Category: Thursday Tips

Navigating the Mind of a Storyteller

Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Thursday Tips, Tools

Picture this scene. You are lying in bed trying to get to sleep. You just start falling into the land of zzz’s and BOING! An idea has popped into your mind. It is the voice of a character. Just as you try to turn over and fall back asleep, it is already 4am and you have had about 5 minutes of sleep, a picture of the next scene in your WIP pops into your head. The first voice of the character you heard has nothing to do with your current story. Which thread of thought do you follow down the winding road of imagination? The new one or the current one? But what if you want to follow both? How do you choose? None of these thoughts are even that cohesive, just snippets that are invading your sleep-deprived mind. It is not as if they make any sense.

You need a Mind-Map.

Mind-mapping is one of my favourite ways to work through all those detours in the road to a great story. It is the law of Imagination that just when you are working on your current story, a brilliant idea or three hit you simultaneously. This is when I pull out my mind-map.

If you have never mind-mapped before, it is like note-taking but in a more visual form than notes. It is notes in picture form. Mind-mapping notes are perfect for those barely cohesive thoughts that you know will lead you down some wondrous path but first you have to connect all the dots. So out comes a mind-map.

Mind Maps just Zing for me. I am not a big note taker. Even at school, I detested pages and pages of notes. Instead I mind-mapped all my subjects. With mind-mapping you can zone out the unimportant and the fluffy, but you can zoom in on the essentials. You have to use bright colours. I have a pencil-case of coloured markers and highlighters specifically for mind-mapping. The great thing about mind-mapping a story is that you can put the mind-map in a place where you can always see it and that way always have a clear view of your story’s plot.

I use Mind-Maps to map my character profiles, my plot, the story arc, the back story, the setting. You get the drift? You can mind-map anything. It does not take long and you can fit what you might take over 10 pages of written notes to put into one mind-map.

The great thing about a mind-map is that it can also navigate you through the tricky parts in your WIP. If you are starting to feel lost in the story and need to figure out whether you have taken a wrong detour or just a more scenic route, you can refer back to your mind-map. It works the same way a road map does when you are driving. One look down at it is all it takes to steer you back onto the right road and miss the potholes.

I use an art-poster pad for my mind-maps. That way they all stay together. I can also keep it next to my bed so that I can jot down that stray thought (path) into a current or a new mind-map at 3am in the morning. Strangely enough that is the most active time in my imagination for new stories to germinate. But you could use any pad of paper or even a notebook for mind-maps. I do advise using unlined paper though.

I love my software so you know that I have some digital software for mind-maps to mention too. These are the top three I prefer to use:

FreeMind – An open source free download for that will work on any operation system whether you use apple, windows or any other OS. This is one of the simplest software programs to use. There is barely any learning curve and it is perfect for you if you are not big on complicated software with all the frills and whistles. This will do the job.

Mind-Node – A mac download that is available both online or in the Apple App store. There is both a free and a pro (paid) version. There is also a touch version that is downloadable for either your iPod touch or your iPad. The one drawback of this is that it is only available to mac users. Sorry pc folks.

Mind-Meister – A free or a paid download that you can sync through your pc/mac, your laptop/notebook, your iPod touch, your iPad and even your twitter/Facebook. The great thing with Mind-meister is that like Dropbox it is a secure online storage. You can also, like Dropbox, share and collaborate on mind-maps with other people though an online account. This one is a new favourite of mine.

Try Mind-Mapping. Whether you try the old-fashioned pen and paper way – make sure you have multiple coloured markers for this, it only adds to the fun – or one of the digital software, you will look at plotting in a whole new light. For those pantsters who cannot imagine taking copious notes this might be the perfect introduction to a very effective way to plot and still give you that freedom of just letting the imagination roam. Your imagination can still roam, you can just mark down the highlights in bright colours so that you don’t lose those wanderings. You could even draw pictures if that is the way you prefer to think. For plotters, you will love the new way to plot because you get to indulge in plotting that story arc or character profile but taking less time to do it.

Try Mind-Mapping out and let me know whether you had fun.

It might just revolutionize your next story. 

What’s your favourite way to make sense of those random 3am imaginings? Do you mind-map already? Are you a note-taker/note-scrawler? Do you use a dictaphone/recorder to tape your thoughts. Share with me how you make sense of those 3am thoughts. 

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Twitter…It’s a conversation

Blogging, Kim Koning, Marketing/Networking, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Social Media, Thursday Tips

Part 2 ….

It’s all about the tweeting quality of your conversation…

Are you talking?

One of the most underused and abused of the social networking/media sites is Twitter. I will admit that Twitter completely overwhelmed me and baffled me when I first heard about it. Someone suggested I should sign up as the only way to understand Twitter is to dive right in. Well I signed up. I was lost. For the first couple of months my account remained inactive. So did the conversation. I was not talking to anyone on twitter so nobody knew I was there. I decided I needed to educate myself. I quizzed friends already on Twitter, I read up blog posts on Twitter and then I started a conversation. Someone tweeted something that interested me and I responded. Within seconds there was an echoing response from the tweeter and they had started following me. So I continued talking. Before I knew it I was involved in multiple conversations and had more than a few followers who I followed in turn.

Suddenly a lightbulb had been turned on and I could see the whole room. It was a room full of people talking and connecting over shared interests. I turned around and saw a whole lot of smaller groups. Over there, there was a crowd talking about publishing, just across from them another crowd spoke about music, just across from them another crowd spoke about politics. Turning around I also realised there were celebrities in the room but they didn’t have any “minders” or “publicists”, they were just people like you and I talking about things that interest them.

A good cocktail party is all about conversation…so is Twitter.

Twitter is a social tool that breaks down all barriers of fame, wealth, class, age, geography, language in one huge online room full of people having conversations. That is the trick of Twitter if there is a trick. You have to engage in conversation with another person. There is no way that being a wallflower is going to get you into Twitter. But in Twitter there is no need to be a wallflower because conversation is easy. All you need for a conversation is at least two people and a topic that connects them. That is the great secret of Twitter. You need to be part of the conversations in the room to be accepted, followed and friended.

