You wake up early.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You stay up late.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You rack your tired\u00a0brain for ingenious plot ideas and beautiful sentences while you\u2019re at bus stops, at work, in the shower.<\/p>\n
You bang your head against your writing desk when the sentences don\u2019t come easy.<\/p>\n
Writing good books\u00a0is supposed to be hard.<\/strong><\/p>\n But what if you could make it just a little bit easier?<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s tackle the author\u2019s most common problem first.<\/p>\n Finishing the damn book.<\/strong><\/p>\n It can take years to finish something you\u2019re proud of. You have to juggle your creative writing time with work obligations, family obligations,\u00a0sleep obligations, and beyond. When you\u2019re not getting paid for it (yet), it can be hard to justify giving yourself\u00a0over to a project.<\/p>\n But if you haven\u2019t tried the accountability hack yet, you might be just this one step away from actually getting it done.<\/p>\n The trick is:\u00a0sign a contract.<\/strong>\u00a0(Maybe\u00a0this one<\/a>, from Aimee Bender.) That way, you put into writing what your specific goals are and you hand it over to someone who will keep you accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can make your own rules\u2014like write for one hour everyday; write four days out of seven; finish by June 25th\u2014and, just by giving it to someone else, you\u2019ll be putting on the pressure to actually get it done.\u00a0<\/p>\n Annie Hartnett (author of a couple of my favorite novels of the last few years,\u00a0Rabbit Cake<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Road to Tender Hearts<\/a><\/em>) pushed me onto this idea years ago, and I\u2019ve loved it ever since.\u00a0<\/p>\n She runs an\u00a0accountability workshop<\/a> that works from a similar premise. I heard on a podcast once\u2014who knows which one!?\u2014that she was part of an accountability group where she had to email other members in the group at the end of every day to say, \u201cDone!\u201d or \u201cDidn\u2019t do it,\u201d so that she either got that burst of elation in doing the work or the shame she didn\u2019t\u00a0want to repeat the next day. Keep yourself accountable, and keep someone else in the loop to make you feel guilty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Okay, so maybe I\u2019m taking it a little far\u2014or am I? \u2014but when it\u2019s drafting time, it\u2019s not research time. You set aside time to write, so do the thing you set out to do.<\/p>\n But just telling yourself you won\u2019t slip over to Instagram for a quick update on that influencer who posts 15 stories a day isn\u2019t going to cut it. You\u2019re tempted to take brain breaks, so stop yourself before it starts.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t just log out of the wifi.\u00a0Fully take the plug out of the outlet.<\/strong>\u00a0Make it so you have to stand up and travel in order to take that brain break you needed so badly.\u00a0<\/p>\n I might have told you to put your phone in the trash, but you could also just put it in a different room. Or on the other side of the room. Or, if you\u2019re dedicated to getting your time back, try\u00a0Brick<\/a>. It\u2019s this square tool that you use to lock your phone out of your most-used apps, set a timer, and put the square brick out of reach. You can\u2019t just hit \u201cIgnore limit\u201d on your phone like usual. You have to get out of your seat and commit to the shame. Or write.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve finally finished a draft! I don\u2019t care how messy that thing is\u2014have yourself a beer and pat yourself on the back. You deserve it.<\/p>\n But before you go jumping into that draft to revise,\u00a0read it like a reader.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Some people like to print out their manuscripts so they can hold them in their hands, flip pages, and make notes in the margins. That\u2019s fine if you have a printer or want to hand over your quarters at the library.<\/p>\n I love having a Kindle for this reason.<\/strong> There\u2019s this feature on Kindles where you can send pdfs, epubs or Word docs to it, and I\u2019ve used it so many times to put a barrier between me and my desire to self-edit. I read it in bed, no night light necessary. You\u2019d be amazed at how helpful it is to sit in the reader\u2019s comfy shoes for a while.\u00a0(I have the\u00a0cheapest Kindle<\/a>, and it works just as well as the fancy, more expensive ones.)<\/p>\n Another benefit to having a Kindle is that you can use it when you\u2019re beta reading\/critiquing other writers\u2019 books.\u00a0I use mine daily while reviewing books for IBR.<\/p>\n Speechify<\/a>\u00a0also works well in helping you read like a reader. It\u2019s this app where you can send a manuscript and have an automated voice read it aloud to you. I\u2019ve done this while doing dishes countless times. The paid version is better with better voices, but the free version gets the job done too if you can ignore the robotic voice.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> <\/a><\/p>\n \n I learned this tactic from Matt Bell in his super helpful, super practical\u00a0Refuse to Be Done<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Your second draft won\u2019t be your last one. In the first draft, you were telling yourself the story. You probably put scenes out of order. You probably wrote scenes that didn\u2019t need to be there. You probably characterized people who ended up being totally different by the end of the book.<\/p>\n So instead of trying to move pieces around and change entire paragraphs in your second draft, open up a completely separate document, keep the first draft on the right side of your screen, and re-type the book from start to finish on your left. Your sentences will be tighter, and you won\u2019t feel tempted to keep anything that shouldn\u2019t be there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sure, it might take a little longer this way, but writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. The extra-time helps the quality and might save you time in editing the third draft.<\/p>\n And remember: \u00a0don\u2019t copy and paste.