liliana
asked
Sally Green:
Half Bad is such a good book and Nathan is such a compelling character. It's one of my favorites. I love writing and I have so many great ideas for stories but after a while I lose my inspiration and can never finish what I started. I was wondering how I could change that. Do you have any advice? I really want to take my writing to the next level.any advice is helpful
Sally Green
My suggestions:-
1. Be a little easy on yourself. I assume you are fitting writing in with lots of other things and it's hard to find the time and energy to write. You are bound to feel tired and unenthusiastic from time to time and particularly when you get a bit stuck in your writing.
2. Be tough on yourself. To be a writer you have to write. So write. Sit at your desk. Tell yourself you're going to write 1000 words and write them. They may be crap (it doesn't matter) but write them. Then do that again tomorrow and the next day and on and on (ok allow yourself a day off occasionally). Finish the book. It may be crap or it may be fantastic. Try not to judge it until you've finished your first draft. First drafts are just that. Editing your work is the next stage. But the feeling of finishing will be brilliant and give you confidence.
I'm finding the third book of the HALF BAD trilogy the hardest to write but I'm giving myself targets of word counts as above and making myself write. I know some parts of my story are really horribly bad at the moment, but my task at this stage is to finish the first draft, so that's what I'm doing. Then I will edit and edit and edit. I also should say that I have a plan of where the story is going and so I know the plot of what today's word quota will cover. Sometimes the plot changes as I write but at least I have an idea of what I'm going to write as I sit down at my desk.
Finally…I've done lots of Creative Writing courses and they have various techniques to help with 'writer's block' most of which boil down to 'just write something without judging it' as in 2 above. But one exercise that I found helped me best and gave me confidence in my ability was to write a piece of flash fiction every day for a month. I think I actually only managed 28 days and 28 stories. Some were good, some were appallingly bad, but best of all was that lots (esp. in the 2nd half of the month) were surprising. Stories about things I never thought I'd write came out of me. I wouldn't suggest doing this flash fiction exercise at the same time as writing a novel but it's something worth considering.
Good luck.
My suggestions:-
1. Be a little easy on yourself. I assume you are fitting writing in with lots of other things and it's hard to find the time and energy to write. You are bound to feel tired and unenthusiastic from time to time and particularly when you get a bit stuck in your writing.
2. Be tough on yourself. To be a writer you have to write. So write. Sit at your desk. Tell yourself you're going to write 1000 words and write them. They may be crap (it doesn't matter) but write them. Then do that again tomorrow and the next day and on and on (ok allow yourself a day off occasionally). Finish the book. It may be crap or it may be fantastic. Try not to judge it until you've finished your first draft. First drafts are just that. Editing your work is the next stage. But the feeling of finishing will be brilliant and give you confidence.
I'm finding the third book of the HALF BAD trilogy the hardest to write but I'm giving myself targets of word counts as above and making myself write. I know some parts of my story are really horribly bad at the moment, but my task at this stage is to finish the first draft, so that's what I'm doing. Then I will edit and edit and edit. I also should say that I have a plan of where the story is going and so I know the plot of what today's word quota will cover. Sometimes the plot changes as I write but at least I have an idea of what I'm going to write as I sit down at my desk.
Finally…I've done lots of Creative Writing courses and they have various techniques to help with 'writer's block' most of which boil down to 'just write something without judging it' as in 2 above. But one exercise that I found helped me best and gave me confidence in my ability was to write a piece of flash fiction every day for a month. I think I actually only managed 28 days and 28 stories. Some were good, some were appallingly bad, but best of all was that lots (esp. in the 2nd half of the month) were surprising. Stories about things I never thought I'd write came out of me. I wouldn't suggest doing this flash fiction exercise at the same time as writing a novel but it's something worth considering.
Good luck.
More Answered Questions
Amanda
asked
Sally Green:
Firstly I would like to say that I am honored to so easily reach out to you! I was utterly captivated with your use of 1st person style from the page one! When I read that this was your first book I was super surprised because it just flowed so well! How did you decide on 1st person? Where you influenced by anyone in particular?
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Feb 23, 2015 06:08PM · flag