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Archive for the ‘Writer’s Block’ Category

5 Blogs No Writer Should Miss

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Over the past two weeks, I have been reexamining WritAnon’s approach to blogging.  Frankly, we want to make sure we’re posting relevant information that helps authors regardless of their stage in their writing life.

This post is the first in our new approach.  We welcome comments on both our approach and other noteworthy blogs.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of the helpful blogs available, but these are the blogs that we at WritAnon agree no writer should miss.  We highly recommend subscribing to these blogs in an RSS reader like RSSOwl or Google Reader.  This way, you’re notified when there’s a new blog entry, and can save more time for writing.

1.  There Are No Rules

There Are No Rules is a blog run by former Writers Digest editor Jane Friedman.  She posts lots of useful tips, entries from guest authors, and a weekly “Best Tweets for Writers” article each Sunday.

Jane gives no-nonsense tips, and has posted controversial articles like How to Ensure 75% of Agents Will Request Your Material or useful tips like 4 Ways to Improve Narrative Drive in Your Story.  The information published on her blog is always useful and relevant to writers today.

2.  SlushPile Hell

SlushPile Hell is written by a self-described “grumpy literary agent” who uses sarcasm and humor to point out mistakes authors make in their query letters.

There are two big advantages to this blog:

  1. The entries are always quick reads
  2. The lessons you learn from his (or her) biting criticism will help improve your own query letter mistakes

3.  Jody Hedlund

Jody Hedlund recently debuted as the author of The Preacher’s Bride, but she has been blogging for quite a while.

What I enjoy most about her blog is the way she always writes concise, relevant entries that maintain a tight focus.  It was actually stumbling across her blog that convinced me that our approach needed to change.

Jody, if you’re reading this, thanks for giving us a great example of a way to do blogging right!

4.  The Bane of Your Resistance

The Bane of Your Resistance is written by Roseanne Bane, a creativity coach and author who specializes in unleashing the brain’s potential through science.

One of the neatest articles I’ve seen from Roseanne is how the brain moves from the limbic system (“mammilian” brain) to the cerebral cortex (where most human creative thought occurs).  Another favorite is where she talks about distraction in Squirrel!

Roseanne’s tips can help you break out of writing resistance, start writing more regularly, and get more done when you do write.

5.  Nathan Bransford

I almost pulled Nathan Bransford’s blog from this list due to late breaking news on Friday.  Nathan is (or rather was, in the “changing jobs” sense) a literary agent, but is moving on to the world of social media (see his announcement here).

However Nathan’s past entries are full of good information, and I expect his focus on social media going forward will continue to include relevant writing tips. If nothing else, the blog archives are something that writers should read through for their own education.

What blogs do you never miss?  Do you agree with our selections?  What else might you recommend?

Word Count Quotas vs. Dedicated Writing Time

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Lately, I’ve been testing out two methods of making myself more productive.  I’ve been struggling with ways to help myself succeed and beat my word count each day.

Here’s what I’ve discovered as I’ve been working my current novel-in-progress.

There are two main methods of measuring progress:  word count quotas, and dedicated writing time.

Word count quotas:

Benefits:

  • Easier to plan when your work will be complete
  • Psychological boost when you beat your quota significantly
  • Easy to measure whether you’re on track with your goals
  • Others can measure whether you’ve met your goal for the day–and help urge you on

Disadvantages:

  • When you’re struggling, it can take a significant amount of time to hit your quota
  • This doesn’t take into account editing/rewriting time
  • Word counts don’t take into account the quality of your writing.  Anyone can write 500 words, but making those 500 words fit into a larger manuscript or article can take much more time.

Dedicated writing time:

Benefits:

  • Fixed time box, so you limit how much time you are required to work
  • If you’re struggling, once the time has finished, you can stop guilt free
  • Allows you room to edit your work, take out scenes, or add in new ones
  • Writing at the same time every day helps you develop writing as a habit

Disadvantages:

  • Harder to plan when a work will be complete
  • If you’re on a roll, you may not have enough flexibility to continue working beyond your dedicated writing time

My take:

Ultimately, I’ve decided to go with a blend of dedicated writing time and word count quotas, with a slight twist.

I focus on writing scenes instead of purely using word count quotas, and try to dedicate time from 10pm-12am to focus only on writing.  This allows me to avoid the trap of only paying attention to the number of words I write, while still helping myself to continue making progress every day.  Using a scene as a measurement helps me to avoid checking my word count every few minutes, and focus on writing usable prose.

Since switching over to this blended method, I’ve found that I can easily hit my quota of 500 words a day, often doubling that number.  With a little luck and continued dedication, my first draft of this novel will be done in about 2 months.

What do you think?  What has worked for you?  What methods do you use to help yourself make more progress every day?


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