Tips needed

[resonant]

For tomorrow's writing workshop, I'm supposed to bring a "writing exercise or creativity exercise." I don't have any of those, because I don't use them, so I'm kind of stymied.

After discussing this with cmshaw in chat last night, I'm thinking I may just share with them my one and only tip for getting more writing done, namely:

When you stop writing for the day, always stop in the middle of a sentence. That way it's easier to start again next day.

I learned that from a very sweet amateur site called Eddie's Anti-Procrastination Site, which is here: www.geocities.com/writethethesis. Eddie also offers my favorite slogan for writers: "You just have to keep on starting."

I'm curious now: Does anyone else have these sorts of tips? Not on the craft of writing, nor on increasing inspiration and creativity, but just on the nuts and bolts of getting the thing done -- managing your time, setting and meeting goals, defeating procrastination, resisting the temptation to polish endlessly instead of getting on with it?

If I learn anything useful on that score tomorrow, I'll share it with you.

Meanwhile, for anyone who's been following my ongoing efforts to cook with tofu:

Tofu Chocolate Mousse

Melt 3/4 cup chocolate chips in the microwave.

Measure 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier into a measuring cup. Add milk to equal 1/2 cup. Heat in the microwave until warm but not hot, about 1 minute. Add 1 tablespoon instant coffee and stir to dissolve.

In a food processor, mix melted chocolate, warmed milk mixture, and 12 ounces silken tofu. Press through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, then transfer into serving bowls and chill. (I like it frozen.)

This is my refitting of a recipe I found in Everyday Food magazine.

Advantages over ordinary chocolate mousse:

1. Much lower in fat.
2. Actually has some nutritional value.
3. No raw eggs.
4. A lot easier.

Drawbacks:

1. Less rich, obviously.
2. Still has that faint metallic tofu taste, if you really look for it.

Comments

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Have a sort of 'getting-in-the-mood' routine. Personally I always make a cup of green tea, sit down at the computer and bring up what I'm working on, read the last page or so, then play something mindless like Freecell or Spider Solitaire while I drink the tea and let my thoughts wander over what I'm going to write next. I'm so used to it now, that even when I'm just playing Spider for fun, I end up with half a dozen plot ideas.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I wish it worked that way for me. I can play computer games by the hour, but all they do for my brain is empty it out.

(By the way, the five-year-old thinks your icon is hilarious.)

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

It makes my kids giggle too. I have a bouncing plot bunny icon I use on another journal that just creases them up too,

Re: Writing tips

[lady_of_asheru]

The most useful thing anyone said to me was actually about exam technique, but I also apply it to writing - which is, instead of thinking you have to get the perfect answer, start from the position that anything you get down is better than a blank page.

Re: writing tips

[thete1.livejournal.com]

I love this page (http://www.sff.net/People/LisaRC/index.htp), and not just because she let me express my love with my sad, newbie html skillz. :D

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool.

I'd never assigned the term "writer's block" to my situation -- I always figured writer's block was when you couldn't write, rather than when you chose not to, hour after hour and day after day.

But maybe choosing not to is a way of protecting yourself from the fear that you can't.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

This may sound dorky, but it really helps me with long projects -- I keep track of my daily progress (pages per day) with a spreadsheet and several different graphs in many different colors (for pretty). That way when I'm slogging through page after endless page and they all seem to look alike I can check my graphs and see! real! progress!

This may have something to do with me being a visual thinker. (Or a nerd.)

[pushdragon.livejournal.com]

Bless you for your continued aid to those of us who have tofu and can't think of anything new to do with it (I have used and abused your tahini/tamari recipe over the last few weeks!). Mind you, I'm a bit scared of this one. I would never have thought chocolate and tofu would work ... and besides, I don't have a food processor and melted chocolate is so very temperamental.

Keep up the good work there!

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

I have about a zillion generative writing exercises, because I often use them in workshops at The Nonprofit.

Some of my favorites:

- write down ten words that you like, either for their sound or their meaning; then use all ten in a paragraph or poem

- imagine the taste and texture of a food you've never had; describe it

- write down everything you can remember about second-grade lunches (I nipped this one from Anne Lamott :-)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Replying to my own post, because I'm realizing that you actually didn't want creativity-inspiring exercises, you wanted people's tips on how to get writing done. *g*

I find the best time to write is when I've just written something. Writing carries its own momentum, and it's hard to get started from a standstill, but if I can hold on to the buzz of having written something, it's easier to sit down at the keyboard again the next day. So I keep a folder on my desk, filled with the last several things I've written, and the newest one is always on top -- so as soon as I sit down, I'm reminded (by actual physical printouts) that I've gotten into the groove before.

