Tag: Books & Writing

Around the time of said scrambling writing/blogging midlife crisis last year I had the sudden (very obvious) realisation.

I don’t really write much else other than my ‘novel projects’.

More often than not a writer’s life is defined by the single task of getting that golden book deal, but sometimes too much too much emphasis and pride is placed on finishing an entire work of prose when other forms of writing can be just as interesting too.
Over the past few years I’ve been hellbent on finishing a novel. This singular goal has meant I’ve often shut out the idea of trying out other genres or types of writing in favour of completing this one thing (or in my case five things).

The more and more I delve into the world of writing the more I’m further my love for other story formats, not just in terms of what I enjoy reading but in terms of what I want to write as well.

I started with poetry last year, just on a whim, to see what would come out. The results were fun. They were shorter than prose but I found myself veering towards a narrative style – similar to the slam poetry I adore watching on Youtube. After flicking through literary magazines like Litro, Popshot and Mslexia and trying out creative writing prompts online I gave short stories a go. Again, like poetry it was fun, non-committal and more importantly was an exercise in creativity.
Experimenting with form was never something I set out to do. It kinda of just happened. The technicalities of writing form was never something I paid attention to but it’s something that I definitely want to get to grips with over the next few months. Who knows maybe writing novels isn’t my thing. My thing might be haikus or essays or flash fiction or slam poetry. But I won’t find out what my thing is until I give it a go.

Time to get experimenting.

Fellow writers (and non-writers alike)! Let me know if you’re having similar struggles about stepping out of your writing comfort zone in the comments.

p.s.You can follow some of my writing escapades on my Tumblr and on Medium.

Ria

Happy NaNoWriMo!

Now I know many of you won’t be participating in National Novel Writing Month’s (NaNoWriMo) 50k novel challenge, but have you ever considered trying to break blogger’s block using the same writing methods? As bloggers I like to think we too face a lot of the same challenges that novelists do. We write a lot of content on a regular basis and sometimes we hit a wall. Which is why I propose a solution. Take on the NaNoWriMo philosophy and apply it to your blogging world.

The NaNoWriMo methodology to writing is simple. The challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel is tough. As writers we tend to self-edit or excessively plan before getting down to the nitty-gritty or end up watching a chain of Buzzfeed videos instead of writing, but NaNoWriMo requires you release those inhibitions and to ‘write with abandon’. This means writing whatever you want with no edits, no rules and with the goal of just putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) to get kick start your creative juices.

Here’s my NaNoWriMo Blog Sprint Challenge for you:

1. Open up your writing programme/tool of choice – notebook, word doc, blog editor etc.
2. Starting writing out any and all ideas that come to mind. These can be post ideas you’ve had simmering in your head for a while or just start brainstorming. You can write whole sentences or phrases or just single words, doesn’t matter at this stage.
3. Keep writing…and writing…and writing…
4. Do this for an hour and see where you get to.
5. Marvel at the fact you’ve probably drafted 5 blog posts without realising it!

Top tips

• Do not under any circumstances start self-editing whilst you’re in ‘writing mode’.
• Forget grammar/punctuation/spelling rules – you can edit what you’ve regurgitated later.
• Write even if the flow of words doesn’t make sense.
• White out paragraphs of text you’ve already written if you get tempted to start editing.
• When you run out of steam for one post idea, start writing about another one.
• Don’t self-edit.
• Turn off your wifi/unplug from social media. This is writing time not time to scroll through Instagram.
• Don’t worry if ideas seem stupid at the moment, just get that word count down and deal with the consequences later!
• If you can’t think of what to say add ellipses or leave a gap to fill in the blanks later (this is my favourite tip!).
• Don’t self-edit.
• Resist the temptation to Google or look up words/ideas/spellings on your phone – you’ll only spiral into distraction.
• If it helps time yourself to write alongside @NaNoWordSprints. The account runs all the way through the month and helpfully alerts you of how long you have left to write – make sure you set it up so you receive notifications when they Tweet!
• Ignore repetitions, focus on that stream of consciousness, you can delete those phrases later.
• Did I mention don’t self edit?

So are you ready to take on the challenge?

Let me know how you get on!

R.xoxo

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