obvious in your writing when you aren’t inspired. you’re more likely to take the easy way out of conflicts and dialogue and it could completely change the tone of the fic. by this i don’t mean procrastinate writing, but definitely make sure not to over-write. writing should be fun, not stressful.

similar fics

this step is 100% optional, but i find that it really helps me. when i read other author’s fics and i get inspired, the scene really sticks in my brain. to avoid accidentally copying someone’s ideas from their own fic, if i know that i’m writing something similar, i avoid reading any fic with a similar premise during the entire writing process. even if i think i won’t, often times i’ll subconsciously mirror a scene or a piece of dialogue from another fic without meaning to. this is definitely something to look for when you’re reading it back over!

balanced elements

this step really just depends on the type of fic i’m going for, but i’ve found that fics with some balance to them tend to do better than others. by this i mean fics that have a little of each important element like angst, fluff, smut, etc.. of course, this differs from fic to fic depending on the plot. if it’s a pwp, obviously the main element will be smut. if it’s got some heavy topics in it it may be primarily angst, or a holiday fic might be just fluff. all of these are okay on their own but it’s super easy to mix them together to create more realistic scenes and meaningful emotion in the dialogue. in a pwp i try to add some back story into it, something a little angsty or that gives the smut more meaning than just surface level (unless of course that’s what you’re going for!). on the flip side, you could take a really fluffy fic and at some smutty elements that enhance the love-y feelings from the fluff. even fluff/angst might be fun to explore! my point is that realistically we feel many emotions at once, all the time. when i write one alone my writing often feels like it falls flat and my message/theme doesn’t come across the way that i want it to.

resources

there is a list of resources and links at the bottom of this post that may help during the writing process! they are ones that I have saved to look back at when I get stuck!

read it over

this is my least favorite step. at this point, once i’ve finished the fic, i just want to post it as-is. i don’t feel like reading it over or doing edits - i just want to be finished with it. the benefits outweigh my dislike of it though, so i make myself do it anyway. it’s necessary (for me) to take a short break between when i finish it and when i read it over so that i can look at it with fresh eyes, just a day or two at least. the most important advice that i can give here would probably be not to delete anything you don’t like immediately. almost 100% of the time something can be re-written without being deleted, so if you don’t like the way a sentence is structured or the way a character speaks in a certain scene, don’t delete it! just see if you can rewrite it to model what you’re going for better. this step helps me to stay above my goal word count and not to let my insecurity get the best of me. everybody is their own worst critic, but usually there’s a reason you wrote something down, so give it every chance before you get rid of it altogether. i wrote about this here as well.

beta’s

i’m going to link to another post i answered about betas here!

choosing a title

when it’s time to choose a title for a fic i usually pick from one of four places. the first is a catchphrase from the fic. if there’s a recurring theme or nickname or description, it may be a good idea to title it the same thing so that readers will connect the title with that detail and remember it more easily in the future. the second place is from a song. there’s a lyric for nearly every different message and emotion, so there’s a high chance of being able to find one that goes hand-in-hand with a fic. the third place i look is in poems. i’m personally a big fan of lang leav, michael faudet, and bukowski, among others, and poetry usually also features a wide range of themes to choose from. the last idea i resort to when i can’t come up with anything else, which is to take a word that you feel represents the fic and translate it into another language like french or spanish, among others, or pick a word that has a meaning that corresponds with the fic. although there are no right or wrong titles, i would suggest to try not to pick a title that’s been used a lot already, or one that you think might be easily forgettable. even if you think it might be odd or not typical, people are going to remember it much more than if it’d just been a regular title.

choosing a summary

this step is also kind of hit or miss for me! either i know from the beginning what i want my summary to be or i struggle up until the last second trying to come up with one. there isn’t really a right or wrong summary – except for one. my advice here is please, please don’t just put ‘i suck at summaries! just read it!’. people tend to gravitate toward fics if the author seems confident in their own abilities as opposed to someone quite literally pleading with them to read. other than that, there are several types of summaries that i see a lot of. personally i like to use a snippet from my fics in italics, so that people can get a feel of what my writing style is like beforehand. when i write drabbles though, i usually come up with a quick, occasionally witty tidbit of a summary to grab people’s attention. for example:

a longer fic summary

Harry Styles takes his time coming out to greet them. Louis only knows what he’s seen on file and what he’s heard them talking about, but he fully lives up to the image he had inside of his head.

He saunters down the front steps of the farmhouse in his Levi’s, brown snakeskin boots curving out from underneath the denim Louis’ sure he had specially made. He’s got on a plaid button-down tucked into the jeans because of course he does, curls spilling out from either side of his cowboy hat around his sunglasses and country-tan skin.

“Harry Styles,” he drawls, extending a hand to Louis’ manager, “Pleased to meet ya’ll.”

(from my fic baby blue)

a shorter fic summary

there is little harry hates more than truth or dare.

and louis.

(from my fic like it’s a game)

and sometimes people use both as well, like this one from @falsegoodnight ‘s fic, before we knew –

“C’mon Lou,” says Zayn after a moment, He sounds even more exasperated than before. Louis sort of has a knack for exasperating people, especially people like Zayn who aren’t usually bothered by his brattiness. “Can’t you give this guy a chance? Harry Styles? Aren’t you curious about him at all?”

Despite his best efforts, Louis still flinches at the name. He really shouldn’t be so affected after all these years. He’s seen the name printed down the curve of his waist in obnoxiously and uncommonly large loopy letters every single day since his sixteenth birthday eight years ago. He’s very familiar with the name Harry Styles. It sounds pretentious and Louis hates it. He hates everything about his supposed soulmate. He hates his large handwriting that stands out like a claim on his skin whenever he’s walking around shirtless. He hates his pretentious name. And now he hates his supposed curls and green eyes and dimples.

Or Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed into his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

and this link has some other ideas and tips for writing summaries that I found to be very helpful!

posting a fic

as far as tags and ratings go, THIS PART IS IMPORTANT! all of the steps are in one way or another, but this one is crucial that it’s done correctly. warnings and tags can absolutely make or break a fic. people tend to have very strong preferences when it comes to fics so i try to be as specific as possible without giving the entire story away in the tags. if you’re afraid of doing that, you can always put the full warnings in the note before the fic and tell people to check there before reading. i won’t list all of the possible triggers here but be sure to look those up if you are unfamiliar with some of the common ones. when it comes to tags, you’re always better safe than sorry! i like to tell people they’re free to message me and ask about something if they’re uncomfortable as well, so i can explain the trigger to them and why i tagged it that way and they can decide if they’d like to read based on a more informed basis. tagging correctly saves many people from being blindsided by something they didn’t want to see, and it also protects the author from some very angry messages about warnings.

archive of our own has an extensive support page with all of the info you could need about posting a work on their site including tags, ratings, warnings, co-authors, translations, HTML, and more. you can find it here.

as far as wattpad goes, i am definitely not as familiar with it. i have only a couple of my fics over there and a few translations that people have done for me, so my knowledge is very limited. this link seems to have some good resources for posting with them.

moodboards, graphics, covers

i feel like the writing does most of the work itself, but a graphic can really help when it comes to the next part of the process, posting on social media. some people like to do moodboards, some people commission artists to draw for them, and some like to create their own graphics completely from scratch. like most aspects of fic, there isn’t really a right or wrong way to do this. i usually make moodboards for mine! i try to stick to an aesthetic or theme, and pick a cohesive amount of pictures to use (typically three, six, or nine so they line up nicely). the pictures i use are almost always from tumblr, pinterest, or weheartit. i put them together using an app and then put a blanket filter over all of it so that it all looks unified. if you used pinterest or weheartit to create concept boards for your idea in the beginning, now is a good time to use those photos and media as well! if you’re curious, the apps i use to create graphics, moodboards, and covers are as follows:

canva (mobile app & website)

tons of templates to choose from as well as patterns and fonts! some things are locked unless you’re a member but most elements are free! easy to download and share and lots of options to customize and play around with. i strongly recommend the website on desktop or laptop as opposed to the mobile app so that the features are more easily accessible.

picsart (mobile app)

when i need to make one quickly and i’m not near my laptop (or just need something simple) i use picsart to make a quick collage and put a filter over them. there are some limited text options as well but they are not as advanced as some of the others mentioned here.

photoshop express (mobile & desktop app)

a step up from picsart, but slightly different elements. photoshop allows you to control a lot more once you know how to use it. there are some nice moodboard layouts here, as well as text and fonts, borders, and color controls. my favorite tool on here is the style transfer option under ‘effects’. a very quick and easy way to make your pictures look very cohesive!

vsco (mobile app)

perfect for adding filters and things like vignette, grain, and fade. it also has some color controls to customize those. this is typically the last step before i post. and you can save custom presets that you like to use again!

and there are many others as well – almost all photo editing apps and software have a function that will allow you to make a collage or add text to a graphic! i know wattpad also requires a cover for their stories and I believe they have an app for that too!