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

Stephen Hunter, who's completed something like 10 thrillers while holding down several full-time jobs, says it's easy:

1. Write every day
2. Keep going
3. Finish

If you do those three things, you'll be *far* ahead of all those people who keep talking about writing a book or story but who never actually get around to doing it.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I guess the single most important thing I ever learned is that writer's block is as strong as you let it be. Several times, when I have felt strongly unmotivated to write or convinced that everything I was writing was bad, I have plowed on through anyway to discover -- upon rereading a day or two later -- that what I'd done was salvageable, or occasionally even pretty good. I think that sense of not being inspired sometimes says less about the actual ability to write and more about the ability to properly evaluate/relate to what's being written.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Power. Sing it! (Listen to Yahtzee, res, she's a real pro.)

Also, for me, I'll add my "do one story/project/paper at a time," mantra, which is kind of related to what Y. is saying--I don't believe that scene/paragraph/chapter will be easier to write tomorrow, or Thursday, or after this next thing. Do it while you still care; later on, you'll care about something else, and you won't finish. (This is why WIPs are hell.)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i don't stop in mid-sentence--i wait until i have a really energetic bit of the story going, that i can't WAIT to write, where i know EXACTLY what's supposed to come next. but i stop at the end of a sentence, because i hate when you forget the rest of it.

i don't look at how many pages i've written, except when i'm at the end of some milestone thingy.

when i switch POV characters, i take a break. it usually takes my subconscious half a day at least to change gears. if i try to start immediately, i end up having to rewrite the silliest tiny things--turns of phrase and whatnot, even dialogue--a few days later.

when i start for the day, i re-read the last two pages or so but no more, and i don't polish in writing sessions--i write, or revise, but i sit down to do one or the other and do only that.

writing exercises:

+ writing a small bit in the first person (this assumes the whole novel isn't in the first person). wait to put it down until you can hear the character speak it out loud in your head. if you can't hear the character speaking you probably need to work on that. this helps with dialogue too. each person has a specific way of talking, and their dialogue and the narration of their pov should reflect that. things will be subtly off if the rhythm and pace and whatnot of the text doesn't match the POV character's voice.

+ writing a long description of a landscape or pastoral scene or a view--should be high on sensory details and encompass everything about the scene it possibly can. the idea is to paint the picture so well, in any way you can, that the reader, having never seen it, feels right at home in it.

+ doing the latter for the purpose of setting mood. you have to feel your way through it--the rhythm, the phrasing, the choice of metaphors, the choice of details to show--should make clear the narrator's mood, without any reference to the mood at all.

[twistedchick]

My tip (well, it works for me): work on two projects at once. One may stall, but both will seldom be stalled at once and the creativity from one will feed the other.

:;nudging you about the HP story I sent you ...::

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've rediscovered this one recently. When I was working on Transfig, I dropped all other projects, and after I'd finished, the habit persisted. But I do much better with several projects going at once.

[painless-j.livejournal.com]

I don't know what about big writer's blocks, but if I'm stuck with a paragraph or a single scene, I always write down a draft (any draft, whatever comes to my mind first for the scene) then put it off for several days to forget *how* it sounded. Then when I remember only the ideas and not words, I open it again and if i don't like what I see, I delete it and write it again another way. It wouldn't work for people with strong word-memory, though.

I owe you e-mail, I remember :)

And btw, for me it's absolutely impossible to leave smth in the middle of a sentence or of a scene. I just can't do it.

[destina.livejournal.com]

Not on the craft of writing, nor on increasing inspiration and creativity, but just on the nuts and bolts of getting the thing done

I have a few.

- I open a file and must sit in front of it for an hour -- no games, no email. In general, I start writing something within a few minutes. But I'm not allowed to get up for that hour, and since I can't do anything else? Writing comes. And if I'm not writing, I'm thinking about the story, and that's productive in its own way.

- I jump around. Usually I prefer to write in linear order, but if I can't get moving, I skip to another scene and write that. Or I'll write random sentences on character motivation -- I'll try first person internal dialogue, ABH, whatever. Something to jump-start my brain. Sometimes I just type nonsense. Eventually, stuff starts to come out.

- I get up and start writing immediately, before I'm awake, before I've had coffee, before I start *thinking* about what to write. That tends to lower my blocks to getting started.

[kittykatz.livejournal.com]

As far as routine goes, a lot of people swear by this website in getting motivated on time management. http://www.flylady.net/ And I got this from [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]

I'm on the mailing list and it's quite interesting, sends you email reminders with handy tips.

LOL. Your Tofu recipe is interesting. Do you want a savory dish one? I've got one my mom gave me. I'm not quite enamoured of the idea of tofu with chocolate.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do Flylady, too. I'm wildly out of synch with the rest of her subscribers, but the technique is actually useful.

And, yes, I'm always in the market for tofu recipes. You can't eat chocolate mousse every day.

the recipe.

[kittykatz.livejournal.com]

LOl. No, you definitely can't. I used to be really grossed out by tofu till I hit my late teens. Now I can't get enough of it.