Yes Twitter can be a great marketing tool in that you can tweet links to your blog – to draw in new readers – or you can tweet links to your upcoming products and a site where people can buy them. But if you are only tweeting links to blogs or tweeting product promotion and self-marketing, you have lost the point and the true charm of twitter.

Think of Twitter more as a cocktail party you have been invited to by an acquaintance. Why did they invite you? Did they invite you so that you can climb aboard a pedestal and promote who you are and what you do? Or did they invite you because you peeked their interest and they want to learn more about you, the individual, the person? When you think of Twitter in these terms you will see Twitter in a different light.

However there are so many different conversations going on in the rooms but you may want to leave the main party room and enter a smaller party room to zone in on one specific conversation/debate. This is when Twitter chats come in play or as they are known on Twitter as # (hash-tag chats). For instance if you are taking part in NaNoWriMo this month, if you sign up to a TweetChat account like tweet chat or TweetDeck and enter #NaNoWriMo, you will enter a room where everyone is chatting all things NaNoWriMo. To continue in this conversation, you tweet as normal but make sure that somewhere in each tweet there is the same #NaNoWriMo, this means that all your tweets will be seen by the people in the smaller #NaNoWriMo room.

As you explore more in Twitter chats you will realise that there will be regular chats in your industry throughout the week. Now for writers, twitter is a perfect hangout and brainstorming session with fellow wordsmiths. There are weekly chats on the craft of writing, on the marketing side, the creative side, the brainstorming side and the critiquing side. You just have to search them out. If you have not joined in on one of these chats, I urge you to do so. Not only will you meet many like-minded people but you will learn a lot too. On my writing blog, Wrestling the Muse, I have a page devoted to the different Twitter chats called #Twittertalk. On here you will find the most regular and popular twitter chats targeted towards writers. Try one of the chats out. You may just enjoy the conversation more than you thought and start understanding the unique charm that is Twitter.

I hope that this post breaks down Twitter in simple terms for you as one more great social media tool. Remember that people will take more notice of your blogs, websites, products and talent if they like talking to you anyway. If you can interest them on Twitter, they will follow you to your other places in social media. Try Twitter out if you have not had the courage to yet. If you have and have been overwhelmed, break it down. It is just a conversation after all. You have those all the time every day. Good Luck with your twittering.

Tell me how you find Twitter? Do you enjoy it? Has it baffled you? Will you give it a chance if you have not yet? I would love to hear about your TwitterTalk. Tell me something. Better yet: tweet me @last_lines   or  @AuthorKimKoning . I look forward to having many conversations with you in Twittertime. Don’t be shy. It is just people talking.

Join me here tomorrow for Part 3 on social media…Tomorrow we are going to talk blogging.

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Wallflower or Social Butterfly? | Part 1

Blogging, Kim Koning, Marketing/Networking, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Social Media, Thursday Tips, Tools
Are you a shy & retreating Wallflower?

Or

Are you a Social Butterfly and the Life of a Party?

In real life you may fall into one or the other category but what about in the virtual and digital world of social media? Are you a shy and retreating Wallflower or are you the life of the party and a Social Butterfly? You may wonder what it matters whether you are shy in social media or not but if you want to network and you want to make connections – you need to become a social butterfly if you aren’t already.

Social Media is called “Social” for a very good reason.

You must be social for it to accomplish its task.

Not only has social media changed the business world but it has changed and continues to change our personal lives. If you meet someone new at a party and you want to meet up later in the week, how do you get in contact with them? You ask if they are on Facebook. There are two reasons why people are more willing to give out their Facebook profiles rather than their home address or even mobile phone number. If you friend request them they can learn all about you from your Facebook profile before choosing to accept. Secondly it is safer to give out your Facebook profile than it is to give out more personal information, like your home address, to a virtual stranger.

In this modern day and age more networking and more connections are made and forming through the social media and social networking sites. There is no point in being an ostrich and sticking your head in the sand hoping that life will just go back to being simple.

Most industries rely on marketing savvy and promotion savvy. Everyone and every business has something to sell. Whether this be a service, their name or a talent. The way this is accomplished in 2011 is through social media and social networking. It simply has the largest exposure without a very high monetary cost. An effective and engaged social presence on the internet is more beneficial and powerful than advertising copy in a magazine or on tv.

So what is your presence in social media? Do you have a presence or are you scratching your head as you read “social media”? If you do have a presence, is it effective and engaging? Are you using social media to your best advantage? Do you know why you need social media and what you want from it?

If you are a creative; a musician, an artist or a writer, social media can be either your friend or your foe. This is even more important for a relative unknown or an up-and-coming-not-quite-there-yet star. The creative industries are one of the most difficult industries to get a foot in the door. They are completely subjective industries where most times you are judged on yourself and the impression you give before they will give you a chance to be judged on your talent. This brings us to the old scenario where a young and hopeful graduate is ready to enter the work-world but in countless interviews is told that though they have the qualifications and the look, they don’t have the experience to get the job? This always leaves the young graduate despondent because how does he/she get experience if they can’t get a job in the first place?

So as a creative wanting to break into your chosen sphere, how do you get the bigwigs – these are usually corporates who think with their wallets and guard their time jealously – to sit up and pay attention to you?

You get online! You could do a number of other cost and time consuming activities to engage their attention but at this point your cost and your time is probably limited. So the easiest way is to build an effective and engaging social media that is market-savvy to your specific industry. How? Below is the set of tools available to you in social media…

Your social media tools

Now you may be looking at this and think there are way too many options up there and counting away the hours it will take to build a social presence in each of these media tools…Fear not! These may be all the tools available to you but you do not need to use every one of these tools. You need to choose which are the best tools. When considering that, you need to focus on these factors:

  • What is best for you as an individual?
  • What is best for your talent/service as a marketing tool?
  • It is all about who you know in this world so what is best for your talent/service as a networking tool?
  • What are the most popular social media sites used by your future colleagues in your industry?
  • What are the most popular and watched sites by the bigwigs and decision makers in your industry?