here are some lovely graphics that have been made for my fics by @lovelylou, @behisoneandonly, @tomlinvelvet-ao3 and @brickredtoe as some examples :)

and one that I've made as well:

social media

once i have a moodboard or graphic, i post the link to my fic on twitter and tumblr. in these posts i always make sure to include the title, the word count, and the summary. i try to make it as visually appealing as possibly by organizing the post accordingly and using fonts occasionally to catch people’s eye. this is the app i use for those on mobile!

i think about the sizing as well – twitter has set dimensions for its photos and is known for displaying the photos awkwardly. tumblr on the other hand will let you upload up to ten photos of any size, and will display them fully without any cropping. according to this link a single photo on twitter should be 16:9. this page also has some good tips. and as far as i can tell if you’re using two or four photos, i would stick to the square images as that is what’s worked for me personally. i believe canva also has a template for a twitter post too.

write for yourself

i think everyone knows this on some level but i tend to need to be reminded pretty frequently. if you’re heavily involved in social media and fic discourse, it can be very easy to get attached to what you know people want to see. writing should be a balance though, and you should always write for yourself before anyone else. we’re all free to write whatever we want and, even if it’s difficult, you shouldn’t ever let someone make you feel guilty for doing so. writing is an escape and a safe space but it can very quickly become something that causes stress and anxiety if you aren’t doing it for the right reasons.

don’t stress

easier said than done, I know, but like I mentioned earlier, writing should be fun. a lot of people here don’t do it as their job and no one gets paid to write fics. these are projects that authors take on on their own time even while they work and handle everything else in their lives and those things should come first and foremost, as well as your mental health. this circles back into my earlier point – don’t let people make you feel guilty about anything like not finishing a fic on time or not writing exactly how they wanted it. authors are real people with real lives too and if things get to be too heavy or too stressful, they’re entitled to a break or to leave if that’s what’s best for them.

don’t be afraid to ask for help / validation

there are tons of lovely writers in this community and others that would be more than happy to answer questions and give advice. if you’re struggling with something, there’s always somewhere to go to get help!

however, the concept of validation is a bit trickier than the others. there’s a fine line ;) between asking for validation for a little boost, or relying completely on it. posting snippets and sneak peeks is a great way to get people excited about your work and to get yourself motivated if you’re feeling down, but i would suggest not to post one with the sole purpose of fishing for compliments. if you do, it can be very disheartening if you don’t receive any or the ones that you were looking to hear. in my opinion you need to be at least somewhat confident in your own abilities before you can expect other people to be. posting a snippet is more beneficial for when you’ve got a mental block or are stuck in a scene as opposed to just searching for validation for the sake of getting it.

cliche vs. copying

there’s also two sides to this argument! you shouldn’t be afraid to write what you want, even if it seems like it’s a common trope or cliche topic. everybody writes in different styles and has different ideas and therefore may provide an entirely different view on what’s been poised as a ‘common’ theme. i think i could read a thousand of the ‘there was only one bed’ trope or the college au’s or the other popular plotlines. they’re popular for a reason and you shouldn’t be afraid to explore your own take on it! no one author ‘owns’ a specific trope.

BUT there is a clear difference in doing your own take on something versus just copying what someone else has written exactly. the lines can get blurry here but it’s obvious to readers when something has been repeated word for word from another fic or when one too many elements are the same. to be on the safe side, always check to make sure that the specifics of your idea haven’t been done exactly before.

resources

+ masterpost of some resources

+ how to keep readers engaged

+ helpful tips

+ 100 words for facial expressions

+ how to write good villains

+ good advice

+ synonyms for commonly used words

+ using metaphors and references

+ more helpful tips

+ descriptions

+ synonyms for ‘beautiful’

+ tips for dialogue

+ writing enemies to lovers

+ other helpful tips

+ writing friends to lovers

+ dystopian writing

+ writing a realistic argument

+ ways to cut word count

+ how to write smut 01 * tw for body descriptions etc.

+ how to write smut 02

+ SUPER helpful smut vocab

+ how to write flirting

+ how to write about grief

+ even more helpful tips

#about me #writing advice

52 notes · View notes

aiden-png · 4 years ago

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Heyy, is there any way for you to possibly share your planning/outlining process? I’m having a lot of trouble myself figuring out how to write my fic, it’s all just out of order and all over the place, and I feel like knowing what you do might help a bit

omg sure!! I know how to outline a few different ways and jump between the methods depending on the story, length, and how much planning is actually needed to achieve my goal. I don’t typically outline unless I’m setting out to write something over 20k words or I have an idea that relies on a series of interconnected scenes (like a 5+1 for instance)! I’ll continue below the cut...

when I’m ‘outlining’ for a multichapter fic below 20k, my notes are pretty simple and typically look like this (example from “5 Times Wild Did Something Wild”): -collecting bomb arrows while it’s raining -electrocuting a group of enemies during a lightning storm -deflecting guardian lasers with his shield/cryo-launching a guardian and sniping it midair -riding a Lynel and killing it from close range* -setting up a trap and killing a Yiga in disguise elaborately* -getting stabbed/shot and pulling the weapon out of himself to finish the fight

these ‘bullet outlines’ are really good for laying out scenes, story beats, or chapter summaries for multichapter fics. when I write a short oneshot however, my notes are 1-5 sentences that summarize the entire plot or the prompt, and I add more notes if necessary when I sit down to start writing. for example, the prompt outline for “Hero Through the Ages” was this: Wild is reverted back to a child and everyone expects him to be rowdy and impossible. Instead he’s entirely mute, very stoic, extremely well versed in swordsmanship, and acts like he’s a knight.

however, when I’m outlining a longggg multichapter fic, I have two methods I really enjoy using and tend to pair them together. first is the summary method, where I write out an overview of what I want the story to be like in paragraph form. it ends up looking like a Wikipedia summary for a book or film when it’s done, but the reason I like this method is because it allows me to brainstorm on the page and develop my ideas where I can reference them again. these methods are supposed to be rough at first and get developed further later, so the next two examples are plans for a fic that ultimately went in slightly different directions by the end! here’s the beginnings of a paragraph outline for my BotW fic “A Major Test of Strength”: Link has been training for a few weeks since defeating Vah Naboris so he has all the supplies and strength he needs to take on Calamity Ganon. He learns of a Spring of Wisdom (or smth actually not in canon) that is said to have healing/restorative properties and it’s suggested that he travel there to try and regain the last of his memories. Sidon decides to tag along to help/see if he can finally work up the courage to confess his feelings to Link. When they get there Link not only gets his memories of this life, but of all other timelines restored at once along with his abilities. Every Champion had a power, and Link always thought the swordsman didn’t. It suddenly makes sense why everyone has believed in him without question since he awoke: Link is the strongest Champion, and he’s just now reached his full potential. Before Link can begin to train his new powers the Yiga stage a plot 100 years in the making, putting Link, Sidon, and the whole of Hyrule in danger. Link has a time limit to face Ganon before the barrier breaks now, and he’ll need all the help he can get to make it there in time.

from the paragraph-style outline I can make a scene-by-scene or chapter-by-chapter (or even act-by-act) outline which is the second method I like, though I have a hard time writing things I know the endings of. I typically outline as I go after the midpoint of a fic so I don’t lose interest, and will place filler estimates for how many chapters will be in the climax and resolution. working from story beats in this case is a lot easier for me, so I’ll make a bullet list where I describe the exposition in quite a bit of detail, summarize to the midpoint, more briefly summarize to the climax, and then stop outlining. it looks sort of like this (same fic as above): 1- Link hears about a Shrine* that is said to help connect those to their past or smth and it’s in the Laynaryu Mountains. He decides to go for it, as he’s still missing a lot of his memory (he’s not super distressed by this, he knows himself and he’s content, he has more important things to handle, but he hopes that the final piece in his puzzle may help him defeat Ganon). He travels to Zora and Sidon insists on traveling with him, it’s not far after all 2- they travel to the location and become close along the way 3- when they arrive the place is surprising and Link emerges from the Shrine with far more than he expected. A Yiga had tailed them, and upon seeing Link’s powers, quickly teleports back to their base 4- Link spends some time training to grasp his new powers and finds himself drawn to Sidon more and more. The Yiga commune with Ganon 5- the Yiga stage an ambush on Link as he travels, kidnapping him and Sidon. The Yiga preform a ritual in front of Hyrule Castle where Link was knighted at the blood moon to rend Link of his powers and Sidon rescues him too late, the Yiga and any information they had disappearing 6- Link and Sidon travel to visit the Great Deku Tree as Link looses his strength, hoping to reverse the spell 7- Link and Sidon make it at the last minute and are shown the secret location of the Temple of Time, where Link completes the ritual, and is sent back in time to before the kidnapping so he can continue his training 8- Link prevents Sidon from being kidnapped with past Link and they journey to Satori Mountain to stakeout the ritual site so they can disrupt the ritual before it’s too late. they talk and share secrets and both realize how they feel 9- Link and Sidon successfully intervene and the two timelines collapse, merging, until Link awakes in the Temple of Time in a fixed timeline with the triforce and knowledge of his powers and his love for Sidon. He confesses instantly 10- epilogue? Link and Sidon share a peaceful day months after calamity ganon’s defeat, Link training future soldiers and running errands for citizens of Hyrule while effectively retired, Sidon and him officially courting, and everything right in the world

there are a lot of different outlining strategies beyond these that you can use too! there’s a flashcard one, where you write out important events and scenes on cards and organize them in whatever timeline you feel works best. there’s the in depth outline, where you summarize the scenes and events in every chapter from beginning to end (this one helps a lot with keeping consistent chapter lengths and maintaining plot threads). when I use an outline, to make sure I don’t forget what I’m supposed to be writing for each chapter, I’ll write myself notes at the end of the doc that I can glance at as I’m typing. I’ve also used the editing method, where I’ll read and edit the previous writing session before starting the current one so I don’t lose track of where I was. when writing a long piece, it can be helpful to stop in the middle of a scene that excites you, so you have the motivation to return later to finish it! it also works well to finish an entire scene or chapter before stopping so you don’t have to read back to start writing again, but since I tend to write every single day until a fic is finished I don’t have a lot of issues picking back up where I left off.