\u00a0<\/strong>Fully rewrite\/retype. The voice of your second draft is different from your first draft. Keep the flow and voice consistent and don\u2019t cut corners.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a quick departure\u00a0from the act of writing and move toward the scenes themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n You already know about cliches in sentences\u2014\u201dhungry as a horse,\u201d \u201cslept like a baby,\u201d \u201cbetter safe than sorry\u201d\u2014but cliches exist in scenes and characters too.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen the storm hit when a character is feeling down, sitting by the window, watching the rain slide down like tears. It\u2019s a way of showing sadness without saying, \u201cHe was sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But in your next draft, play around with that a little. The weather is the weather, regardless of how a character is feeling. Listen to the birds singing\u00a0and the sun shining down as your character is experiencing the hardest day of their life. Or let the darkness hit when your character makes his biggest, most positive revelation.<\/p>\n And the same goes for characters. Surprise us. Make that hard-nosed linebacker be afraid of spiders. Make that soft-spoken barista commit petty thefts around the shop. They don\u2019t have to be big plot points. Contradictions make characters feel real.<\/p>\n Welcome to my #1 reason for writing this blog post.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been writing my novel for a long time. Too long, some (and I) would say. I\u2019ve handwritten scenes and typed new ones and restructured and tried just about every trick to get it done.<\/p>\n A few years ago, I bought a ten-pack of\u00a0very small pocket notebooks<\/a>. I wanted something I could put in my pocket and pull out whenever I had an idea, instead of doing it in the notes app on my iPhone back when I had one.<\/p>\n I have this character in my novel who writes notes. They\u2019re placed in between bigger chapters, and my protagonist finds them after he\u2019s dead, so the protagonist\u00a0gets to hear his voice\u2014no matter if he\u2019s saying nothing or everything\u2014once he discovers them.<\/p>\n Since I had those notebooks, I started writing his tiny notes in there. Since the pages were so small, I kept the notes really small too\u2014just like they would be for my character. It was like putting myself in a box. If I wrote a full-length scene, it would take enough pages to fill up the whole book. So I went bite-sized just because of the constraints of the notebook. I\u2019m not saying the notes are awesome, but I am saying that if you need small scenes, giving yourself small pages will help.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same goes with characters who write letters. The pages might want to be a little bigger than these tiny noteboooks\u00a0but not as big as multiple Microsoft Word pages. Maybe something like\u00a0this<\/a>.<\/p>\n Proofreading can get tedious. Your eyes can gloss over if you\u2019ve read the book enough times, and you can get in the habit of telling yourself the grammar is right simply from knowing where the rest of the sentence is going.<\/p>\n So change up the reading experience.<\/p>\n Make the font extra large so there\u2019s only two paragraphs on a single page. You\u2019d be amazed at how many many double words there are and how many times you missed a word altogether. (See what I did there?)<\/p>\n You can also try changing the page color to black and the text color to white, or changing the font itself. Trick your eyes; catch the errors.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the end of the night. Your kids (or mine) have been hollering at you to play\u00a0Wolfwalkers\u00a0<\/em>all day. You\u2019re tired, but you want to write.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead of starting and stopping way sooner than you wanted to because maybe you deserve a snack or two, get out of the house.\u00a0<\/p>\n Go to the cool bookish\u00a0coffee shop if they\u2019re open, or head over to the not-so-romantic gas station convenience store\u00a0that has chairs, tables, and outlets. If you get out of the house, you\u2019re telling yourself that you came here to do the thing, so you won\u2019t give up sooner than you really wanted to.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joe Walters<\/strong>\u00a0is the founder of\u00a0Independent Book Review<\/a>. After falling in love with reading and writing at Kutztown University, he did the only thing he could think of: quit his teaching job, become a server, and write as much as possible.<\/p>\n When a local job in publishing popped up on a job board, he traded in his PF Chang\u2019s apron for a bookish t-shirt and has been promoting indie press and self-published books ever since. He\u2019s also the author of\u00a0The Truth About Book Reviews<\/a><\/em>. When he\u2019s not writing or doing editorial or promotion work, he\u2019s playing with his kids or reading indie books by Kindle light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The post 8 Creative Writing Hacks to Leapfrog Your Next Hurdle<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing is an act of love. You wake up early.\u00a0 You stay up late.\u00a0 You rack your tired\u00a0brain for ingenious plot ideas and beautiful sentences while you\u2019re at bus stops, at work, in the shower. You bang your head against your writing desk when the sentences don\u2019t come easy. Writing good books\u00a0is supposed to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Here are eight writing hacks<\/strong>\u00a0that can relieve the tension
\u2014or amplify it\u2014to help you get past whichever hurdle is standing in your way.<\/h2>\n#1. Sign an accountability contract.<\/h3>\n
#2. Unplug the wifi and throw your phone in the trash.<\/h3>\n
#3. Print out your pages or use a Kindle to read your draft instead of on your laptop.<\/h3>\n
#4. For second drafts, re-type, don\u2019t revise.<\/h3>\n<\/p>
#5. Mismatch weather & character traits.<\/h3>\n
#6. Handwrite in small notebooks for small scenes.<\/h3>\n
#7. Proofread with extra large\u00a0font.<\/h3>\n
#8. Leave.<\/h3>\n
What\u2019s your favorite writing hack?<\/h2>\n
About the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n