Advice from an Author on Word Count

[wfeather]

A while ago, a friend pointed me to Deadline Dames, a group blog from nine published women.  Today's post on word count goals is quite relevant for anyone doing NaNoWriMo or any other NaNo-style event, so I figured I'd mention it here.  It does indeed work - when I am not feeling in the writing mood, I tend to do something similar to what she

Comments

[eyedsofmarch]

Breaking things into chunks is something I was taught while learning systems analysis and design. While running I tend to do things a bit differently. I'm not saying I haven't uttered the words inside my head ...almost done before, because I have many times, but I find distraction works a whole lot better during a run.

Often enough, I think of stories while running. If I let my imagination go somewhere else, my body goes on autopilot, and I kill two birds with one stone. Then again, I like running, at least until my body starts to hurt (injuries) but that's just me

[keyanadrake]

Free-writing is good for creativity. You just... open a blank page and let your brain vomit out words and sentences at random. Like a monologue. Like NaNoWriMo, don't edit it, just write whatever comes to your brain and let it flow as freely as you can. Some people time them, some people just let them flow until it feels right to stop. I used to do this by hand so I'd stop at the end of the page... but whatever works for you is good

[eyedsofmarch]

I'll give that exercise a try. It's actually that kind of thing I was looking for when I posted. I need exercises that can help to put fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper) and play with stuff, without it being a piece of work that needs form and structure or completeness. Like weight-training can help with certain sports, what is the equivalent for a writer? How can I flex and work my creativity so that I can apply it to story writing

[keyanadrake]

Writers learn by writing. You just variate the target to variate the exercise. Like weights training you think about the muscle group you want to bulk up/strengthen and do the exercise that'll hit that muscle group. Same kind of thing with writing. Want to make your creativity a little more free flowing, do exercises that'll do that... free writing, reading other genre's or styles of writing and trying to emulate it, ... want to develop your characters better look around for those silly meme quizes and ask them of your characters, make character sheets with history, birthday, hobbies, random quirks of the character, ... want to develop good story telling techniques read how others do it and consciously analyse how they do it and what they're doing, make flow charts about the progression of your story and triggers you've put into the story to create that progression... I draw a lot of maps and charts about my stories, timelines... character blurbs/charts... read about "writing tips", read other people's writing and make an exercise