just remember, the outline is only a tool for you to use! it’s not set in stone, it doesn’t have to be neat or completed--the only thing that matters is that it helps you better write your piece. it’s perfectly fine to diverge from the outline when writing, or to edit it as you go! and outlining definitely isn’t for everyone, I rarely use one because I feel it limits my own creativity in some regards. flying by the seat of your pants when you write is a perfectly valid method too, so stick with what makes you comfortable and what works for your style--and remember to have fun! I hope this helped answer your question! :D

#thanks anon!#aiden writes #outlining #I hope this is helpful!#it took me years to figure out methods that worked best for my writing style so playing around w a few different outlining methods #will help you figure out which one works best for you!#I only really plan or outline when I have a hard time visualizing where the fic is going to go tbh #so I've been outlining a lot recently for two longfics and I still don't know how long either will be XD #outlining also helps writing a longfic not be so scary or overwhelming #you can get lost writing so easily and lose motivation or inspiration--so keeping notes or an outline really helps !

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akabluekat · 4 years ago

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writer’s ask game, all odd numbers, please! :)

1. Do you listen to music when you write? I have on occasion, but in general, I don’t. I’ve found that I have a hard time filtering out background noise when it’s conversations or music.

3. Computer or pen and paper? I used to be a little bit of both, but it’s more computer these days.

5. How much writing do you get done on an average day? It varies a lot. Maybe a couple hundred words?

7. Standalone or series? Both, I think. 9. Current WIP Delicate and Playing With Fire. I suppose you could count Burning Bridges, though it’s not posted yet. I’ve been working on it more lately because figuring out Bea’s side of things is integral to a few plot points that are coming up.

11. Books and/or authors who influenced you the most Meg Cabot, specifically Princess Diaries. Tamora Pierce (Alanna quartet).

(this next question got long, so I’m gonna throw in a page break out of consideration for your dash)

13. Describe your writing process from idea to polished 1. Have an idea while I’m supposed to be doing something else. 2. Open a Word document. Depending on where I am/how much time I have, write down some brief notes on the concept, possibly a few scenes. Give the Word document a vague filename. Working naming convention is Untitled HP [number]. 4. Attempt to write the first chapter. 5. Promise self that I will not post chapter until I’ve written a few more chapters. 6. Get ideas for scenes not in that chapter. Put into a document titled Nonlinear excerpts. 7. Write more of first chapter. 8. Finish rough draft. Rough draft may be mostly complete or be a hot mess of text that includes helpful notes like ??????? to remind myself where I still need to figure out plot issues or write giant chunks of text. Select all, cut, and paste into new document. 9. Do a line by line edit, gradually moving my rough draft from Document B back to the original document. Delete or smooth out ????? sections as I go. 10. At some point, my computer will crash or I’ll forget to charge it and it’ll shut off. 11. Say a bunch of swear words. 12. Recover document/lost work. 13. Vow to stop writing like this because I should know better at this point. 14. Continue with editing. 15. Repeat steps 8-15 an undetermined number of times. May not always need to do the cut/paste method, especially as chapter gets into later drafts. 16. Get excited about fic and decide to ignore the promise I made to myself back in step 5. 17. Comb through Taylor Swift discography trying to find an appropriate title. 18. Repeat step 18, but for the chapter title. (Alternatively, come up with a chapter title right away and still not know what the damn fic is called.) 19. Spend approximately 40 earth years trying to figure out a summary. 20. Come up with a summary that is 2 characters over FF.net’s character limit. Spend another 40 earth years trying to reword it so it doesn’t. 21. At some point, create an image for the fic, probably when I’m supposed to be doing something else. 22. Post fic. 23. Obsessively refresh inbox to see if people liked it or not. 24. Start chapter 2. Wonder why I did not write it before posting chapter 1. 25. Any one of the above steps can be replaced by getting distracted by Tumblr, other fics, daydreaming, scenes in my current WIP that are not in the chapter that I’m working on, the news, or pretty much anything else.

15. How do you deal with writer’s block? Lots of staring at my word document and sighing. Daydreaming. Working on other projects. 17. What writing habits or rituals do you have? the copy/paste edit method described in question 13. My fanfic is always written in Times New Roman (Calibri is for work). I have no explanation for this. 19. How do you keep yourself motivated? Strategic guilt. And honestly, the fact that people seem to care about the story is hugely motivating.

21. Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write? Fred and George, probably. The banter is so fun. 23. Favourite author I have to pick one!?! 25. Favourite part of writing I love telling stories and exploring different worlds/possibilities. 27. Favourite line/scene I think it might be Bea saying “I refuse to apologize for who I am!” in response to being asked if she had bacon in her pocket.

29. Favourite villain My fics don’t really have villains other than Voldemort. And angst, I suppose.

31. Least favourite part of writing Transitional/connective parts always seem to trip me up.

33. Have you ever killed a main character? Nope. 35. What scene/story are you least looking forward to writing? Right now, Chapter 14 of Delicate haas been giving me trouble. I know what needs to happen, but writing it has been a challenge.

37. First sentence or your current WIP PWF: I knew I would have to dance with one of them before the thought even crossed McGonagall’s mind. Delicate: Alicia and Lee could have gotten married in London. Burning Bridges: I’m reluctant to start this account with the story of a shitty boyfriend. 39. Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had. A Squib who owns a pub in Diagon Alley.

41. Any advice for new/beginning/young writers? You will make mistakes and that is okay. 43. What do you do if/when characters don’t follow the outline? Fred Weasley has little respect for my outlines, so this happens a lot. Sometimes, I try reworking the scene a bit; on other occasions, I’ve been like “you know what, you’re right this time. Scrap the outline, let’s explore this path instead.”

45. How much world building do you do? I tend to fall into little world building rabbit holes as I write--it’s very unpredictable, so I don’t know if I can answer this question properly.

47. Best way to procrastinate Writing or falling down weird internet rabbit holes.

49. Which character would you most want to be friends with, if they were real? Of my characters, Bea Pierce. In the wider world of fiction, Leslie Knope and Gandalf.

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nanowrimo · 5 years ago

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5 Tips to Smooth the Edges of Your Rough Draft

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the pure rush of creating something new. Later on, when you come back for a second glance, the writing doesn’t have that same sparkle. You may not want to hear this, but editing is your friend—and it doesn’t have to be a painful process. Today, NaNoWriMo participant Rebekah reminds us that editing is writing:

Editing the rough draft of a story is a dreaded part of writing.

It takes just as much, if not more time, than actually writing a draft. But never fear! I've created my own method of tackling the first draft that I'd like to share with all of you as you work on your stories.

I find tips easier to follow if I'm given steps, so here is a step-by-step of the process I have been following with the rough draft of my very first book.

1. Let the draft sit for at least a month.

This means don't touch it at all. Don't read it, don't do tiny edits. If it helps, pretend it doesn't exist. Taking a break from the draft helps me distance myself from what I wrote. It makes the text almost seem like it was written by someone else, which can make it easier to critique and fix.

2. Read the draft after the break period and don’t edit it at all.

Read it like you would a new book and document all issues you find. This will make it easier to write the next draft.

3. Find a format for your story that will be the easiest for you to edit.

For me, it meant printing out the whole story, which then led me to realize something to work on in draft two (more on that in step 4). Writing in red ink all over a hard copy of my first draft has helped me, and more importantly, I'm comfortable with it. If you aren't comfortable with editing in your story's current format, then find another format that works.

4. Find at least one thing to look at throughout your editing process.

This is by far a harder step, but once you do it, the editing process becomes a whole lot easier. I realized my chapters were too short, so I decided to find ways I could build more plot into my chapters. Other common fixes could involve decreasing adverbs and using more emotions. This gives you a goal while editing, which can be helpful to writers like me who are very goal-oriented.

5. Make a “chapter wrap-up”.

This is a completely optional step, and may only work for some writers, but it has helped me immensely. I call it a chapter wrap-up, and write it out after I finish editing a chapter. It includes four sections: Characters, Plot Points, Items to Adjust, and Connections/Extra Analysis.