So before reading on, take a notepad and a pen and write down these 5 factors. Then answer them.

Are you starting to form a picture of your social media presence yet?

I am going to tell you about what I use in social networking. I am a writer and my product is my words. So the social media sites are perfect for someone in my industry. I am however also an experienced sales and marketing manager so I have a little more of an insider track on how to sell a product and how to market it.

The social media/networking sites I am listed on are, from longest running to newest:

  • E-mail/SMS
  • Facebook (personal profile)
  • WordPress – Blogging
  • Twitter (personal profile)
  • Facebook groups (related to writing)
  • Facebook group admin / creator (related to writing)
  • Website
  • tumblr
  • Facebook Fan Page
  • Twitter (writer account)
  • Facebook (separate writer profile)
  • GoodReads
  • Blog Hops
  • Linked In
  • Google+
  • Google+ Hangouts
  • Twitter chat host (a weekly writing craft chat)

Now from the above you will see that I have two Facebook profiles and two Twitter accounts. I also have 4 WordPress blogs. Now although writers and most creatives can be accused of having multiple personalities this is not the reason why I have different profiles / sites on the same social media/networking sites. I have a private life and a professional life. I use my personal profiles for personal networking with friends and family and not necessarily friends who are in the same industry as me. I use the professional profiles for anything and everything related to my writing business.

“Writing business”? But you thought writing was a “creative” industry and not sullied with the muddiness of “business”? Wrong! If you are writing as a hobby then yes it is purely creative. But if you are in this for the long haul and hope to make a living from your creativity than you MUST look at writing just like you would any other job or any other Business. Believe me if you want to get noticed and make it in this business, you will need to work harder than at anything else you have ever worked at.

For me the most effective methods of getting noticed and building a readership/following as well as networking with decision makers has been Facebook, Twitter and Blogging. Facebook is still one of the most preferred and effective tools out there. As we hear constantly in the media, if Facebook were a country it would have the third highest population in the world. The next effective method, especially in the writing and publishing world is Twitter. With Twitter you can reach hundreds of followers as well as follow and connect with the who’s who in whatever industry you want to break into.

Then there is blogging. Blogging is incredibly effective to market your actual product – which in a writer’s world is our words and our ability to hold a reader’s attention so that they keep coming back for more.

I have 4 separate blogs that are all writing related but differently marketed. This blog is my creativity and inspiration blog. I blog here on creative exercises, creative tips and tools as well as spotlighting up and coming authors and creatives in the industry. In my other blog, Wrestling the Muse, I blog about my lessons learned while undertaking the adventures of full-time writing. Then I have a poetry portfolio blog, Soul Photographs,  where I blog poetry and all things related to poetry. Just recently I started my fourth blog, Amazon Wanderings, where I will be blogging about my adventure traveling. You probably wonder why I need 4 blogs and why don’t I use one blog with 4 different uses. I have done it very specifically to create niche blogs and niche readerships/followings for each blog. Yes it means I have more blogs to upkeep but this is when a blogging schedule comes in handy.

So in answer to my initial question: If you are a Wallflower when it comes to social media, why are you retreating?  How are you planning on getting noticed in your industry?

Watch out for Part 2 coming tomorrow on how to stop retreating and how to become an effective social butterfly…

Tell me in the meantime: What social networking do you find works best? What social networking baffles you? What social networking do you dislike or find unnecessary?

Join me here tomorrow when I share with you how to effectively market yourself. Remember writing and publishing is big business. Know what your strengths and weaknesses are. It is time to get market-savvy in social media….

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Thursday Tips & Tools | HELP! S.O.S.

Blogging, Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Thursday Tips, Tools

HELP! S.O.S (Save Our Stories)

We all have had this at one point or another…no I am not talking about Writers’ Block

nor am I talking about instructions on head massage over SKYPE or a G+ Video Hangout…

The thing, you thought would never happen to you has happened!

Your hard worked over WIP is lost not to mention all the countless hours of research. You may have updated a program and through a glitch all your work in the old program was lost. You may have spilt your necessary mug of coffee all over your keyboard and the machine fried. You may have opened one of those hilarious forwards from your Aunt May and it spread tentacles of a dangerous virus right throughout your system and all your files have been wiped clean or deleted. No matter how it happens, it happens to every writer who works with a laptop/computer. If it has not happened to you yet, do not think you are one of the lucky ones, it will happen and it will also happen at the most inconvenient time. You have just got to a crucial point in your WIP that unveils the whole twist in the story’s tale. You may have just typed end on your final edited draft but not yet transferred it to any disk-key or printed it yet. Whatever way it happens, it spells disaster. Yes I hear you say….”It’s ok. I back-up.”. When was the last time you backed up? What did you back up to? Did you back up right before the computer/program crashed? Did you back up to an email folder on your computer or even an alternate folder on your computer? Now, before rushing off to back off, I need your attention for just 5 minutes more. I just need to tell you one more thing…

DROPBOX

You see I tell you all the above because I speak from bitter experience. But what is experience unless we can learn from it. This has happened to me twice. The first time was a disaster because although I did backup, the backup folder was on the same computer that crashed. I lost everything. Research, articles, the WIP’s, emails and yes I lost the backup too. It all disappeared into a dark vortex of hot lava when my computer was fried from onboard chargers on an international flight. The worst thing was that I had over 800 brand new photographs from my trip which I was planning on sifting through when I got home for a travel article. The disaster was out of my hands in this instance. A clever IT guy managed to get a lot of it back but the most important stuff was frizzed and burnt out when all the electrical components in my laptop were fried by the onboard chargers.

Then after much pulling out of hair and stamping of feet and many french translations, I took a deep breath and bought an Apple laptop. (All of my previous had been Windows PCs.) Then I started backing up to external sources and I got very pedantic about backing up. I backed up before exiting every work session. I am still a tad on the obsessive side with backing up.

