Tip #11

Free writing and Stream-of-consciousness writing

While trawling through some fellow writers blogs I came across this post by a friend and I really liked the concept, so asked his permission to share it.  I think it's a really great way for novice writers to simply get words out on to a page.

"To begin as simply as possible, start punching any and all words/sentences you can think of into your word processor (or pen to paper if you prefer), don’t worry about how insane what you type sounds, just type. Think of it as a dream you are having where anything can happen; you may be walking along a road that stretches for miles, then there is someone next to you talking about how they love to travel, suddenly you are in Egypt, etc.
That’s very basic, don’t stop there, write anything that pops into your head. It could be that your arm becomes disconnected from your body and moves by its own accord, it finds a snake and they have a ‘romantic’ time together. An enormous tidal wave washes that away and you see from the corpses floating around you that the entire planet has been engulfed by floods killing all land life.
Sentences don't need to make sense, words don't need to be spelt correctly and a full stop doesn't need to be used at all. Just go!

Everything I have just mentioned sounds absurd, but this is how I first began to write. I later learnt that there were books written on this style/exercise of writing. It's called free writing or also stream-of-consciousness writing. Look it up if you like.
This should free up your mind and prove that you can write. After writing for fun with no direction, you can begin moulding a story that you are interested in and making it your first short story or novel.
Enjoy!"

http://matclarke.blogspot.com/

Tip #6

Every November is National Novel Writing Month and NaNoWriMo is a worldwide challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. If you are you up for writing an average of 1,666.66 words every day for a whole month then at the end of the month you could have written wither a short story or half way through a major novel, which is quite a major feat.

NaNoWriMo is a perfect way to:

1. Set a clear solid goal with a deadline for writing a novel.
2. Prove that you are indeed capable of writing a novel.
3. Prove that you have the discipline to write a novel.

So if you’ve been itching to finally get that novel idea written, start thinking about what you’re going write on November 1st and get ready! Visit their website at www.nanowrimo.org to sign up to track your progress and learn more about what NaNoWriMo is all about.

The criteria is, you are not to have started the piece prior to November so keep it in mind for future years to have that little challenge to set for yourself and write up a 30 day storm!