Under Characters, I list the characters present in the chapter and the new ways they’ve developed. Under the Plot Point section, I mention all major plot points for reference in future drafts. My Items to Adjust section includes my major flaws in the chapter as wells as smaller issues to adjust. The Connections/Extra Analysis section includes any other information I find important to include after editing a chapter.

This list has worked the best for me, but every writer is different. Improvise on this list, or find your own way! Tackle that first draft and start editing!

Rebekah lives in the United States. When she isn’t writing, you will likely find her reading comics or books, playing on her tenor or alto saxophone, listening to soundtracks, knitting, or taking nature walks. She hopes to publish her current book by the end of high school. You can find her on Instagram.

Top photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #editing #by nano guest #rebekah #ywp #young writers program #now what

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ahiddenpath · 6 years ago

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Seven Years of Writing Fanfics

I’m being a little premature- I’ll celebrate seven years of writing as ahiddenpath in September- but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’ve learned. Please read on if you want to hear about the writing habits I wish I had when I started in 2012, and about the habits I wish I didn’t have back then!

I’ll also be talking about my writing plans in general. Check it out below the cut!

1.) Make a story bible.

A story bible is a reference document for your story. Before you post a new fic, I strongly suggest creating one. For digimon specifically, this means making some choices before you begin:

Which version of the character names will you use? Do you intend to remain consistent with this choice? For example, I’ve seen a lot of writers use Japanese character names and English digimon names. Will you use official honorifics? Custom honorifics? Will you use terminology from one translation of the show, or a mashup?

Make these choices upfront, create reference charts, and remain consistent.

After that, you can also keep references for topics such as characterization details (if you say that Bob’s favorite drink is coffee in one chapter and tea twenty chapters later, be prepared for a flood of comments pointing out the inconsistency), setting details, and anything that you don’t want to forget. Spending half an hour hunting down a silly detail instead of writing is a huge bummer.

Growing Up with You is my worst offender of ‘problems a story bible would have fixed.’ It’s got... every issue you can imagine, lol! For example, pairing Hikari with Gatomon (instead of Tailmon), using ‘digitama’ and ‘digimental’ interchangeably in the 02 arc, using the English terms for evolution stages while using Japanese names for other things, confusing Bakemon and Bakumon, it’s a mess. It’s so bad that a complete, painstaking edit is the only thing that can fix it... Which is enough to make me weep, given that the story is over 400K words long.

Organize yourself before you start. Here’s a link to some printable Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 references.

2.) Avoid Longfics.

I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. NEVER PUBLISH A NEW STORY WITHOUT HAVING AN ENDING IN SIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING.

I’m not saying you can’t write huge, epic tales. God knows I’m unlikely to stop doing that. But, if I could go back in time, I would separate Growing Up with You into four fics. It would be something like this:

Growing Up with You I: Childhood

Growing Up with You II: Digimon Adventure

Growing Up with You III: Liminal Space

Growing Up with You IV: Digimon Adventure 02

I’m sure some arcs would be longer than others, but this way, I’d have four stories that are roughly 100K words long.

A lot of folks just... don’t want to read a 400K story. It’s intimidating, man! Although it varies by genre, the average word count for a fiction novel aimed at adults is 80K words. That 400K fic is like FIVE NOVELS, DUDE!!!! That’s a commitment for readers!

Shorter stories are more reader friendly, but there’s also a huge benefit to you, the writer. Separating your longfic into multiple stories allows you more opportunities to write towards an ending. Breaking your story into digestible chunks decreases the writing paralysis that comes with being nowhere near the ending. It also cuts back on meandering chapters that don’t carry the narrative closer to that ending. Furthermore, thinking of the story in arcs before you start writing forces you to plan more... Something I never did in 2012!!!!

Best of all, once you reach the end of an arc, you can take a break before launching the next one. It’s hard on a writer to continue endlessly producing without a break. It’s hard on a reader to hit the final available chapter in a fic and wonder if it will ever update again. But if you complete an arc and take a break to plan and write a few buffer chapters, the tension and impatience is gone for your audience, and you get to breathe. It’s a win-win!

3.) Avoid long chapters.

Back in 2012, I often posted chapters that were 10K words and longer! Here are some benefits to posting shorter updates more frequently:

-Shorter wait times between updates.

Let’s say your planned chapter is 15K words long. I could update my story once in the span of a month, or I could break the chapter into three parts and update three times in a month! This keeps readers happy and interested in your work.

Over time, you’ll develop the ability to create sub arcs/movements, finding spots to break them up into separate updates. This also creates natural moments for cliffhangers, tension, and mini resolutions. It’s a great way to insert more moods and movement into your narrative.

-More exposure for your story.

Every time you update your fanfic, it gets pushed to the top of the update list on fanfiction.net or AO3. The more you update it, the more hits your story will receive, thanks to all the extra time it will spend on the first page of newly-updated fics.

-Easier editing.

I do my best editing when I’m working with 5K words or fewer at a time. Personally, I can only focus on close editing for about 90 minutes before I start missing mistakes and forgetting details. I could edit a 10K word update in two sittings, but then it’s possible to forget about details and moods from the previous editing session! So, unless your story bible is really hardcore, your editing process could benefit from shorter updates.

-More feedback/support

I have a few amazing readers who leave some form of feedback/appreciation for me whenever I post a new chapter. A supported writer is a happy, productive writer! More updates means more chances for feedback and support from your readers, which in turn can fuel and direct your writing! Again, everyone wins! (Thanks, guys, I love you!).

4.) Publish your story on both fanfiction.net and AO3.

Why reach one audience when you could potentially reach two? There are plenty of readers who only use one platform or the other.

At this point, it would be ridiculously difficult to post my 70+ chapter fanfics to AO3... Do yourself a favor and post to both from the start!

5.) Remember: writing and editing are two separate processes.

Guys guys guys guys guys. Lemme be real here.

I used to painstakingly write a first draft, check for spelling/grammar errors on my word processor, and then post it.

Here’s what my process looks like now: word vomit a first draft, do an edit in my word processor, print the edited draft, make edits on paper, transfer edits to word processor, print new draft, make edits on paper, transfer edits to word processor, final read through, post

If my new method looks more time intensive... In a way, it is, but in a way, it isn’t? I bang out that first rough draft without a care in the world, where I used to agonize over every word. Agonizing is not fun. Word vomiting can produce some, ah, discouraging results, but it feels like creative play. It’s fun, it’s flexible, it’s fast... And you can fix it later through the magic of editing. And if you��re having fun, you’ll keep writing. If you’re agonizing, you’ll find yourself making excuses to avoid writing.

Plus, my current method produces tighter, more deliberate prose, while maintaining the freedom and energy of word vomiting... And avoiding the angst and doubt. This is my best defense against writing paralysis and my greatest weapon in the battle of producing words.

My method can’t be right for everyone, but I do encourage you to try it out, especially if your writing hasn’t been joyful lately.

6.) Don’t run too many fics at one time.

I encourage writers to have one longer fic open and one shorter fic, preferably of different tones/settings/main characters. This gives you a way to keep writing when you’re sick of one project without bogging you down.

You will likely have some readers who love everything you do (god bless), but many people have particular genre, character, and setting preferences. If you have three fics open, then readers of any one story have to wait much longer for the next update while you alternate updating each fic.

And more importantly, having a ton of open stories just... It feels heavy, guys. It’s a weight, a pressure. Trust me. Forgive me, fanfic gods, for I have sinned.

7.) Maintain a buffer

Okay, so my Nanowrimo project for 2018 was to write 50,000 words for After August, my current open fic. By the end of the month, I had a roughly 80% complete first draft of the entire fic.

Guys! Guys! It’s so cool to know exactly where the story is going, from start to finish. My editing is so deliberate on this piece! I can spot repetition and inconsistencies, since the draft is printed and sitting in front of me in a binder. I can tweak emphasis and maintain more balance between character appearances. It’s a whole new ballpark for me, someone who always wrote one update at a time and posted it upon completion (or worse, wrote ahead and lost the material when I changed my mind about the plot before reaching that future point).

Plus, even if my life gets extra busy or hard, I can still maintain my updating schedule. I can print out a chapter, take it to work, and do hard edits during my lunch break (I realize that makes me antisocial, but have you ever endured coworkers telling you all of their problems while you try to eat a sandwich in peace? The editing is much more fun. I am antisocial, is what I’m saying. Born into it, baby).

Regular updates are a big part of maintaining steady readership, so having a buffer both increases the quality of your work (since you know where the story is going for sure) and ensures that more people read it. Awww yisssss.

Okay, well, my concentration is gone now, so that’s the end of my advice! If I think of anything else, maybe I’ll add it?

I do want to touch base with my writing plans, though. Currently, of course, my goal is to complete After August. If I can post one chapter per week, it will be compete in early March, but I’m going to aim for completing the story in May, to allow for any issues that might come up (for example, Kingdom Hearts III is coming out soon!).

