The Novel Begins

Motivation is one of the biggest killers to a good writing schedule. If you listen to the greats there is no tried and true way of keeping the flow going. Some authors write in the mornings, some in the afternoons, and then there’s the night owls that write all night. 

The best practice is what works for you. For those of us with day jobs, or washing up to the ceiling, and children who insist on playing while you write, then it might be a few stolen hours in the bathroom.

My own detective thriller has been in the wings for some time now, there is a whole 9000 words of drama, with a daunting amount to go.

At the Desk

Earlier this year I decided to cut my working hours back to four days per week. This leaves my Fridays free for writing, a chance to explore my characters in greater detail, and discuss them with other likeminded writers. 

Writing can be a very isolating experience, formulating plots, building believable characters; hours go by without talking to a living person. Your characters become your family, your children take on new names, and the plot, the ever-increasing plot becomes your address, your living space is transformed to a world of fantasy, a castle ringed by a mighty forest, and charging crusaders.

Remember when we discussed making it a habit of writing 500 words per day for seven days culminating with 3500 words at the end of the week. We decided that this exercise would not be re-read or edited in that week, it was pure writing. That exercise netted me the 9598 word framework for my murder mystery. Those words still have not been edited, but they have been re-read, and boy do they need some work.

You can do this too, set an intention to write a selected number of words per day that is comfortable for you. Don’t edit or read for a week, only once you meet your quota, do a functional edit, just to make sure you’re on the right track, and then start again.

Procrastination is a destroying rut to get into, and constant re-read and editing will lead you along that same procrastinating track. Perfection is not needed until the tale is told. You can spend millions of wasted hours changing a word here and a word there, only to find it made no difference in the long run.

Good luck with your own short stories, novels, and blogs over the coming weeks of November. I will be working on my first ever novel, and I’ll keep you posted with the progress. As I say, don’t wait for the right time to write, start today.

 

How many words do you writer per day? Leave a comment below.