No Words on the Page, But I’m Still Writing
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Goodreads Book Giveaway
Start Your Novel
by Darcy Pattison
Giveaway ends October 01, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win
Today, there are no words on the page that I can point to and say, “I wrote that today.”
But it was still a successful writing day.
I reread the first book of a series and got the voice and characters back in my head. In the early stages of prewriting, I need to see what went before and how I can play a variation on the them for this new book.
I worked on new characters and situations for the second book. And it will take me a couple more planning days, as I try something, reject it, and try something new. The firs things that come to mind are likely the weakest and I need to push past those cliches to something more fun. Unfortuntately, that means there has to be something there to push past. Which means grunt work of writing bad ideas to reject, so the good ideas can come forward.
I set up a folder for Book 2 and added two documents to it. Getting organized mentally, getting files organized, setting up work folders–all of that prepares me mentally to work. I am setting myself up for success. I will have all the tools and processes in place.
I decided to start on this next Tuesday, September 3. By setting up a “trigger,” or a deadline, it gives me a mental head start on what I need to get done before then and encourages/forces me to make decisions this week that will create a successful start to a new project.
I also set a deadline for finishing the first draft of the project. By adding the end-date to the project, it also sets me up to be professional in the writing, to set a goal of writing a certain amount per week. 
In everything I do this week, I plan to set myself up for success. What are you doing to set yourself up for success?