After that, I want to complete Seeking Resonance... Although I have no idea how long that will take? I just know that the heavy atmosphere was really starting to weigh on me.

After that... Well, do you remember that survey I made a while back? It looks like my next project should probably be completing Four Years.

I might simultaneously work on one of these two stories and Tales of REM, or maybe I’ll alternate between SR and FY for a while? To be honest, though, I would really like to wrap up SR as soon as I can.

Either way, completion is the name of the game this year. Please look forward to it! Let me know if you have any ideas for future fics, or if you have a favorite from my list of potential future projects!

#writing advice #seven years of fanfiction #fanfic advice #fanfiction advice #faves

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umisabaku · 6 years ago

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hey! u mentioned you write your first drafts on notebooks, right? do you write everything start to finish, or do you jump around during that first draft? also, do you ever go back to edit there, or if you change a plot point (whether major or minor) how would you go about it? i like the idea of having a written draft before the final product, but am not sure how to go about doing it lmao

Thank you for the lovely question,anon-friend! I am always happy to talk about my writing process =D

I write in notebooks as a methodthat works best for me to produce a first draft, so I really only recommend itif it’s more convenient for people to write out stories. I always writelinearly from start to finish without skipping around, which is another thingthat writing in notebooks really helps me do. (When I type out stories, it ismuch easier to skip around and go, “well, I’m stuck, let’s move on to thescene that I know how to write.” When I’m writing in notebooks, I feelcompelled to write “what happens next” so that the plot actuallymoves forward.)

Sometimes there’s a major scene thatI want to go back and add to earlier scene before moving on to the next one,and then I’ll put giant triple asterisks to where I want to add the scene (***)and the triple asterisks to bracket off the scene that I’m adding in.

I leave major edits to when I’mtyping things up. Like if there’s a major plot point I want to set up earlier,I usually do that in the typed version. So the written version is reallyjust the rough first draft version that gets fine-tuned later.

For example, “This isLove” was such a long story and it took so long to write and it spannedacross so many tiny notebooks, that there were times I had genuinely forgottenwhat I wrote in a previous section (especially in the “present”chapters, because the “past” chapters interrupted the plot line so bythe time I got back to the main plot it had been weeks, sometimes months sinceI had last written the main plot). And so now in the notebooks there is onescene that I wrote in two different ways, because I completely forgot that I’d alreadywritten the scene (in a different way) in the previous “present”chapter. When I finally get around to typing those up, I have to decide whichversion I like better.

(I am really looking forward todoing a dvd commentary post on that scene in particular and the two alternateversions it currently exists as, just because it was such an interestingwriterly dilemma I stumbled into there. Well, interesting to me, anyway.)

I’m the kind of person who writesbetter once I have a draft to work from, so that’s why writing things out workswell for me just to get my thoughts hastily down on the page, and then editsand finetuning can happen later in the typed process. But every writer isdifferent, so it’s important just to find out what works for you =D

Thanks again for the question,anon-friend! And good luck with writing!!

#Mikki writes #I have asks! and I'm answering them!#this is my anon tag #writing question #i like talking about writing

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maple-writes · 6 years ago

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Novel Prep Tag

Tagged by @oleander-fricke and @corishadowfang Thanks!!! This’ll hopefully be really useful as I’m still trying to figure out a whole new wip here

So bear with me lol.

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

FIRST LOOK

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

Richard, Volt and Skyler, the three person crew of courier ship the Lord of Chaos (working name for now lol) all have someone trying to track them down. As easy as it would be to live their new lives, none of them can run forever.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

Just one book. I wish I had the patience for multiple books but… I do not.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

It’s a little rough in this department, but something along the lines of romanticized space travel, far future society spread across multiple planets, daring heros and cunning villians. Tbh think like… Spatoon 2 Octo Expansion... but in Space.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

I am currently seeking some inspiration right now lol. But so far I don’t think there have been any specific stories that really inspired this one as much as just like… General ideas that come up in a lot of different stories like the vague notions of space stuff, fugitives, over-the-top skills/abilities, … I hope to find some outside inspiration soon though.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

*photo credit bottom: Xavier Portela

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

Technically I have three planned for this one, but I’ll focus on Richard for now.

7. Who is their closest ally?

Hands down, Volt Powell. He trusts her completely .

8. Who is their enemy?

He wouldn’t really call the Organization (name in the making still lol) an enemy, but he wants nothing to do with him and fears being captured and dragged back since he more or less ran away (and is VERY valuable to them both financially and practically).

9. What do they want more than anything?

To exist as freely as other people without having to hide away out of sight. He doesn’t want people to think he’s dangerous and he just kind of wants to live his life.

10. Why can’t they have it?

The organization that made him is trying to track him down, and he can’t usually leave the ship in populated areas without running the risk of someone reporting him (he’s not exactly human-looking as he was more or less created through a combination of genetics and engineering by what can kind of be considered space mafia/illuminati stuff?? More on that eventually when I have it figured out).

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

That he’s only valuable/most valued for what he can do, not who he is.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

He’s fairly tall, with black hair that is so dark it doesn’t reflect any light. One eye is similar to that of a cats, with a yellow-orange iris and slit pupil that can dilate wider for better night vision while the other looks less biological, and was made to see light in the infrared spectrum (though has broken by the time the story takes place). He has sharp teeth, fingertips that can convert to claws, and antenna-like things by his ears that allow him to kind of... tune his hearing or something. His skin is fairly pale, with a kind of cool-toned complexion like he’d been outside in the cold for too long.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

Since he’s kind of like a cyborg with biological and non-biological parts making up his body, he needs semi-regular maintenance, but its been years since he’s last been with the organization and the lack of upkeep is starting to show. He doesn’t want to worry Volt, and especially doesn’t want to worry Skyler, so he tries to keep it to himself, but there’s no question that his body is wearing out and will only get worse without treatment only the organization can give. But at the same time, if the organization were to operate on him, he knows they would replace a part that had been accidentally removed years ago which alters neurotransmitter function that made him easier for them to control and blocked most emotions except anger. So he doesn’t want that.

14. What is the external conflict?

That parts a little fuzzy right now, but it will involve the organization gaining on their tail, the tyrannical prime minister’s daughter (skyler’s half sister) and a tangled web ready to unravel.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

The Organization captures him back and turns him back into a tool for extermination.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

It’s all up in the air right now, so I’ve got nothing for sure yet. But I’m thinking that there may be one person who ends up being connected to more than meets the eye.

17. Do you know how it ends?

No lol.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?

Different kinds of love (ie, family, friends, parental, siblings etc…) and ties between individuals.

19. What is a recurring symbol?

I don’t know if I’ve gotten far enough to have that kind of detail known yet.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

A solar system… somewhere… maybe our solar system… maybe not? Depends on if I want to make up planets or not.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Yeah some of them, though I can’t be sure how many will actually make it into the story when I start writing. None of them are in any way connected to each other either.

22. What excited you about this story?

I’ve wanted to do a sci-fi thing for a while (my last two wips were both fantasy based) so it’ll be fun to explore the genera. This story also uses characters that I made when I was still a kid (like, elementary school and early high school) and I’m excited to see how I write them- Rick, Volt and Skyler- now compared to when I first made them. This also gives me an excuse to write about things like genetics and other science things that I find interesting.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

Well, it’s kind of lengthy but it works. First I get the idea, then flesh out the characters and sort of form a vague story around them. Next I make a point form, chapter by chapter outline of what I think I want to happen. Then I pick a nice notebook and handwrite the first draft from the outline. After that, I review what I wrote, make a few notes and rewrite it on the computer. After all that than I revise, and finally, I edit.

Thanks again, and hopefully I’ll know more about this unnamed wip eventually!

tagging: @esoteric-eclectic-eccentric, @iwritetypos, @pens-swords-stuff, @lilmissravingwriter, @writingbusinessizzy, @writerproject, @urbanteeth, @iamidentical and @thelysstener have fun.

#tag game #novel prep #space reboot #idk what else to call it yet #thanks!

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masslong · 2 years ago

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Typeit4me 6 review

#Typeit4me 6 review update#

#Typeit4me 6 review Pc#

up snippets is as quick as using them, and aText gets you started with a few common examples. If you’re interested in reading this book, I’ve attached the affiliate link to Amazon below. By the time you come back to it in a few weeks or months, you won’t recall that the last person had almost exactly the same story, and you’ll feel the same way about the book when I started it: inspired by the peace, quiet, and rough edges of the simplicity of these lives. Read the book a chapter at a time, savor their story, and then give the book a rest. I think there’s a way to read this without getting burned out with the similarity of the stories: don’t read it the way I did. In the end, I felt that I could probably read half the book, and get the same story, only half as many times- is there an editor in the house?

raise their own food/work the land/play music/do aforementioned traditional craft in Japan.

lived in the mountains in Japan where they.

then decided to come back when Tibet/India/Nepal became too modernized, and.

study traditional weaving/traditional calligraphy/traditional religious texts/traditional music,.

