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Les Writing blog, with tips, advice, and my own writing... And Nanowrimo obsession.

Increasing Your Writing Productivity

November 29th 2007 17:14
So. We all have those times when we are absolute failures at productivity, and those times when we can write like a maniac. I'm going to take a look at causes, influences, and ways to increase your productivity in the next two or three posts.

First, in this post, let's look at the causes of unproductive times...

1) Stress and a lack of free time. Usually related to work or family, or both, possibly working overtime on some big project, whatever. At the end of the day, when you have time to write, all you really want to do is sleep. This isn't the best of reasons, but it's one that strikes true with a lot of authors.


2) Sickness. Usually when you're sick, you don't really want to be at the computer, typing, you want to be laying in bed with a good book. (I am the one exception to this rule; I feel like shit at the moment) I'll actually ay that this is one of the better excuses for not writing; it may compromise your health, which, in most people's eyes, is more important than writing.

3) Writer's block. Writer's block is pretty common and fairly well known to be the bane of our existence; it does a good job eliminating our word counts and novels and poems. There are ways to get around it, but with really bad writer's block usually comes depression of a sort. I mean, if you can't write now, how are you ever going to make it?

Those are the three main causes. Usually all three are caused by stress, business, and the complete inability to think straight. They all block your writing majorly. Blocks are not good for the serious writer; a block that lasted long enough could throw your career down the toilet.

I'm writing about this because I've been majorly blocked on and off the last month or two, and now I'm writing again. (Of course, I'm sick, so today has been horrendously unproductive.) I'm looking forward to when the sickness is gone and the productivity returns. Next post I'll look at ways to cure your blocks...
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Time To Edit: Hours vs. Words vs. Pages

September 5th 2007 23:40
(You could also say Vs. Chapters, but let's classify that under 'pages' for my purpose.)

The next several non-update posts will be about how to go about your editing schedule. I will write two posts based around the general theory and such, an introduction and a conclusion. I will also write one post for each category-Pages, Hours, Words, and *maybe* chapters, but that will probably be pages as well.

Let me give you an introduction to this annoyingly timeless arguement. I'll be doing three different 'sections' of this, one collection of posts about the argument for Editing, one for Novels, and one for Short Stories.


For just about all time in just about every writer's advice, at some point, we run across the idea of scheduled writing time. Generally this is between half an hour to two hours, or at least recommended to be as such.

Do we count our 'time progress' by hours or by words, or pages or chapters? Each person has to figure it out themselves. And do we add additional time for editing or let that also take up our writing time? Personally my vote rests with additional time for editing so that writing is never shoved aside, but that's just me.

I'm going to provide you with the pros and cons of each as well as my personal opinion. The reason being that I've seen quite a lot of conflict in this area. I get fed up with said conflict rather quickly sometimes. You do need to schedule some sort of writing and editing into your life, but there are other things which come first, priorities and all that.

I promise to show you the basic principal, ideas, and logic behind each type of progress. I also promise you to write something much more informative as soon as possible... Which isn't tonight!
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What would you guys think of...

August 30th 2007 01:50
An anthology of stories aimed at teenagers, written in historic periods-during the depression, the war of 1812 (which is outshone by the Napoleon wars but is cool because we burned down the white house), World War Two, that sort of thing-and aimed to make learning history more interesting, maybe even *fun*, while encouraging literacy.

I wanted to write something like that a while back. I'm thinking it would be a good thing to work on during the school year while I'm too busy to properly work on much in the way of novelling. My final edit of Moonshadow's Guardian will be done by October first and Jihad's next draft will be done by November first. After NaNoWriMo and National Novel Finishing month (more on that later), NaNoFiMo, I was thinking that starting in January I'd write one of these short stories and polish it up per month.

The way I figure, that means there might actually be an anthology out within the next couple of years, probably self published because anthologies are not easily published. It's something that I would like to do just because I'm fascinated by history. I'd also love to do a couple things in feudal Japan, maybe one in Egypt, and maybe a few in England or Scotland. Not just North America.

Thoughts?
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...I really don't have much to say today. Running on 5 hours of sleep doesn't help.

I do enjoy it when I feel that a piece is *truly* finished. Doesn't happen very often, but when I don't have any doubts, when I'm ready...and, of course, the critiquers like it... it's such a fulfilling feeling! Almost worth the drudgery of editing. (It's fully worth it when there is also CHOCOLATE involved at the end


[ Click here to read more ]
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Editing: A Necessary Evil

August 14th 2007 03:54
Most writers despise editing, and I really understand why. Who wants to slaughter parts of their manuscript-even sometimes the whole thing-after spending weeks or months working on it?

Quite frankly, nobody I've ever met. Editing is a long process, especially when the novel you're editing is a PC (Piece of Crap) to begin with. You have to ask every scene, every character, every word, what it's doing in your novel


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My problem with the Snowflake Method (LINK)

August 12th 2007 13:58
The Snowflake Method is a method of outlining which I find to be particularly creatively smothering. It is basically a summary. It starts as 'write a peragraph about your book, each sentence describing a main event' and goes on until each event is a page, two pages, and onwards.

By the end of it, you have a novella of summary alone. My reasons for disliking this method are many, but here are just a few


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Schedule

August 8th 2007 06:53
This is very loose, and it's Canadian time. Here ya go:

Daily-Editing Pains basic update


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Section One: Editing Pains -.-

August 3rd 2007 03:02
For the next few days, my posts are going to be introducing various sections on my blog. The first and foremost is Editing Pains.

Once I'm done introducing the sections, Editing Pains will be where I give daily-or every other day-updates on my editing progress with my novel, Moonshadow. Or whatever I'm editing at the time


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