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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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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)

The first one is because if you don't know what works-what makes a character appealing, a world realistic, a plot interesting or a culture fascinating-in other people's fiction (or even non fiction, but that's not what I'm talking about here), how the hell are you supposed to know what works in your own? How can you select a genre if you don't read it? How can you understand if your work's quality is up to par with that of some published writers, if you never read published writers?


Then there are the books on writing. You need to study and learn your craft. Period. There's no way around it. Your book will suck if you haven't read anything about characterization, plot, climax, resolution, all the things that make a story great.

You need to read to know which publishers publish books like yours, to read to know what level of quality a successful writer should have. You need to read because you need to be able to understand the functioning of a story, what is entertaining, what is interesting.

Reading should be just as much a part of you as writing is. By reading, and by buying books, you support other authors. You help keep them their livelihoods. You support the industry by buying books, because it needs customers in order to be successful. The more success they have, the more money they have to promote, market, distribute. All of that will, at some point, be important to you.

So, if you don't read, your writing is probably just as bad as 90% of fanfic. Someone once said that 90% of anything is crap-don't let your writing be part of that 90%.

Some recommended books:
On Writing, by Stephen King-it's funny, to the point, and not grammary at all (and it's sitting next to my desk)
A Series of Unfortunate Events-the best written best seller on the market
Money for Content and Your Clicks for Free (internet business of creativity) by JD 'Illiad' Frazer
The Vampire Chronicles- (Interview With A Vampire, the Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned) by Anne Rice, beautifully written.
A Spell For Chameleon-Piers Anthony's Xanth-first book.
On A Pale Horse-part one of Incarnations, another Piers Anthony series
The Writer's Workshop-it's a pretty cool textbook they used to use in high school for creative writing, apparently. Whatever. By John F. Parker, published by Addison Wesley. (add an A and get Weasley)
Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith, a really cool YA paranormal romance.

That's it for now. I don't mention a lot of writing specific books because 90% of them are really boring crap.

Have fun reading!
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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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