The problem for me was, halfway through the book, starting a new chapter, I started to dread the story: the individual as a young person, protested nuclear power/landfill/environmental problems, and decides to go against their families’ advice to: While this is stepping outside the box in America, it’s REALLY stepping outside the box in Japan, and many of these individuals reported strong disapproval from their families. All of these people have opted to step out of the frenetic lifestyle of working, attending school, etc., from sun up to sun down in relentless pursuit of some external goal, for different, probably more authentic goals: time, family, connection with community, art, and slow living.

#Typeit4me 6 review update#

Many of the people are nuclear power protesters, and the book I picked up is a revised edition, with an update on the lives of these people post-Fukushima disaster. The book reflects their lives- poetic, quiet, honest and humble. The idea of the book is to explore the lifestyle and thought process of rural Japanese people, mostly elderly people, and how we might learn from them. Well, if I’m honest with myself, the first half of this book. How lucky we are, those of us following the minimalist ideas of less stuff, simpler lives, to even have this choice! (if you haven’t been there, it’s a fun bookstore- not as much fun as my beloved Politics and Prose, but still great), partly because, like many people with too many first world problems, I’m trying to scale down. I picked this book up at Kramerbooks in D.C. This helps me ensure that I have collected all the data for the week, and get ready for the week ahead with a minimum of trauma. On Sunday, I have a weekly review project that automatically comes up in Things (in two screen shots, since it’s longer than my screen). At night, I complete the 5 minute journal. Throughout the day, I use the daily checklist to help me guide my day. I do this via the DayOne app and a text expander- in this case, Typeit4me. I meditate using the Insight Timer that I blogged about a few weeks ago, and I write a five minute journal entry to help me remember what my priorities are and what I am grateful for. It also reminds me of what my current next steps are for goals, and what I’m working on that week.Įach morning, I get up early, and start my morning ritual, which I’ve made a screen shot of the checklist from the daily project above: I have a Daily project that recurs and keeps me accountable with my daily rituals. I am really glad I did! My method is adapted from one of the users, Tor Rogn. I was recently encouraged to try Things 3, the newly released app on Mac, iPad and iPhone by Cultured Code, from a thread on the Asian Efficiency Dojo website. That’s what reminders and the prompting from my apple watch are for! Right now for me, a combination of apps has really helped me get focused. However, I also travel light being a public transportation commuter, and it’s not as if I want or need to recall my calendar perfectly. I am also aware of all the research regarding how writing things down helps you cement them in your mind.

#Typeit4me 6 review Pc#

I am a Mac user in general, but in my work, PC is the law of the land. Anyway, I have found a combination of apps that are changing my life right now. I consider the difference between planning methods (digital or paper? Mac app or web app? A combination of both?) as carefully as I timed having a family. I admit how much I love planning, technology, apps and the like.

#Typeit4me 6 review

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imagine-the-fanfics · 7 years ago

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what advice would you give to a writer who had a hard time staying motivated to write? I have thousands of ideas and I wanna finish them, but after a few chapters I lose the spark to write or get blocked on what to write next

Hi Nonnie! Hopefully I can help you.

I have the same problem more often than I care to admit... In fact, everyone who writes does! I’m currently in a “Intro to Creative Writing Class”, and we’re reading a book by Anne Lamont called Bird By Bird (which I linked to an Amazon listing)! I saw it’s on thrift books for under $4. I HIGHLY recommend it for improving your writing and learning about things like writer’s block.

The fact is you won’t always be motivated to write. If this is more of a hobby for you then it’s fine to take breaks until you're motivated again. Not everyone has that luxury as some people make a living off of this and they have to force themselves to do it. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to a method to help get past this issue. I can’t recall exactly what it’s called, but basically you write in a one inch picture frame minimum. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to force yourself to do it. I’m doing a terrible job at explaining the method so here’s an excerpt from the book:

“I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.”

I’ve tried this method myself multiple times when I get stuck. It helps get the flow started. At least it does for me. Sometimes it’s not enough. What good does it do if I can’t get those first words down?

Everyone finds inspiration in different things and in different ways. It seems the most common are in things like research, music, tv, movies, and music. For me, music is the biggest but I often mix it with something else. If I’m writing fan fiction I’ll put on what I’m writing about (for example I’ll put on M*A*S*H if I’m writing M*A*S*H fan fiction) and play some mood music. This can be overwhelming sometimes, so I don’t do it 100% of the time.

DO NOT REREAD WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN!

I mean, you can, but I’ve found that if I go more than a paragraph or two then I basically shoot myself in the foot and ant t go back and rewrite what I’ve written. I save this until after I’ve finished writing and I’m in the editing part of my process.

When it comes to being blocked on what comes next, I find having a rough idea of what I want to have happen pre-written helps me stay focused on what comes next. Sometimes the characters go in a different direction, so the plot details I had written become obsolete and I scrap them. Sometimes I write different scenes at different times.

There have been multiple times when I start with the final chapter, skip to the first, then write a middle, then I write a chapter that comes before that. In the end I have to stitch all these chapters together, but writing what you’re inspired to write can be helpful in utilizing your inspiration as it comes. For example, if you want to write a romance scene but plot wise you’re where an action scene should be... That inspiration to write the romantic scene is wasted and your action scene won’t be as satisfying.

Everybody is different.

What I’ve written may be horse manure and help you none, and if that’s the case I’m so sorry. Not everyone is the same and everyone has different things that work for them. This is just a bit of what I’ve learned over the years and in this class. We’re always growing and always learning. You’ll figure out what works for you.

Out of curiosity, are you keeping detailed descriptions of what you want to write? I’ve got a powerpoint presentation I use for my novel ideas, and am thinking of doing the same to keep my fan fiction ideas so I don’t forget them... I have a nasty habit of that. ^.^’

Does anyone else have anything to add? I’ll reblog so Nonnie can see it.

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uomo-accattivante · 7 years ago

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The troupe — a roving band of actors, musicians and directors who produce a variety of plays and entertainment — is centuries old. So why has this generation of stage, television and cinematic impresarios found new resonance in this old form of communalism?

IN “HAMLET,” WHEN the hero wants to put on a play to “catch the conscience of the king,” he engages the services of a band of itinerant actors, a motley troupe of entertainment professionals instructed by the Danish prince to “hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.”

As the Renaissance scholar Siobhan Keenan notes in her 2002 study, “Travelling Players in Shakespeare’s England,” the author of “Hamlet” based that fictitious company on something “he had lived for real.” Troupes of mimes and acrobats, musicians and mummers were ubiquitous in early modern Europe. Their performances were both religious and profane, encompassing everything from passion plays to puppet shows to commedia dell’arte sketches. They cobbled together material from various sources — Shakespeare’s own compositional method — and tailored their performances to local tastes and prejudices. Tradespeople as well as artists, the troupes operated according to a flexible organizational chart. In their working relationships they were companions more than colleagues, forging quasi-familial ties (including love affairs, of course) as they wound from town to town. The whole village would come to the show, and the community onstage, with its exaggerated conflicts and beguiling harmonies, served as a mirror for the audience, binding its members, at least for an evening or two, in common troubles and delights. A few young people might run off with the troupe, further blurring the boundary between the players and their public.

For centuries, these troupes defined popular culture in much of the world. They show up now and then in modern paintings, novels and films: in Seurat’s “Circus Sideshow” and Picasso’s “Family of Saltimbanques”; in novels such as Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” and Barry Unsworth’s “Morality Play”; in Theo Angelopoulos’s “Travelling Players” and Fellini’s “La Strada.”

Those works evoke nostalgia for the rough magic of a bygone way of life, one that slipped away silently and suddenly, like the circus setting off for the next town at daybreak. Over time, the troupe aesthetic fell victim to the usual forces of modernity. Art, even when it depended on collective labor, became increasingly individualized in Europe after the Middle Ages, and the consumption of art followed the same fate. Culture now travels, for the most part, electronically — reaching the public through the invisible corporate workings of television networks, streaming services and movie studios. Live theater, where it still flourishes, is concentrated in commercial or philanthropically supported institutions. The scrolling credits and the fine print in the playbill record a strict division of labor. Though there is, technically, a “company,” it’s often an ad hoc confection brokered by agents, producers and other offstage dealmakers. The artists are individuals, and so are the members of the audience. The romantic idea of performing artists as a vagabond tribe, commingling with the rest of us and then moving on, has been dissolved in the medium of modern celebrity. And the corresponding ideal of the public — gathering to share in a common treasury of imagination — has withered as tastes have fragmented.

BUT THE HUNGER for that older way of doing things persists. Movie studios and television networks are soulless, monstrous entities, ravenous heads of a corporate hydra. A Broadway theater is an empty shell. There is not much we see that commands our loyalty, or inspires our solidarity. The unsatisfied, atavistic part of ourselves that harbors a dim memory of those wondrous nights in the village square experiences a special frisson, a jolt of recognition and excitement, when we witness the work of players who seem loyal to one another.

