Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Conquer Procrastination With 4 Simple Tricks

Procrastination’s hidden payoff: stress relief

From an Inc. article on procrastination:

”What we are avoiding isn’t the task but rather the stress that we are associating with the task.”

Whether it’s something we need to do for work, a relationship, or our health, procrastination is basically a coping mechanism. In fact, I’ll go even further to label it as a survival mechanism.

So, don’t be too hard on yourself for the things you’re putting off. It’s OK to deal with stressful tasks later, when you can cope.

Let’s look at useful tricks for those times you know that you need to overcome procrastination.

via peneloperedmont.com

Self-Publishing Author Platform: 3 Tips To Create A New Platform

What’s your “author platform?”

Let’s start at the beginning.

What’s an “author platform?” In essence, it’s your readership: the readers who know who you are, and who identify you with a specific type of book. They’re readers who know what to expect when they buy your books.

I’ve had several questions about creating an author platform for a new pen name, so let’s look at some strategies.

1. Start by deciding who “you” are… who are your readers?

Ideally, when you launch books under your new pen name, Amazon will recognize you as a “Genre X” author immediately, and will offer your books to readers in that genre.

In practice, it’s not that simple. A writing student recently established a new pen name effectively.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Editing Your Book? You May Not Believe It, But Apps Can Help

You’re all done with writing; now you’re editing your book.

Editors cost money, so you’ve done as much self-editing as you can. Self-editing is vital, because:

Leaving aside the fact that if you dump a mess into an editor’s lap it will cost you a small fortune to get it cleaned up, your own editing is important, because:

• It’s your chance to discover the story you want to tell (this applies to both nonfiction and fiction);
• It’s your big chance to make your book better.

But what if you’re on a self-publishing budget, and can’t afford an editor?

via www.justwriteabook.com

How To Finish Your Novel: What To Do If You Get Stuck

Authors have many reasons for abandoning their novels. An author may:

• Lose his inspiration;
• Become bored. A tip: you will become bored at some stage. When you do, it’s vital to rekindle your inspiration — the ideas in this article may help;
• Lose track of his novel’s elements. It’s very easy to lose track, especially if you take a week or two away from the novel. I keep a bullet journal journal for each novel, as well as mind maps, and an idea board, in case I need to work on something else for a time.

Before you worry about finishing, think about this…

Are you sure you need to finish your novel?

Your novel may be fine. You could turn it into a novella, or a couple of short stories. Shorter material sells, as we discuss in Short Reads. Word for word, chances are that you’ll make more from a novella than a novel.

So, if you can write a scene or two to turn your novel into a novella, do that.

Want to keep writing? These ideas may help.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Plotting Fiction Made Easy With Strong Characters: 3 Tips

Plotting begins and ends with your characters. If you’re a confirmed plotter your plot will lose its power if your characters are weak.

Plotting fiction: start by creating strong characters

Plotter or pantser — nothing works without strong characters .

In Characters: 3 Tips To Help You To Create Great Story People, we said:

Each of your characters needs a major goal, as well as smaller goals. Look for these goals when you start writing or outlining.

Keep asking yourself (and your characters): who, why, when… how?

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Writing A Novel? 3 Easy Tips To Make It Fun

When you take writing a novel too seriously, your creativity dies

Yep. Your cold-hearted, determined, logical self can write. Unfortunately, it’s writing no one wants to read.

To boost your creativity you MUST let your creative self take over. This means no:

• Backseat driving from your inner censor/ editor (where are you going with this? Is this supposed to make sense? Etc. and etc…);
• Expectations. Having expectations of your first draft while you’re writing your first draft is like teacher asking kindergarten babies to explain their play, and exactly what they meant to achieve with that huge Lego tower…;
• Distractions, such as following rules (your own, and others’) while you’re writing.

Your normal logical, anxious and kvetching self will NOT like this. It wants to be in charge, and fears a lack of control.

via www.justwriteabook.com

Writing Fiction? 3 Tips To Help You To Make Money In Today’s Climate

BIG tip: when something stops working for you, you need to go back to fundamentals.

Start with your audience, and what your audience wants.

When you’re writing fiction, you’re selling entertainment… who’s your audience?

You’ll find some quick tips on selling your fiction here:

Serial fiction has been popular for a couple of centuries. The big benefit is simple: if readers know and love your story, they want more. (Yes, the pun on Oliver Twist is intended.)

Give them more by writing serials. Then although the market will change, you’ll nevertheless sell.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Writing Fiction: 3 Tips To Help You To Create A Profitable Series

Love writing fiction? I do too, especially series fiction. Last year I ran a series fiction workshop for some of my students. Eight months have passed, so I contacted them to discover which strategies they found most profitable.

