I'm finally turning my Pinterest into a true writers board. I still keep stuff for me, such as "Rescue Me from My Fangirl," "LOL," "Want This," and "Prettyness," but my other boards are with purpose.
On Pinterest and Behind the Scenes
Tag Archives: writing tools
Patience is a Virtue, with Writing Tools
ORIGINAL STUFF
Discovered last night that the ebook sales that went nonexistent in the first quarter are back. Note to the scribbler: double up on getting the updates published. That's a 10+ hour project I haven't had 10+ hours to do.
Discovered new website yesterday with reviewing style I genuinely adore. I've wanted to review a lot of books and stories that really move me, but have taken a hands off approach because the rate at which I inhale fiction leaves very little time for commenting, but... Note to the scribbler: This is worth a try.
Installed a bunch of new plugins to add functionality and better organization to this site. Haven't had time to really do anything about configuring them yet. Note to the scribbler: You do need to get on that.
Finished editing a story in the world of Breath: "The Great Cat and His Soul." I'm holding onto it though until I can collect it. Note to the scribbler: Consider permitting more than just 'myths' in the collection, 'kay?
FANDOM STUFF
Watched last week's Awake. Bawled my eyes out. It's amazing. I know they cancelled the show, but oh, Lordy, I sense huge amounts of fan response brewing on my horizons. Note to the scribbler: Do wait until time opens up, please. Patience is a virtue.
Still am not reading Insurgent. It doesn't come close to the right mood/tone for the writing I need to do today. Note to the scribbler: Patience really is a virtue.
Am writing a Kyro ficlet for arliddian. Dislike my first go and still love the summary: "Kitty always did like complex mathematical equations—like solving for the 'saint' in John." I'm trying too hard to make it match the title: "The Improbability of Forever." Note to the scribbler from your muse: Two fics?
Safe has not beeen coming along, but that is primarily my fault. I've been rereading my own work exactly like we just mentioned we should not. Note to the scribbler: Stop it.
But... in the process I found a snippet I'd been looking for everywhere and thought was gone for good. Yay! Note to the scribbler: You need to work on your organization methods. Badly.
AWESOME TOOLS I USE TO WRITE
Wordle is a handy dandy for revealing all sorts of overused words and phrases. I haven't used it recently because I've been experimenting in just getting. words. down. http://www.wordle.net/
Written? Kitten! is my handy dandy for short fiction. Highly recommend. http://writtenkitten.net/
Mary Sue Tester is new to me, but it came in rather handy making sure I hadn't gone overboard when designing the katchen. (Considering altering spelling to kahtchen—unwieldy but easier to pronounce correctly.) http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysuetests.htm
Pinterest is proving to be a useful place to store writing prompts. I use this tool to add quotes. http://pinterest.com/lianamir/idea-box/
AND BACK TO YOU...
Anything exciting? New tools? New progress? Causes of lack of progress identified? Tips for acquiring patience?
Posted in Fandom, Publishing, Website, Writing
Tagged fandom: awake, plans, writing tools
2 Comments
The Great Writing Experiment
In three weeks of tracking my writing time, I have learned some things I never would have imagined about my writing.
1. The story I understand the best takes the longest to write. Consistently. Continue reading
Trying Something New
I've been feeling lousy lately (sick and sciatic nerve problem) and down on time and have decided to try something different.
First, I started trying Written? Kitten! I'll be the first to admit it's too simple to work well for me. I write better when italicizing, bolding, and centering are easy as CTRL + shortcut. But it's a handy tool when I want to just start pushing. Better than Notepad at least.
Second, today I read this article by Rachel Aaron. It's genius and I recognize my own best processes in there. By analyzing and studying her own work, she boosted her average daily word count from 2000 words per day to 10,000 words, using knowledge, time, and enthusiasm. (I could use that kind of boost.)
I went through one six-month period in my life where I wrote almost 50,000 words of fanfiction in about 2-3 hours a day, 2-3 days a week. Needless to say, I haven't been there in a long time. But what was I doing differently?
- I was passionate about what I was writing. I loved the stories and the characters and always wanted to find out what happened next. I could wring out 1200 - 2300 words in an hour on my lunch break just off of the inspiration of reading my previous chapters. (This got harder once it took too long to read the previous chapters.)
- I knew enough but not too much. If I pre-write the whole story, I will stop writing the story. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. If I prewrite the chapter, we're good to go.
- I constantly wrote down snippets of what I wanted to include in the next chapter or even later.
- I read works that inspired me for my own fic.
- I never felt limited. I just wrote whatever inspired me at the moment and knew I'd eventually get back to that other fic on the burner. (This gets harder once the burners exceed 20, but it's hard to keep wanting to write if I shut down too many of my ideas either.)
- I had to work hard to earn praise (I didn't have fans yet who liked even the work I didn't), so when I did earn it, it mattered.
- I almost always wrote in Microsoft Word or occasionally directly on the Document Manager. I have since analyzed my own writing enough to discover I write best and fastest and most in Word—for whatever reason.
Is there anything that helps you write and stay motivated? Please share any tips, links, ideas, or experiences. And happy writing!