This is why we react with a special kind of excitement when we encounter what looks like the work of a genuine troupe in the crowded, highly mediated, aggressively monetized postmodern landscape where we scavenge for beauty, fun and enlightenment. What connects certain television shows, movies and stage productions to ancient folkways is a particular blend of novelty and familiarity. You see the same faces again and again in new disguises. The afternoon’s clown is the evening’s tragic hero; yesterday’s princess is tomorrow’s wicked stepmother.

To be more specific: The young actor Evan Peters, who creeped you out as a sweet-faced, homicidal teenager in the first season of “American Horror Story” on FX, returns in subsequent seasons as a falsely accused murderer, a reanimated fraternity brother, Charles Manson, Andy Warhol and Jesus. This is not an exhaustive list. In the same series — the flagship production of what we might call the Ryan Murphy Troupe — Jessica Lange has been a sinister nun, a witch and a maniacal, musical mistress of ceremonies.

To take another example: Ben Stiller, a fixture of several distinct, overlapping quasi-troupes (including his own), shows up in “Greenberg,” Noah Baumbach’s 2010 romantic comedy, as the misanthropic, underachieving brother of a successful Los Angeles hotelier. He cycles back into the Baumbach universe in 2015’s “While We’re Young,” playing the somewhat less misanthropic, not as spectacularly underachieving son-in-law of a prominent documentary filmmaker. And then, a couple of years later in “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),” he’s the successful sibling, a financial adviser based in L.A., struggling to keep his misanthropy in check and dealing with the narcissism of his father, played by Dustin Hoffman. (Hoffman was accused late last year by several women of sexual misconduct or assault. He has apologized to one of the women and has denied other allegations through his lawyer.)

If you are a habitual visitor to Baumbach’s galaxy, you are accustomed to seeing some of the same faces in altered guises. Florence Marr, played by Greta Gerwig in “Greenberg,” is not the same person as Frances Hamilton, Gerwig’s character in “Frances Ha” (2013) or Brooke in “Mistress America” (2015). But these young women stand in relation to each other like conjugations of the quintessential millennial verb “to adult.” They are melodies played on different instruments in the same family: clarinet, oboe, bassoon.

After “Greenberg,” Baumbach and Gerwig began writing together (they also now live together). “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America” are the fruits of that partnership, a fusion of complementary, but also distinctive, styles and sensibilities. “It’s like we’re standing on the beach picking up the same kind of rocks,” Gerwig says of their collaboration. (Gerwig’s solo voice as a writer and director burst forth in “Lady Bird,” one of the defining movies of last year.)

“Part of what’s great about working with the same people is that it’s an ongoing conversation that you’re having from movie to movie,” says Baumbach, whose troupe of repeat collaborators includes crew as well as cast. “How can we continue this thing we’ve been developing? And then there’s also the thing of explaining yourself to new people, which is good too. So you want some healthy dose of both.”

Baumbach’s characters are defined by their idiosyncrasies and imperfections, by their snowballing failures of communication, planning and insight. Bringing them to life demands precisely those things in heroic measure, and an enormous amount of work: endless rewriting, numerous takes, an editing process that begins while the script is still being written.

Ryan Murphy, by contrast, likes to surprise his actors, to spring ideas, situations and scenes on them in medias res — midseason and even mid-episode. “It’s always a little hair-raising,” says Jessica Lange. “With ‘American Horror Story’ we often wouldn’t get the first pages of the episode until the day we started shooting. I think anybody who’s worked with Ryan, especially on ‘American Horror Story’ — I mean, it is kind of by the skin of your teeth.”

“He can get sort of uninterested in a story he’s telling,” Sarah Paulson said, “and then decide to take it in an entirely new way that does interest him. So you can be going along, playing a particular thing and then all of a sudden you find out, oh, you really did kill your sister, and you ate her for dinner, and you didn’t realize that because you’d been playing the whole time that you really loved your sister. But it actually adds a beautiful nuance to your work.” The result is an ever-expanding, theoretically limitless multiverse of stories, and a thorough reinvention of the possibilities of serial television. “American Horror Story” derives its coherence not from a stable set of characters and situations but from the opposite. The through line is stated in the title — horror, a property that can be found in serial killers, witches, nuns, Charles Manson and our country’s current political climate. More concretely, it flows through the faces and voices of actors like Peters, Lange and Paulson, who discover, from one chapter to the next, the thrilling and spooky dimensions of their own talent. “It’s an incredible gift that you get to work for four to five months on something very, very intensely,” Paulson says, “just like you would on a film or a play, and then it’s over.”

A TROUPE, YOU will have noticed, is not necessarily a democratic phenomenon. Someone has to be the boss, providing both vision and connective tissue for the work of fellow artists. The current golden age of television has seen the rise of showrunners like Murphy as objects of critical scrutiny and fan obsessions, much in the way that movie directors were elevated to the status of artists during the postwar blossoming of film culture. Previously they had been seen as guns for hire in an anonymous industrial system.

Theater is an older art form, with a more complicated distribution of creative authority. Supremacy is habitually granted to the writer, who is sometimes also the star, and therefore a physical presence on the scene, but who more often is dead long before the curtain goes up. The popular image of what happens backstage involves a flurry of activity involving directors and dramaturgs, producers and impresarios scrambling to boost morale, prevent disaster and keep the bills paid.

Oskar Eustis is all of those things and also something else. The artistic director of the Public Theater since 2005, he leads in the tradition of two great New York showmen: George C. Wolfe, who directed “Angels in America” (1993) on Broadway and “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” (2017) for HBO, and Joseph Papp, the Public’s founder, who grew free outdoor performances of Shakespeare into a mighty civic institution. Under Eustis’s aegis, the Public, now housed in the former Astor Library in Lower Manhattan, has incubated such future Broadway hits as “Fun Home” (2015), “Hamilton” (2015) and “Latin History for Morons” (2017). It has been a home base and R&D facility for the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights Lynn Nottage and Suzan-Lori Parks. Season after season, it’s a whirring carousel of diverse, ambitious and politically urgent theater.

Eustis’s vision of the Public is of a kind of city within the city, a community open to new arrivals who settle in and stay for a long time. He likes to keep up with old friends and partners and to fold new talent into the mix. His relationships with playwrights like Tony Kushner and Nottage go back decades, predating his arrival at the Public. In the time he’s been there he has gathered in artists like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Oscar Isaac, John Leguizamo, the composer Jeanine Tesori and the playwright and actress Lisa Kron (co-creators of “Fun Home”).

These artists and others collaborate in a process that is intensive and exhaustive, a kind of rolling workshop that can continue for years. Theater, Eustis told me, “has to go through every phase of human experience, from the writer alone in their room chewing on their pencil to the conversations with the director or dramaturg as the piece is written, to the reading aloud with actors once a draft exists. So step by step until finally you have something that literally hundreds of people have been involved in putting together that’s being performed for hundreds of thousands. There is almost no example of a great work of theater that doesn’t involve many great collaborations.”

And that process has a meaning that extends beyond the theater itself. “This is such a transactional, atomized world,” Eustis said at the end of our conversation, “where everything gets a dollar value put on it. Everything is ‘I’ll give you this if you give me that’ and ‘What have you done …’ And to try and really build a counter to that, to say there’s actually a better way of people relating to each other, and while we can’t completely remake the world in our image, we can try to remake the theater in our image, and by doing that hold, as ’twere, a mirror up to nature.”

What we see on the stage and on the large and small screens are reflections of human social interaction. Every play, every film, every television show, is about a group of people — a family, a workplace, a neighborhood, a nation. The purpose of those art forms is to show us to ourselves, in glory and disgrace and at every point on the spectrum in between. The ethic of the troupe provides another, less obviously visible but no less powerful mirror. What we witness in the collective pretending is the result of individuals working together at a common task, in circumstances that, however grueling and disharmonious in the moment, are also utopian. This looks like the opposite of alienated labor, not just because it seems like fun — it’s not called “playing” for nothing — but because it transcends both the narrow individualism and the impersonal corporatism that defines so much of our working lives. The enchantment that we experience, craning forward in the audience, is not just with what we’re seeing, but with what we intuit about how it was made. Look: This is what we can do. This is who we might become.

#oscar isaac #the public theater #adam driver #lin-manuel miranda #evan peters #greta gerwig #sterling k brown #sarah paulson #angela bassett #jessica lange #oskar eustis #ryan murphy #matt bomer #noah baumbach #ben stiller #dustin hoffman #john leguizamo #kathy bates #new york times

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colubrina · 7 years ago

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Hi. I'm late to the "writer's ask" game, so as I keep losing track of which ones you've answered: I CHOOSE THE ONE'S YOU HAVE'E ANSWERED YET 😂🖤

THAT IS NOT FAIR! I ADORE YOU SO FINE BUT YOU ARE CHEATING!!! ALSO THANK YOU.

3. What is your favorite/least favorite part about writing?Favorite: The thrill of the good phrase.Least Favorite: Having people send me nasty, anonymous comments. I get it. You didn’t like it. Shoo.

4. Do you have any writing habits/rituals?I’m pretty flexible. In winter I write on the heater, but I’ve written via dictation, handwritten in a tiny notebook, brought an iPhone and bluetooth keyboard to type at an ice rink...

