Improving Your Writing Habits When Time Is the Limit
A few tips for getting some writing in when you don’t have a lot of time.
Hi Story Crafters,
This is a little late, but happy 2024! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and spent some time relaxing and recharging the writing part of their brain.
I’d like to start off by thanking all of my current subscribers for their continued support of this newsletter—I couldn’t publish these posts without you! Please bear with me as I get back into the habit of sending out this newsletter more frequently and consistently.
As a way to get back into the swing of things (me with the newsletter, and maybe you, with your writing), this post will be a remix of a couple of my earliest posts:
Now for the remix:
I’ve found the tips below (a few of which may sound familiar) helpful with improving my own writing habits over the past few weeks. Hopefully, you find a couple of them useful too!
✨Try to write every day.
Try to write every day, even if it’s just 1 sentence or even just a fragment of one. Sometimes the hardest part of writing is just starting. As long as you have something written on the page, you can build on it; and it might feel easier to do so as the days go by!
✨Write ugly—or, you know, have fun!
Don’t worry too much about connecting sentences or even ideas together. Don’t worry if they’re in chronological order, if there are repetitive words, etc. Some days getting words on the page will feel like pulling teeth; on others, you’ll feel like everything is falling in place, and the writing will be fun. In any case, just set the goal of getting your thoughts and ideas down—or if you’re feeling up to it, a whole scene!
✨Try to have 1-2 days a week where you can sit down and write.
Try to have 1-2 days where you can sit down with the ideas, sentences, and/or fragments you wrote over the course of the week and try to connect them. This might take the form of writing a paragraph, a scene, or even an entire chapter. The goal is to weave everything into a cohesive story. Often I end up writing more and writing longer than planned, so I try to set aside a big chunk of time.
✨Try to read what you previously wrote before you start writing again.
Reading what you last wrote (which, hopefully, was the day before) can help rev up the writing part of your brain, making you excited to keep on writing and/or giving you ideas on how to keep writing. They’re pretty much the same thing, honestly. Try not to edit too much when you use this technique, unless doing so will help you continue writing the current narrative.
✨Find inspiration wherever possible.
This could mean watching movies or TV shows that are the same genre as your writing project, or share similar characters, plot devices, or other story elements. This might mean researching certain topics like historical events, investigative techniques, first aid techniques, fight scenes, etc. And it might also mean finding techniques you’d like to use in your own writing, like comedic dialogue, tragic narratives, certain plot twists etc.—though in this case, you’ll want to find examples of books that use those techniques effectively, so you can analyze how the authors pulled off those techniques.
That’s all I’ve got for now! I’ve also got some news for this spring…
❇️ Upcoming Event: #RevPit 2024
If you’ve got a finished manuscript and are planning to pursue traditional publishing, consider submitting your manuscript to this year’s #RevPit! Manuscripts of all genres, audiences, and lengths are welcome. I’ll be participating as a #RevPit editor this year alongside several other fantastic editors.
In the months leading up to #RevPit there will be events where you can meet the editors and even submit your query package for brief feedback (You can check out the most recent #10Queries event here.)
Check out the event schedule below:
Twitter/X: https://x.com/reviseresub/status/1747255382320533918?s=46&t=jIkStnxyKeaXgs-crC42IA
Please remember that all #RevPit events have been moved to Reddit! You can find the #RevPit event Reddit post here.
Until next time!
Best,
Leah
Are you searching for an editor to work with on a completed (or soon-to-be-completed) manuscript? Get in touch! I’d love to hear about your project(s). I’m looking to work with authors of:
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