Then this year I found Dropbox at a friend’s invite in my inbox. When I read up on it, I was skeptical of using an online storage facility. How could I be sure nobody else would access my documents/research/photographs. So I ignore the invitation and then I had a second scare hit me with a program update that unfortunately deleted all my work. Even though I had it all backed up externally this time, it still took me hours restoring it. So what happened? I didn’t wait for the third disaster. I accepted the dropbox invitation and signed up immediately.

Ever since then, fingers crossed, with no third disaster I am breathing easily. I am not saying nothing else will go wrong. It might. But now I know that all my documents are safely uploaded and updated to dropbox. It is even done automatically. Once you have loaded up a document to Dropbox, every time you make changes to or update it, the document is automatically updated in Dropbox. Dropbox is online storage but it also lives in a little window on your finder or explorer on the computer. So you do not even need to open up the online storage to view the folders there, you just go to the dropbox folder on your own computer. With dropbox you can also synchronize all your mobile pda’s, iPads, netbooks or iPods to the same dropbox folder. This in turn will synchronize with your main computer/laptop. So wherever you write and whatever you write on, it will be both backed up and updated to Dropbox and will also immediately be available on your main computer as well. You can back up practically anything to Dropbox: documents, images, graphics, music, you name it and you can back it up. Dropbox is now so popular that many word-processing programs have a dropbox option that will sync with your dropbox.

Your work is also 99.9% safe. (There is no such thing as 100% safe.) It is also very secure. Your account is password activated. You can then also put different passwords on each of your files that you upload. If you wish to make the work public, there is that option too. Also if you wish to share something with a colleague or another writer or just share some images/music with friends and family, you can create a shared folder that is also password activated and is only accessible to you and the other person. This is really great for critiques.

Oh…did I mention Dropbox is free. Not just that, for every friend you invite you get extra space on your storage account. You already start off with 2GBs when you sign up but the more friends you invite, the more space you get. So tell me…have I convinced you to at least take a look at it? Here are a few more tricks that Dropbox can teach you…

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Thursday Tip ~ Stop Time Takers

Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Postaday / Postaweek 2011, Thursday Tips, WIP

 

 “Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.” –                                         ~ Stephen King
 

MMmmhh time for confessions.

I am hard at work on my final and third draft of my WIP – Betwixt & Between….but…

I have also been distracted lately by creating a new Author Website, which you can view here, a new Poetry Portfolio, view here, and a promotional video for my WIP – Betwixt & Between.

One of my lovely CPs put me onto an amazing video slide show creator that allowed me to create my promotional video for Betwixt & Between.

Here is the video I created for my current WIP – Betwixt & Between.

Betwixt. (Animoto site)

Betwixt & Between (Video on my Author Website)

Do you find that sometimes you can be caught up in a lot of behind the “writing” tasks that can get in the way of your writing? Are these the ultimate procrastination tools or necessary to promoting your WIP or building your online presence?

I admit I am guilty of loving anything that allows me to be creative: whether this be Website Design / Video Creation / Poetry Creation/Blogging/Writers Groups/Social Networking. But sometimes I have to insert a large 

Stop in the name of your WIP

So as much as I love these Time Takers….alas I must return to my WIP.

So these Time Takers are being put aside for a moment. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t see these tasks that have distracted me as “bad” but the key word here is “distracting”. So it is Time to get back to my WIP…

So how do I plan on getting back to focusing on the WIP. Yes I could unplug the internet but if you don’t have that option?

I use a great program called OmmWriter Dana 11 brought to you by the team at OmmWriter. This is an amazing frills free/distraction free writing program that allows you to switch off from the worldwideweb for a moment and inspires creativity. I have done a complete review on this program here.

Another tool I use is Focus Booster. This is a simple timer that you can download and place on your desktop to boost your focus while working. This is a great tool if you fear large chunks of time but want a way to have creative spurts in manageable bites of time. This is also a great tool for Word Wars.

What are your Time Takers?

– Kim

© All Rights Reserved Kim Koning.

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To submit or not to submit

Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Postaday / Postaweek 2011, Publishing, Thursday Tips
Banned Books #4
Image by ellen.w via Flickr

“This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.” – Barbara Kingsolver

“Writing is not a job description. A great deal of it is luck. Don’t do it if you are not a gambler because a lot of people devote many years of their lives to it (for little reward). I think people become writers because they are compulsive wordsmiths.” – Margaret Atwood in The Times

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.
– Ray Bradbury
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
– John Campbell
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it.
– Charles Caleb Cotton
An artist’s sensitivity to criticism is, at least in part, an effort to keep unimpaired the zest, or confidence, or arrogance, which he needs to make creation possible; or an instinct to climb through his problems in his own way as he should, and must.
– Christopher Fry
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged…I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.
– Erica Jong
You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer…
– Stephen Leigh

To submit or not to submit…that is the question of the week?

It is one thing to decide to write a story, it is another thing to finish this story and still a completely other thing to submit the story to a professional. It takes courage to do all three but I believe the greatest accomplishment and most courageous of these three is: to finish this story. Of course there is nothing stopping you from then putting your completed manuscript in a hidden drawer with the secret knowledge that you have completed a book.

Is this why you wrote your story? To hide it, unacknowledged by any but you. Perhaps this is your reason. For that I, nor anyone, can judge you. But what happens if there is a fire and your manuscript burns before you can free it? Then you would have put all that work and courage, all those tears of frustration and smiles of joy, into something that has become nothing. Soon, you will forget your story and then it will disappear like a thread on the end of a zephyr’s tail.

What is your other option? You are then faced with the quandary at the beginning of this post:

To Submit or Not to Submit

  • You have written it and rewritten it countless times.  You are at that point in the relationship where you commit or leave.
  • You commit.
  • You write a synopsis.
  • You write a query letter.
  • You find agents who accept your genre.
  • You submit your manuscript.

