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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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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:

-It encourages more writing about writing than actual writing;
-It eventually means you're just inking the already-pencilled in words, in essence;
-It makes your book into a series of events, without looking closely at characters (there is a section for characterization; again, it smothers, meaning you most likely won't find out anything new about your characters by the time you're done);

-And it can be a real time sucker.

Time is precious. Creativity is what makes writing fun. Smothering creativity makes your book more and more dull. Outlines can be great tools, but like the Snowflake, they can certainly go overboard.

As for my preferred outlining method? I grab a piece of blank paper, punch holes in it, make a border, and it's point form notes without ANY further expansion. Why? First off, I'm too damn lazy to actually bother until I start writing. Second, it wastes time I could spend writing the book. Second off, it leaves most of the creativity in place, and thus the fun of writing.

The Snowflake Method works for plenty of writers; see if it's right for you. But remember-if you've got a novella of outlining, you're probably just avoiding writing. Start the novel sometime, it makes you much more likely to finish, which makes you about 50% more likely to publish. (After that, you need to revise the hell out of it; but that's another entry, don'tcha think?)

(And do check out the link. It's good for reference if nothing else.)
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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
Monday-Editing article/motivation/idea
Tuesday-Writing update
Wednesday-Editing/short fiction article (either)
Thursday-inspiration for long fiction
Friday-Basic editing update
Saturday-any
Sunday-any

The last two can be just the basic update. If I'm going to be away over the weekend, I'll post about it on my other blog, with maybe a brief notice here. Now, onto Editing Pains, my update for today!

It's Wednesday morning here, about 3AM, so I'll be posting a short fiction article later today, methinks.
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