Articles/Ideas/Prompts - Short Fiction

As a writer, one of the hardest things to do is sit down to write EVERY DAY, working on what you hope to turn into a career someday. Finding the motivation to actually write can be a completely annoying and difficult thing to do. Running low on inspiration... well, that's easy.

NaNoWriMo gives people a friendly, competitive push which drives them to the finish line out of sheer determination. It allows people to get off their asses and write. This is the kind of thing I need; right now I need a good motivational push to get me off my ass and writing again.

In the end, I'm sitting here with no motivation. Guess what?

If you can motivate me, I will be completely happy. All I really need is some competition and friendship on my writing journey. So, is anyone interested in a friendly competition similar to NaNoWriMo, something along the lines of 'let's see who can write more' with a minimum of X amount of words by November first...

Any motivation?

And in return, I make the offer of a competition with a minimum word count of 100K by November first (not that much), excluding blog posts, and to see whoever got more...

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Motivation, Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction, Poetry, Short Non-Fiction, Articles/Info

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One of the joys of NaNo: Daily Word Count Goals

December 4th 2007 06:20

NaNoWriMo has one thing about it that just happens to be advice from some of the best writers in my opinion-such as Stephen King. This one thing is that it makes you write, EVERY DAY, or suffer the consequences-a longer catch up day or a severe lack of winning.

This is advice given to writers by many, many, many serious writers. I can't help but echo it to some extent. I mean, as a drudge worker, you show up for work every day, do you not? Well, unless you're sick or on vacation. As a writer, you should love your job, and even when it feels like grunt work, be willing to stick with it. You should show up for work every day unless you're really sick or on vacation-but don't allow yourself any more vacation time (I'd say it should be more like half the vacation time) than a grunt worker would have.

You've gotta build yourself a good number of stories, articles, prompts, things you can use for the times when everything is running dry. You need to be able to have backup stories just in case-because as a writer, productivity is the most important thing, not clocked hours. In fact, as a writer, you need to produce regularly. Preferably every day.

When you're just starting out, particularly when you're young, maybe the best goal you can make for yourself every day is between five hundred and one thousand words. Sure, some days you'll miss the mark and have no willpower to try to continue, but some days you'll be able to write more. If you're an overachiever, you might start with 1500. It depends on what your goals are, in the long run.

You can set goals by other things than word count, like hours or pages. I'll get to those in a bit, theoretically. But the biggest recommendation, or at least the most common one I've heard, is to set yourself a word count goal for every day-and if you don't make it, don't worry too much, and if you hit it and you're still inspired, keep going.

One thing to remember is never to stop when you're inspired. To be a successful writer you need to work at it and be productive. You need to write regularly-every day, or every other day. Something like that.

So, what are you waiting for? Go write something!

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction, Poetry, Short Non-Fiction, Articles/Info

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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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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Motivation, Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction, Poetry, Short Non-Fiction, Articles/Info

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Why All Writers Must Be Readers

August 13th 2007 03:54

I am an avid reader. Fantasy, sci-fi, even a good mystery or suspense will make me happy.

There are a few damn good reasons to read, read widely, and read often. (Read something, even just a blog post, every day; write something, even just a blog post, every day

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction, Poetry, Short Non-Fiction, Articles/Info

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A Closer Look: Theme

August 13th 2007 01:03

In light of Harry Potter's now-ages-ago release, people have been constantly talking about its theme, which is very clearly the Wizard version of the Holocaust.

You know, Death Eaters/Nazis, Mudbloods/Jews/Undesireables (I have a vague suspicion they were actually called something like the last one in one of the books), Voldemort/Hitler, you know, that whole thing. (Then there's Dumbledore, the reformed Nazi, and Grindelwald, the now-not-as-crazy-evil Nazi

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction

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