StorytimeWednesday

  Your first draft if finished, now walk away for at least a day or two before you begin your editing process. If you can't afford to hire a professional editor to clean up your project, then you'll have to do it yourself. When I first started writing it took me ages to get the first page written because I kept rereading the page and editing, changing, and redefining the sentences. Finally, my writing mentor who was a previously published novelist who I adore finally got fed up with me during one of his biweekly catch-up phone calls to me when he asked how many pages I got written in the previous two weeks. My response was one page, and my reasoning was that the grammar and wording just didn't sound right to me. He snapped at me and gave me the best advice any writer could receive, stop editing and get the story out of your head and onto the paper or laptop in my case. Editing comes later. It's serious writing time. Now hang up the phone and get to writing and you bette...

  Writing Distractions   What are the most distracting items that every writer deals with and how to solve them in order to get as much writing done as possible?   Each of these items are what usually happens when you sit down at your computer or laptop, then immediately get distracted from your goals of writing for that timeframe. 1)       Social Media Do you schedule writing time only to get distracted by checking your email, or some form of social media account? If so, stop it! Turn off all internet access during the scheduled time you are supposed to write. That means turn off your phone, unplug your laptop or computer from the internet or better yet get a separate laptop that doesn’t touch the internet and use that system for your writing.   If you can’t afford to buy another laptop them down load an app that turns off your social media and blocks it for a specific period of time. Like Freedom, Self-Control or Stay focused. 2) ...

    I hear aspiring writers tell me all the time that they wish they had more time to be creative and write that novel they crave to produce. When I hear that line, I immediately tell them that they have no desire to be a writer, instead it’s only an unwanted dream to be able to write. This is when they get upset with me and want to storm off and curse me out for being honest with them. Like I’ve said in the past to many a protégé, if you can’t taste it, you can’t produce your written word in that novel you want to write. What does that mean? It means you have to really want to be a writer in order to be a writer. You must crave the opportunity to write that novel or movie script and then make it happen. Your dedication is key to your success. There is always time in your day to write, you just need to be dedicated enough to find it. For me, writing happens early in the morning over my first cup of coffee, or late at night with a cup of tea. When I first started writing, I onl...

So what type of book are you thinking about writing? Fiction or Non-Fiction? Will it be a short story or a novel? The type of book you plan to write has a lot of planning needed before you actually begin to put pen to paper or your fingers to a keyboard. It's just not that easy to sit down and begin to write. Over the next few weeks we're going to break down the story/book writing process to help you better comprehend what you are undertaking in order to help you better understand the process and help you fulfill the desire to write a book or story. So let's get started.  What type of story will you write? The genre is important as the picture above depicts the type of stories that go under each type of book, fiction or non-fiction. Then you have to decide what type of writing will you write, a short story, a novella, a novel, or an epic novel? Knowing what type of book you plan to write helps you to understand how many words you will need to achieve in order to fulfill tha...