How’s it going, squiders? I did put my first chapter of my trilogy up for the summer marathon and hence have fallen behind on my other writing stuff, since part of the deal is critiquing other people’s stuff.
Of course, this is week 7 out of 8 of the marathon, so everyone else is several chapters into their stories and thus far I am mostly confused. Oh well.
I hope to finish a serial story bit for TDP either tonight or in the morning, and then it’s back to World’s Edge full speed ahead and whatnot.
Anyway, let’s do the July blog prompt over at WriYe.
Quick! Name your top 7 writing tips of all time.
Seven feels like a weird number to me, but, uh, okay.
- Make time for writing. If you don’t plan your writing in (and I find the earlier in the day the better) it’s hard to get to it.
- Don’t focus on perfection in a first draft. Worry about getting the story done before you worry about whether it’s any good.
- Don’t compare yourself to others. That way lies madness.
- Also, don’t make your goals dependent on other people. Madness lies that way too. Plus it just makes you frustrated. I guess that’s more of a life tip than writing specifically.
- All progress is good progress. Sure, 100 words a day doesn’t feel like much, but it’s still better than nothing, and even planning gets you closer to a finished story even if it feels like you’re not getting anywhere right now.
- Don’t get weird with speech tags. Make sure it’s something you can actually do with your mouth.
- When revising, do big picture fixes before easier polishes. Nothing sucks more than spending a bunch of time on a scene that gets cut out.
Why those 7?
Uh, cuz those are the ones I thought of? I’ve actually been avoiding this prompt, because it has felt very intimidating. Are these my best writing tips? Probably not. But these are kind of general tips that are useful in most situations.
And a lot of them are good outside writing too! So, yay me or something.
How are you guys doing? Thoughts on my tips? Tips of your own?
Hey good tips! I don’t know if I should do the topic now this month haha as you took the words right out of my mouth. Well done with this summer marathon business. I don’t really know what it is but marathon sounds hard. Good luck!
One of my other online writing groups does a pretty intensive critiquing marathon twice a year (a winter one and a summer one). You post a chapter (or two) depending on length on Monday and have to critique at least two other peoples’ submissions by Sunday in exchange for having your own critiqued. (I try to do all the other ones, up to a reasonable amount, cuz it does take a while! But I feel bad if I miss someone and then also there’s a gap in the story if I try to rotate people week from week.)