Now you wait. From some agents you wait for weeks, some days, some moments. But eventually answers will start trickling in. Some of them will be non-committal. Some of them will be bland refusals. Some will be harsh. Some will be filled with constructive criticism. But all these first ones, if you are like most authors both known and unknown, will be rejections.

But are they rejections?

Yes, they have refused to take your book under their wing. At first, your initial reaction will be like that of a parent being told their kid was the only kid not picked for the sports team. You will feel personal anger, even irritation. Then you will feel doubt at your own ability.

Again I ask the question, are they all rejections?

Perhaps the question should be why am I being rejected? You may get the answer to that with the rejection slip or you may never know. But you must remember one very important fact: Agents / Editors / Publishers are all human beings. This means they are fallible. They are subjective. They are emotional beings. They can make mistakes. They have personal likes and dislikes. Second important fact: As a first time submission, they do not know you personally. This is not a rejection of YOU.

Here are some important rejections you can take heart from:

Emily Dickinson: Recluse and poet Emily Dickinson is a commonly read and loved writer. Yet in her lifetime she was all but ignored, having fewer than a dozen poems published out of her almost 1,800 completed works.

Theodor Seuss Giesel: Today nearly every child has read The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham, yet 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss‘s first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.

J. K. Rowling: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.

Jack London: This well-known American author wasn’t always such a success. While he would go on to publish popular novels like White Fang and The Call of the Wild, his first story received six hundred rejection slips before finally being accepted.

So the question is: After submitting and after rejection do you give up?

Do you give up after 5 rejections?

Do you give up after 25 rejections?

Jack London did not give up after 600 rejections. You may say: I am not Jack London. No. Quite correct. You are not Jack London. You are YOU. As such you have a unique story all of your own. Do you hide that ability, do you deny that story to the rest of the world just because some people do not want it? There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of agents and editors in this industry. The right one will come along. It may take you years. But if writing is your passion, your focus, your purpose: Do you dare give up?

Now I leave the question with you:

To submit or Not to submit?

To give up or To PERSIST?

Only you can be your guide.

– Kim


© All Rights Reserved Kim Koning.

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Writers on Writing ~ Bird by Bird

Books/Writers, Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Postaday / Postaweek 2011, Thursday Tips
8.22.09
Image by aprilzosia via Flickr

Bird by Bird ~ Anne La Mott

This week I started reading this amazing book on the craft of writing. I am already half way through and still going back and rereading many parts. This is a book that is a must for writers. It is a book that will resonate with both novice writers and professional writers. She writes from her own experiences and this comes through in the ease of reading. The pages seem to turn themselves. We writers are generous types: we always want to share what is on our minds and what inspires us. So today I am going to share a couple of tips that I am learning so far from Bird by Bird with you:

  1. “Good  writing is about telling the truth.”
  2. “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow
  3. “…the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.”
  4. “Very few writers know what they are doing until they’ve done it.”
  5. “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later….Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go – but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”
  6. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper…the first draft is the down draft – you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft – you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.”
  7. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”
  8. “Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground – you can still find new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me thing of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.”
  9. “Writing a first draft is very much like watching a polaroid develop. You can’t – and, in fact, you are not supposed to – know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.”
  10. “The evidence is in and you are the verdict. This will be true for each of your characters.”
  11. ” Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.” –Ethan Canin
  12. “Another thing: we want a sense than an important character , like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing games or being coy or manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability. (Unless a major characteristic of his or hers is coyness or manipulation or lying.).”
  13. “Just don;t pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don’t. Stay open to them. It’s teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It’s that simple.”
  14. “Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better and better day by day, something is bound to happen.”
  15. “Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.”
  16. “Life is not a submarine. There are no plans. Find out what each character cares most about in the world because then you will have discovered what’s at stake.”
  17. “There must be movement.”
  18. “Let your human beings follow the music they hear, and let it take them where it will.
  19. “So aim but not too hard, and when you finally see the climax forming in front of you, then you can race toward it.”
  20. “She said that sometimes she uses a formula when writing a short story, which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax and Ending You begin with action that is compelling enough to draw us in, make us want to know more. Background is where you let us see and know who these people are, how they’ve come to be together, what was going on before the opening of the story. Then you develop these people, so that we learn what they care most about. The plot – the dram, the actions, the tension -will grow out of that. You move them along until everything comes together in the climax, after which things are different for the main characters, different in some real way. And then there is the ending: what is our sense of who these people are now, what are they left with, what happened, and what did it mean.” – Alice Adams

All of these lessons and tips are like gold veins through the murky clay of a writer’s craft. There are so many more tips and tools that I have read but I will leave that for my next post next week.

Until then remember to just ” take it bird by bird…”.

– Kim


 

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Thursday Tips – Be an Imaginer

Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Postaday / Postaweek 2011, Thursday Tips
Rendering of human brain.
Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of week again: Thursday. Which means it must be time for Thursday Tips. This week this blog has been focused on creativity. Today’s tips will be no different.

How to develop your creativity?

Firstly before we work on how to develop your creativity, you need to understand creativity. What the word, the concept and the action of creativity actually are.

creativity |ˌkrē-āˈtivitē|

noun

the use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work.


imagination |iˌmajəˈnā sh ən|

noun

the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses : she’d never been blessed with a vivid imagination.• the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful : technology gives workers the chance to use their imagination.• the part of the mind that imagines things : a girl who existed only in my imagination.ORIGIN Middle English : via Old French from Latin imaginatio(n-), from the verb imaginari ‘picture to oneself,’ from imago, imagin- ‘image.’


idea |īˈdēə|

noun

1 a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action : they don’t think it’s a very good idea.• a concept or mental impression : our menu list will give you some idea of how interesting a low-fat diet can be.• an opinion or belief : nineteenth-century ideas about drinking.• a feeling that something is probable or possible : he had an idea that she must feel the same.

2 ( the idea) the aim or purpose : I took a job with the idea of getting some money together.

3 Philosophy (in Platonic thought) an eternally existing pattern of which individual things in any class are imperfect copies.• (in Kantian thought) a concept of pure reason, not empirically based in experience.