Here's the recipe, my mom gave it to me from a recipe book she has. It's a fairly typical asian one and is very simple. I'm not sure if you've seen this before but it's great for a simple meal.



Home-made Velvety Bean Curd


Ingredients A:

500 ml Soya Bean Milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
a. 2 tsp chicken stock granules
b. 2 tbsp boiling water (dissolve a and b together)
dash of salt and pepper

Ingredients B:

2 tbsp oil
3 pips garlic, chopped
100g minced meat
1 and 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
1 and 1/2 tsp soya sauce
Dash of pepper, sesame oil
a. 1/2 tsp cornflour
b. 2 tbsp water (mix a and b)

Garnishing: Some red chilli and spring onions (optional)

To cook:

1. A: Mix all the ingredients and pour into a deep bowl. Steam on low heat till cooked.
2. B: Heat up oil, saute chopped garlic till oil is fragrent. Add all the other ingredients and thicken with the cornflour mixture. Taste and dish onto the steamed egg beancurd. Sprinkle spring onions and red chilli on top as garnishing.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I will not be intimidated by metric measurements. I will not be ...

Hm. Well, maybe I'll try it sometime, but it kind of scares me.

[kittykatz.livejournal.com]

Haha, just use the measurements as a guideline, I'm not huge on measuring exactly as well. Just go with your tastebuds. My mom is huge on measuring exactly to the tee which makes me rather scared, I could never learn cooking from her.

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

I set myself quotas. The file size is now X, I will write until it is Y. I found that the shack challenge, and drabble-writing, really helped with this. When I tried to write something in 100 words, or 500 words, I always felt as though that wasn't enough. So I'll tell myself that this next little bit of scene, I have to write that as a drabble, or as a 500-word thing. And then I run over, and keep going.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

By file size! Wow! It seems so obvious now, but I had never thought of it.

I can set myself a quota when I'm writing in longhand -- 15 pages of my little notebook is 1500 words, and that's a reasonable day's goal -- but I've really struggled with setting goals when I'm doing things that work better on computer (like outlining).

I'm really going to try this.

[julad.livejournal.com]

The thing is, right, different people have things that work for them. I would go nuts if I tried to leave off in the middle of a sentence. I would go nuts if, like Ces, I only worked on one thing at a time, or only wrote in chronological order.

That said, I'm probably not the kind of writer you want to emulate: you want to be like the ones who get lots of stuff finished. I'm like the anti-writer -- I write what I feel like when I feel like it, and if I feel like finishing something, it generally gets finished.

The anti-writer tips are: have as many WIPs as you want; whenever possible start writing when you feel it flowing in your mind; skip to a new bit if it's not working; always always always leave the files open, so that the minute you're bored, you poke them to see if one bites. By poke, I mean, read and do minor edits -- for me, if I edit a bit I'll often find myself writing new stuff. And finally, if it starts, don't stop until you absolutely have to. Basically, go with the flow.

Those are pretty much exactly what you shouldn't or can't do. *g* But the main thing I, the unholy unfinishing anti-writer, can say in terms of finishing, and the main thing I think has gone unsaid by the others is, if you want to finish it, you will, so concentrate on wanting to finish, on feeling that feeling that pulls you through to the end, and the rest should follow from there.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

The notes-for-productivity I have at the bottom of my new writing project tell me to write at least one sentence per day, a trick I heard from runpunkrun. I also used to try the leaving-in-the-middle-of-a-sentence thing, but then all that happens is I come back and have no idea how I meant to end it.

They also tell me to kill my darlings, which is private shorthand for not getting attached to every scrap of creative output, a trap I fall into especially problematically when I write something intended only as part of my notes-- say, a few paragraphs in a secondary character's voice, not my protagonist's, or in a tone not appropriate for the larger story (breezy and jokey for a lyrical horror story)-- and can't bear to part with it. I stick it into the story proper and then have to justify the sudden tone or pov shift. (Which, of course, never works, so I've wasted a ton of time.)

The third bit just says 3. structure, structure, paragraph-structure section-structure whole-text structure, dig. Which is a reminder that I'm planning something novel-length. Eep!

[bard-mercutio.livejournal.com]

Best things that's worked for me is a random character/word generator used in the NSYNC fandom. Throws up two characters and a number of words (three to six). It gives me a starting point, rather than a blank screen. Dunno why that works, but it does for me.

Also, write, don't edit. Editing while writing is a great way for me to never write anything at all as the loud voices saying, "this sucks, this sucks, you suck," grow steadily louder and louder as I do.

Notebook tip

[(Anonymous)]

Normally, I write on the computer. However, at the end of the session, I write the last bit -- two sentences to a page -- in a small notebook. The next day I have to edit and type the notebook part into the story, so I'm started before I know it. The notebook stays with me until I start the next seesion in case I have any ideas pop into my head.

Diane

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hey, this is very clever! I'll have to give it a try.