Writing fiction in series: use the characters you love

One student responded: “The workshop helped me to create strong characters and I learned that if I truly love a minor character, that means that the character needs his own book.”

A great observation. The strength of your series depends on your characters, and if a character sparks your inspiration, you can use that to develop another book for the series.

Let’s look at the tips.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Writing Fiction: 3 Tips To Help You To Create Believable Conflict

When you’re writing fiction, you’re writing about characters in conflict, and the more believable you can make your novel’s conflicts, the better.

Conflicts can be major (battlefields in a war), or minor: “you promised you’d buy milk on your way home!”

Want to write a page-turner? Do that by ensuring that the conflicts between your characters seem insurmountable. If your book’s conflicts can be resolved simply, by characters talking to each other for example, readers won’t enjoy your book.

We talked about creating believable conflict at a recent writers’ group meeting.

via peneloperedmont.com

Self-Publishing Kickstart: 5 Writing Tips For New Authors

Self-publishing: creative freedom

Dispelling the “self-publishers aren’t real writers” myth is easy. Fact: a person who writes is a “real writer”. You don’t need anyone’s validation.

Of course you can go the traditional publishing route if you wish. The primary reason to self-publish is complete creative freedom. No one stands between you and your readers. You can write what you like, within the bounds of reason.

Speak to enough authors, and you’ll soon discover many authors who took an agent’s advice, and almost killed their career.

Let’s look at some writing tips for new authors.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Plotting Problems? 3 Easy Fixes (They’re Fun)

When my students complain about their plots, I reply: “chances are that you have idea problems. Let’s look for ways to generate more ideas, so that you can keep writing.”

Plotting problems are idea problems

When you’re inspired, you’re an idea machine. You churn out ideas effortlessly. Unfortunately, you’ll have many days when it seems that your muse and creativity have departed for parts unknown.

On those days, you need to kickstart your creativity manually, and develop ideas — the more ideas the better. Bonus points for crazy ideas.

One of my students said in complete frustration: “BUT ideas about what, exactly?”

Try these easy fixes; they’re fun, and easy.

via www.justwriteabook.com

Self-Publishing Opportunities: Discover Short Reads

It’s been at least a year since I deep-dived into self-publishing opportunities for short ebooks. Not only has this sector grown, with more ebooks published, it’s also more lucrative.

You’ll find the details in our new program, Short Reads’ Secrets: A Short Reads Self-Publishing Report.

Discover new self-publishing opportunities

There are two primary categories for short ebooks, Short Reads and Short Stories. Of the two categories, pay attention to Short Reads — it’s a restricted category, which means that you can’t choose it as one of your two categories when you publish. Amazon slots your book into Short Reads depending on reading time.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Inspiring Bullet Journal Ideas You Can Use For Reading And Writing

Your bullet journal: should you have one, or several?

We discussed this at a recent writers’ group meeting. Our group has several BuJo enthusiasts, and opinions were divided. Several authors maintained that the point of a bullet journal is that you keep everything together, in one notebook.

I’ve found however that I prefer to keep an additional A6 notebook (Field Notes size) for my Collections. Since I fill up bullet journals at a rapid rate, it takes an hour or more to transfer my Collections from a filled notebook to a new one. I also keep a lightweight, cahier-style notebook for each novel I write.

What’s important of course is that you do what works for you.

via peneloperedmont.com

Fun Writing Exercises: End Procrastination, Write Easily And Well

Fun writing exercises to end procrastination and kickstart your creativity

Writing depends on a smooth interaction between your conscious mind, and your subconscious. You know how this interaction feels. When it’s going well, you spend hours writing, and it seems as if just minutes have passed. You can’t wait to get back to your writing.

When it’s going badly, your writing slows. It’s painful. You want to get up and do something — anything — to escape the misery.

Let’s look at some exercises my students have found helpful.

Use them regularly — don’t wait until you’re procrastinating, or become blocked.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Fiction Writing Basics: 2 Time-Saving Character-Creation Tips

In fiction writing, it’s all about the characters

Unfortunately there’s no magic trick to making characters “come alive.” You construct them.

Instead of lengthy character bios which you won’t remember, try choosing keywords for your characters instead. That serves a double purpose. It makes your character’s attributes easier to remember, and it also kickstarts you into several scenes. Once you’ve decided that Fred’s bad-tempered, and that Alice regrets marrying him, you show that in your early scenes.

Let’s look at two tips which you can use at any time when writing your first draft; try to do it as soon as you can. If you do, you’ll find that your characters will do most of your plotting for you — and editing will be much faster and easier.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com