___________________________________________________

create |krēˈāt|

verb

[ trans. ]bring (something) into existence : he created a thirty-acre lake | over 170 jobs were created.• cause (something) to happen as a result of one’s actions : divorce only created problems for children.• (of an actor) originate (a role) by playing a character for the first time.• invest (someone) with a new rank or title : he was created a baronet.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [form out of nothing,] used of a divine or supernatural being): from Latin creat- ‘produced,’ from the verb creare.


imagine |iˈmajən|

verb

[ trans. ]1 form a mental image or concept of : imagine a road trip from Philadelphia to Chicago | [with clause ] I couldn’t imagine what she expected to tell them.• [often as adj. ] ( imagined) believe (something unreal or untrue) to exist or be so : they suffered from ill health, real or imagined, throughout their lives.

2 [with clause ] suppose or assume : after Ned died, everyone imagined that Mabel would move away.• [as exclam. ] just suppose : imagine! to outwit Heydrich!DERIVATIVESimaginer |1ˈmødʒənər| nounORIGIN Middle English : from Old French imaginer, from Latin imaginare ‘form an image of, represent’ and imaginari ‘picture to oneself,’ both from imago, imagin- ‘image.’

Above are 3 nouns that make up the definition of creativity. These define what creativity means. It is the innate ability of the human brain. Creativity is what separates us from the other mammals. We have the unique ability to create, imagine and think. Our ideas make us creative. Our creativity is fostered by our imagination.

For me though I disagree with the one of the above definitions. Creativity is grammatically speaking a noun. However for Creativity to be fostered an action is needed: The action of creating and imagining.

For creativity to be successful, it needs to be a verb. I know that I may be throwing a spanner in the grammatical works and right now my inner editor is attempting to bite her tongue but I am sticking to my guns on this one.

Creativity must be a verb. It is an action word. What is more active than the art of creating something. For me creativity is also the opposite of destruction. Creativity is a tool we are able to use to fuel emotion. Through creativity you can make someone feel something or see something using the tool of your imagination. Creativity is a gift.

This brings me to Imagination. Imagination derives from an old french word: Imaginer.

Imaginer Meaning and Definition from Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

    Imaginer Im*ag”in*er, n. One who forms ideas or conceptions; one who contrives. –Bacon.

What a stunning concept! What a creative concept! What better calling than to be an Imaginer?

So today’s Thursday tips are:

  1. Become an Imaginer.
  2. Use your mind as a fountain for ideas.
  3. Let no idea escape: Keep a journal just for ideas. No matter how random an idea may seem, do not throw away the seed. Write it down and see what germinates. you may be surprised.
  4. Nurture your curiosity: This will fuel even more ideas.
  5. Nurture your right-brain thinking.
  6. Exercise your most important muscle: Your brain.
  7. Think outside the square: Stretch your horizons of what is possible. This is called imagination. If it has not been done, imagine how it could be done.
  8. Learn at least 1 new creative or artistic skill every week.
  9. Teach someone at least 1 new creative or artistic skill every month.
  10. Most important make Creativity an Action in your daily life.

May you have a creatively rich week.

© All Rights Reserved Kim Koning.



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Rhythm. Space. Timing. Serendipity.

Ink Slaying, Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Postaday / Postaweek 2011, Thursday Tips, Writing
Blur
Missed Moment
Perfect Rhythm: Space. Timing. Serendipity.

Today’s Photo of the day was the 3rd in this series of 3. With the assistance of my creative assistant, Jazz (my Papillon Puppy), I managed to finally capture the shot I wanted. This series of shots got me thinking about today’s Thursday Tips post.

EXTRA!! EXTRA!!!

TODAY’S NEWS – THURSDAY TIPS!

GET IT NOW!!!

COPIES ARE SELLING OUT!!!

RHYTHM. SPACE. TIMING. SERENDIPITY.

 

A story is composed of many parts just as a photograph is composed of many elements. For a photograph you need a subject, a tool (camera), a placing in space, rhythm and perfect timing. For a story you need a plot, characters, a tool (imagination), a setting, rhythm and perfect timing.

So today’s Thursday tips is focused on: Rhythm, Space, Timing and Serendipity. What do I mean by “Rhythm”? There are 2 types of rhythm that I am thinking of: Musical Rhythm and Poetic Rhythm.

Musical Rhythm

Noun: A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.

Now you may argue that you do not have an ear for music. You do not realise that your own body has a perfect musical rhythm of its own: Heart beats. Yes. Heart Beats. Now close your eyes, place your finger at your pulse point and listen to the rhythm as you feel the drum beat of your life’s blood flowing through your body. Now if your heart’s rhythm was slightly off, too quick or too slow or skipping a beat, there would be a problem with the way your body functioned. This problem could even be fatal in the worst case scenario. In the same way, this can be an allegory for the importance of having cadence and rhythm in the construction of your story. If one word is not placed in the right space on your page the beat will be off.

Poetic Rhythm

Noun: a regularly recurring sequence of events, actions,

or processes : the measured flow of words and phrases

in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long

and short or stressed and unstressed syllables.

You may think you know nothing about poetry but if you were a child at some stage, you will know all about poetic rhythm. I am talking about the wonder and simplicity of Nursery Rhymes. Now I am sure if I ask you to close your eyes for a moment and think of a nursery rhyme from your childhood you will be able to come up with more than a handful. So why is this poetic rhythm so vital to your story? It is vital for the same reason that it took you less than a minute to recall more than a handful of nursery rhymes. Rhythm is strongly intertwined with memory. If something has a catchy rhythm, it tends to be locked in the vaults of your memory bank. But the connection and resonance of the “Rhythm” allows you to re-access this vault at a moment’s notice. So I ask you, what is common to successful stories throughout the ages? They are a perfect synchronicity of musical rhythm and poetic rhythm. The sentences have a resonant beat to them and they flow easily through your mind. The words are perfectly placed and sequenced. The sentences are sharp and neat. The punctuation is perfectly placed, accenting and pausing through the rhyme of the words on a page.