6. Favorite character you’ve written?Probably Amaryllis, who was the princess archetype in an original book I wrote that has been soundly rejected and insulted by everyone who has read it except for three people. And this is why I will love @itisariddle, @turbulenthandholding, and @unknown-authoress forever...

7. Favorite/most inspirational book?How can I pick just one?

8. Do you have any writing buddies or critique partners?I am so lucky that a bunch of people alpha read my last book. @turbulenthandholding, @itisariddle, @breenieweenie and @slytheringxbadxgirl all read the whole thing and shared their impressions. They are angels. I left the critique group I had set up for trust reasons. 11. What are you planning to work on next?I am revising That Damn Novel 2 (TM) and hope to start querying in late spring or summer. In fanfic, I’m trying to finish everything before I start anything new.13. Describe your writing processOpen laptop. Start typing.

14. What does it take for you to be ready to write a book? (i.e. do you research? outline? make a playlist or pinterest board? wing it?)I generally have the first scene very clearly in my head, and just wing it from there.

15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing?Poorly? I am never not beset by the surety that I am not good at this, that my work is shit, that I should stop inflicting it on people.

18. Tell us about that one book you’ll never let anyone readI don’t have one of those lol. I show my trash to people.

19. How do you cope with writer’s block?I usually have so many projects going at once that if I am not sure what happens next in one story I can work on another.

20. Any advice for young writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on?You can do this. Your contributions have merit. It will take longer than you want.23. Most anticipated upcoming books?The next chapter of The Prisoner by @nerysdax

24. Do you remember the moment you decided to become a writer/author?No27. Every writer's least favorite question - where does your inspiration come from? Do you do certain things to make yourself more inspired? Is it easy for you to come up with story ideas?I have more ideas than I have time. 29. Is writing more of a hobby or do you write with the intention of getting published?I want desperately to be published lol32. On average how much do you write in a day? do you have trouble staying focused/getting the word count in?Right now my goal is 1,000 words/day. It’s a pretty relaxed goal so it’s not an issue.

33. What’s your revision/rewriting process like?Well, with this book I did some revising as I wrote the first draft as things became obviously flawed so badly they needed to go. I then did a full revision where I read through a hard copy once, then read it through again and made notes ONLY about plot issues. I then went back and revised each chapter using my notes and the notes my wonderful alpha readers had left in the google doc they’d read. Then I printed a clean hard copy and am currently on my first of three passes through looking specifically at each major character. When that’s done, I’ll put those edits in, then start looking at each chapter in the Hemingway app. There I’ll read it out loud to find clumsy phrasing and bits that don’t flow and also use the app’s highlighting to catch overuse of adverbs and complicated sentences I should revisit. Finally I’ll read ANOTHER hard copy.

All of this, of course, is subject to change as I go.36. Post a snippet

37. Do you ever write long handed or do you prefer to type everything?I am pretty flexible and work both ways depending on where I am.

38. How do you nail voice in your books?I am not sure I do.

39. Do you spend a lot of time analyzing and studying the work of authors you admire?Yes

42. How many drafts do you usually write before you feel satisfied?What is ‘satisfied’?

43. How do you deal with rejection?I complain to @turbulenthandholding and/or @itisariddle they say the people involved are fools. Rejection is really awful. I’m not going to lie. And the path to traditional publishing is mostly rejection, sometimes form letter rejection and sometimes lovely rejections that compliment you but still don’t want your book. In the last half of 2017, when I was querying Mags, I got 63 emails from agents telling me they weren’t interested in my book (and 56 agents who used the ‘no response means no’ method of communication.) It hurt. It helps to have good friends who care about you and are rooting for you.

44. Why (and when) did you decide to become a writer?I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision on the matter.

48. Do you prefer to write skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut it back?I would prefer to write too much and cut back. What I do is write too little and have to flesh out.50. Do you share your rough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished?I share my rough drafts with my glorious alpha readers.51. Are you a secretive writer or do you talk with your friends about your books? I could drone on all day but I try to not to avoid being a self-involved bore. I generally assume my talking about my books is boring and tedious and if people endure it it is because they are polite, not interested.

52. Who do you write for?Primarily for me to control my anxiety.

53. What is the first line of your WIP?I’ll pick Unlikely Brothers to share: When Aurors and inspectors and Order members arrived, they found James and Lily Potter horribly dead, Sirius Black laughing with the hysteria of the mad, and no trace of Voldemort.55. How do you manage your time/make time for writing? (do you set aside time to write every day or do you only write when you have a lot of free time?)Because I don’t have paid employment it’s reasonably easy to find time to write. I try to treat it like it is my job and sit down to do it each day.

from writer asks (no more please)

#writer asks #faeriefully

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mental-health-advice · 7 years ago

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How is college going for you? I’m a freshman in the middle of my first semester and I’m having a really rough time and feeling very overwhelmed. I️ have 2 10 page papers and another 6 tests before the semester ends. I️ cry almost every day because I’m scared I’m not cut out for college. I’m not sure if it’s actual depression or just my course load ://. Do you have any advice

Hi there,

I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling so much withschool! I’m currently in the first semester of graduate school, so I completelyunderstand the stress of it all. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by everything,especially at the beginning of a semester and you see all of the work that youhave to get done by the end of the semester. You’re definitely not alone withhow you’re feeling!

When it comes to the actual school work, my biggest piece ofadvice is to take it one week at a time and, if that doesn’t work, take it dayby day. It’s good to be aware of how much you have to do throughout the wholesemester, but taking it all on at once is way too much. What I do at thebeginning of every week is write down all of the assignments that you have dueby the end of the week. I have an app on my phone called Color Note that I useto make a list every week that has my readings and assignments listed. I reallylike it because it keeps me on track for what I need to be doing, I feel superaccomplished once I’m able to cross something off the list once I’ve finishedit, and it helps with time management. If you can see everything you duethroughout the week, you can decide what you’re going to work on every day andfor how long until it’s all finished. After the week is over, do it again.

For the long-term, consider getting a planner or calendar whereyou can write down the bigger assignments that you have to get done over thesemester. For example, write the due dates for your papers and exams on theplanner or calendar so you still focus on your work week-by-week but you alsodon’t forget about those papers or exams. As they get closer, you can startincorporating the work for them into your weekly assignments. Using myself asan example, I have a 10-15 page paper due for my research methods/statisticsclass due the last week of the semester. I obviously don’t want to wait untilthat last week to start the paper, so I’ve started putting smaller tasks in myweekly list so I can still work on that big paper. So, for this week, my goalis to locate two more articles for the paper. Next week, I’ll start reading thearticles and gathering information. The week after that, I’m going to startwriting a rough draft. I can then spend the last few weeks of the semesterediting, finding more articles, etc. as needed. You can do the same sort ofthing for exams – study chapter 1 today, chapter 2 tomorrow, etc. Breakingthese things up make it more manageable while still staying on top of yourweekly assignments and readings.

Another option that helps is to work on all of this withclassmates. Although you all have to turn in your own assignments, gettingtogether with them while you work on the assignments can make it less daunting.Maybe get together with a few classmates at a coffee shop and just work on plowingthrough papers and other assignments. This is nice because you can ask them questionsor for advice if you need it while you’re working. Studying with classmates ishelpful for the same reason. Plus, with studying, there might be a concept you’restruggling to understand that a classmate can help you with and vice versa ifthey are struggling with something you understand quite well. Even if you can’tget together with classmates, try getting phone numbers from a couple of themso you can reach out to each other as necessary.

It’s also important to take care of your mental health whileyou’re in school. If you think you might be suffering from depression,definitely consider getting help before it has the chance to get any worse. Yourschool likely has counseling services and there’s a good chance that they are freeor at least cheaper than other places, so consider making an appointment withthem. Even if you don’t feel depressed, you can still seek help – you don’thave to be mentally ill to go to therapy. They would be able to help you findways to manage your stress, as well as help with your mental health if you’restruggling. College can be a huge adjustment, so it makes sense that you mightneed some help dealing with it. If you’d like some information on how to reachout, take a look at our getting help page. There’s nothing wrong with needinghelp!

Something else to remember is that you have to take care ofyourself. You can’t do well in school if you’re neglecting yourself, so makesure you aren’t putting school before yourself. It’s important to make sure you’regetting enough sleep, eating enough, and making time for the things you enjoy. Despiteall of the deadlines school gives you, self-care is still 100% necessary.

This isn’t something many people talk about, but it’s alsoalright if college isn’t for you. Even though there’s such an emphasis oncollege and getting your degree(s), some people just don’t like college or it’stoo difficult and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are so many optionsout there besides college, so just make sure that you’re doing whatever youfeel is best for yourself.

I hope this helps in some way, but let us know if there’sanything we can do to help. As hard as all of this may be, you’re so muchstronger than you think. You can get through this!

-Samantha

#mhasamantha #advice #advice blog #mental health advice #school #college #university #studying #studying advice #depression #getting help #Anonymous

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