Space and Timing

The other two vital elements to a perfect story is setting (space) and timing. A setting can make or break the story. At times a setting can make or break a genre. Setting is an oft-forgotten but vital element in a successful story. Just as space and setting is vital to the perfect camera shot, setting is not something to be overlooked. So if you have found yourself concentrating too much on plot and character remember to include setting in your focus. After all, your characters need “Somewhere” to have a story. They cannot be in a Vacuum throughout the whole story.

Now I come to one of my favourite elements in a story: Timing. There are two types of timing in a story. The first is the Story’s sequence of events and the second is the timing in the placing of chapters, paragraphs, openings and endings. The timing of events in a sequence will make your story a well-loved hit with your readers or on the other hand the incorrect timing in sequence can alter the story at best and confuse / lose your reader at the worst. You cannot rush the sequence in your plot and you cannot go too slowly. You need to use the second type of timing I spoke of to set the correct sequence. At the same time, you cannot spend an uneven amount of time on any element of your plot. Too quick an opening may leave the reader floundering for a life raft but be too tired in the end to bother. Too slow an opening could bore your reader. Even though you may have put your best part of the story in the middle of your plot, the reader needs to still get there so time your story with care. Don’t rush your plot too quickly that you lose your reader and that your story becomes a blur in their mind. Don’t slow your plot too much or your reader will miss the suspense of the moment. Don’t rush your characters through their dialogue or accelerate their development – your reader will find them unrealistic and have no connection to the story. Don’t go too slow with your characters as by the time you have got your character to the next day, your reader will probably have fallen asleep.

Serendipity is the tie of these 3 elements: Rhythm, Space (Setting) and Timing. I love the word “Serendipity”:

Serendipity ~ the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way….

Isn’t this the perfect way to describe a story that will imprint itself on your reader’s memories?

I leave you with my Poem for the day inspired by my photograph..

Flying Free on the Wings of Time


If you rush through Life,

Moments will pass by in a blur;

If you take things too slowly,

You will miss the Moments.

Like a Photograph

Life is all about being in the Moment:

Perfect Rhythm of Space. Timing. Serendipity.

~ Kim Koning ~


© All Rights Reserved Kim Koning

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Thursday Tips : In the Classroom of NaNoWriMo

Kim Koning, NaNoWriMo 2010, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, Thursday Tips

 

Well another week has rolled around and the first week of January is almost at its end. How is your first week going – creatively speaking? Are you feeling inspired? Are you reaching out for inspiration?

As promised, at the beginning of this month, I am going to be doing a weekly post on Thursdays called Thursday Tips. What day is it today? Thursday. So time for some tips.

This week’s tips are going to be what I learned in the Classroom of NaNoWriMo 2010. Have you studied writing? Have you done NaNoWriMo? If you answered “No” to the first question but “Yes” to the last question: Congratulations! You have been awarded a degree of excellence and achievement in both the art of self-discipline and writing from the School of NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo really is like a crash course in a writing qualification. The only difference between NaNoWriMo and a traditional classroom is that in this school the past students are your mentors, your class monitors and your teachers. So I enrolled in NaNoWriMo in November 2010. I was not quite sure what I was expecting but I know that in hindsight the school of NaNoWriMo taught me more lessons in one month than I had learned the whole way through. So let me take this time to share the lessons that most impacted me.

01/11/2010 The Bell rings, School Begins.

I sit down. All my materials for the course are in front of me. I have the notebook, the loosely plotted storyboard, the pens and pencils, the Macbook and more importantly I have my fellow students all ready at desks around a global classroom.

The first lesson of the day is about to begin.

  • Lesson 1 ~ To write the words you need a blank page in front of you.
  • Lesson 2 ~ You have to unpack your internal editor and send it away for a month.
  • Lesson 3 ~ Don’t think about 50000 words or 25 chapters. Think only of your first word. Put that down.
  • Lesson 4 ~ Now turn that first word into a first sentence.
  • Lesson 5 ~ Now turn that first sentence into a first paragraph. (You have now officially gained your first commendation. Well done.)
  • Lesson 6 ~ Write to a timed limit. Set your clock to either 30 minutes or 60 minutes. Write without stopping and when the limit is up,stop. Walk away. Stretch your legs. Make yourself a coffee.
  • Lesson 7 ~ Sit down again within 3 hours. Your brain feels refreshed but the story is still fresh in your brain.
  • Lesson 8 ~ Do not read over what you have written 3 hours ago. Instead begin again. Set the timer and write.
  • Lesson 9 ~ Walk away again giving yourself a 2 hour break this time. Then go back to the story.
  • Lesson 10 ~ Finish writing for that day. Do not read over what you have written. Remember since you have sent your internal editor – Ethel / Nigel – away, you have nobody checking up on your grammar or your plotting. E-mail what you have written to yourself as the first backup and then drop-box your writing for a second back-up. Back-up is essential: It is like fastening your seatbelt when you get into a car. This is your safety net.
  • Lesson 11 ~ Second day in, break away from the story and write a scene for your main character. Set a timer and write strictly to the limit.
  • Lesson 12 ~ Have a 3 hour break. Go back and now write a scene for your antagonist. Set the timer and write strictly to the limit.
  • Lesson 13 ~ Stop and have a 2 hour break. Go back and write a scene where you create the atmosphere in your setting. Set the time and write strictly to the limit.
  • Lesson 14 ~ Stop for the day. Switch off your computer / Put down your pen/paper. Rest.
  • Lesson 15 – Go on this same way for the next week. Alternating from character building and scene setting to the story itself.
  • Lesson 16 ~ Week 1 is finished. Your energy is still high and you hope you can keep it going for the next week. Stop. Don’t think about a whole week ahead. You have only the page in front of you. Focus on getting down your words in the three timed word wars you have scheduled preferably with your other students/classmates.
  • Lesson 17 ~ After 6 days of writing, take a day of rest. You will need it to refresh and re-energize your imagination. Do nothing that is writing related. Spend some time outdoors in the fresh air. Take the time to spend with your family and your friends.
  • Lesson 18 ~ Day 7, sit down at your desk. Read over the last day’s writing. Now read over the last day’s character sketches and scene settings. Do not edit. Read. With eyes and not pen/pencil. Now the story is refreshed in your mind. Set the timer. Write to the timed limit. You are in a rhythm now. Your brain is slowly forming the habit to write when a timer is called by a Word War Mediator or when your timer alarms goes.
  • Lesson 19 ~ Continue the same way that you did the first week but this time write for 5 days. Add an extra timed writing time / timed word war in every day. So you are writing to 4 scheduled times.
  • Lesson 20 ~ On the 6th day rest again. If by the end of the 6th day, you are still weary, take another second day to rest. Do not worry about your story. It is not going anywhere. It also will not progress if you write while tired. It is important you rest.
  • Lesson 21 ~ You are now in to the third week. Do not break the rhythm. Do not look at the calendar. Do not count how many days you have left. It is just you, the page and the story. Time will take care of itself. Your job is to sit down and have your fingers ready to write the seeds that enter your mind.
  • Lesson 22 ~ Write for 6 days. Then take a day of rest.
  • Lesson 23 ~ Have you backed up?
  • Lesson 24 ~ You are now into the fourth and final week of NaNoWriMo. Keep to the rhythm that you have created. Write for 5 days with 4 word wars or timed writing schedules a day. Take a day of rest on the 6th.
  • Lesson 25 ~ Put your finishing touches to your work.
  • Lesson 26 ~ You are done. Take 2 days of rest. Pat yourself on the back and celebrate. You have completed a month of disciplined writing. You have treated your story like a job. You showed up for it and you did the hours.
  • Lesson 27 ~ It has been over 28 days of writing to a discipline and you have rewired your brain. It takes 1 month to form a habit. You are now in the habit of daily and disciplined writing.
  • Lesson 28 ~ Do not count the words. You may have under 50000, you may have over 50000. The important thing is not the quantity but the fact that at the beginning of the month you only had a blank page and some ideas. Now you have what is a story or the beginning of a full length novel.
  • Lesson 29 ~ Try not to take longer than a few days break. In this time like in your previous breaks, do nothing writing related. Once you feel refreshed, go back to the writing. You now either have a task of editing to begin or you need to continue your writing.
  • Lesson 30 ~ Whether you are taking a break from the current WIP and starting another one or whether you are continuing / editing with the current WIP – keep to the timed schedules. Try to do no more than 4 a day. If you do 3 a day, write for 6 days. If you do 4 a day, write for 5 days and take a 2 day break.
  • Lesson 31 ~ Your story / writing is now as important a focus to you as a 9-5 job. You are both your manager and your employee. Like any employee, you need to be rewarded every now and again for a job well done. Make your imagination feel rewarded. Keep treats on hand for certain accomplishments you have achieved.
  • Lesson 32 ~ Keep every word you have written. Even if you don’t think there is a place for it in your story now. File it away in a separate file. It might come up handy later on in your story or it may even be the seed for a new story or a sequel. Those words you wrote are precious. Treat them as such.
  • Lesson 33 ~ Have a trusted person read what you have written and give you their honest opinion. Listen to their opinion. Do not change anything. Ask them to make notes on what they think. File the notes away.
  • Lesson 34 ~ Now give your story to a writing partner or writing mentor. Ask them to read it and to write notes for you.
  • Lesson 35 ~ Let someone else read the story aloud to you now. Be the listener. Make notes on what you think about your own work. Think objectively.
  • Lesson 36 ~ Call back your internal editor from her/his holiday. It is time for them to begin work. Give them the 3 correlated notes; your trusted friends, your writing partner, your own. It is now their job to take control of the wheel. You are now a navigator and your internal editor is in the driving seat. They are in control of the driving but you have the map. Be clear in your navigation.
  • Lesson 37 ~ Once the editing is done. Do the same thing. Give it to your trusted friend, your writing partner /mentor and have it read aloud to yourself. Make notes again.
  • Lesson 38 ~ Give your internal editor the notes again. The second editing begins.
  • Lesson 39 ~ Your story is almost complete. Now go back to your file where you filed the words you edited out. Can you use them now? Are they better for another story? Now is your time to decide.
  • Lesson 40 ~ Put your finishing touches to your work. You now have a third draft in your hand. Well done.

The bell rings for final period. School is out.

Well done! You have just completed the course of NaNoWriMo. A challenge of timed discipline and forming a daily writing habit. A time when you showed up ready before a blank page and filled it with a story. You are now a writer. Whether you are published or not, you ARE a Writer. You have written a Novel. You are Now a Novelist.

These were the tips and lessons I learned from NaNoWriMo. They are lessons that can translate into any of my writing. NaNoWriMo taught me a vital lesson. That if you show up and you are disciplined, the words will come. It also taught me that it is ok to send your internal editor away on vacation for a while. The world will not come to a halting stop if you do not correct every punctuation or timing element. You can always come back to a piece that is bothering you when you feel refreshed. It is important to reward yourself with treats. It is important to have a day away from your writing every week. It is important to keep your brain fresh from alternation between character / dialogue scenes to setting scenes. Do not make your work monotonous. When you are writing, you are in the driver’s seat. When you are editing, you switch to being the navigator. Listen to the opinions of beta readers, writing mentors, your own voice but stick to your writing instincts. Do not ever throw out anything. File it away in a POSSIBILITY file. More importantly than anything Back-up, Back-up, Back-up. Show up for your writing like you would for a 9-5 job. This is something you enjoy doing. Give it the same time and importance as you would your daytime job. Don’t look at a calendar. Don’t look at the amount of words still needed. Just focus on those timed word wars. The words will come and the story will follow. Trust in the words.

That’s it for this first Thursday Tips post. Good luck for the week of writing ahead of you. Remember show up – the words will come and the story will follow. All you have to do is show up.

© All rights reserved Kim Koning