Writing Even When You Don't Feel Like It

 

   I know, I'm terrible, I haven't posted anything in a while. Sorry. Forgive me? *sparkly puppy eyes*

   I've been busy lately, with school coming up, my mom just got back from a trip to visit her parents, and writing, while lately has almost been non-existent, what little I have been doing has been keeping me busy.

   My problems with my writing kind of relate to what I'm going to talk about today, but there is one thing that I want to say first.

   I'm young. I've self-published one book, un-published it, started lot's of stories that have never gone anywhere, and made more than a million mistakes. I'm still new to all of this, I struggle just trying to figure out what to do next, or what on earth does an agent actually do. Honestly, I really know very little about the writing world, and even less about the publishing world.

   Now, that might make you start wondering why I write blog posts *teaching* (kinda-sorta-not really-teaching) writing stuff. Well, all that I've ever blogged about are little things that I have been learning about or discovering. I am working on putting together a list of super helpful blogs for other writers, and what I have so far is in the blog list to the left of this blog here. :)

   But, as I make mistakes, I learn when I get up the courage to ask for help. Someone asked me what the theme of my book was... I had to ask what they meant... *embarrassed cough* I hardly know anything, but that's also how I'm learning. And my hope is that what little I blog about might help you too.

  Now, the reason I'm telling you this: I am sooo under qualified to be teaching you or anyone else, stuff about writing. I might be saying something wrong, or using a phrase wrong, and that's daunting to me. It's hard to keep blogging, hoping that I've gotten things right. But, I'm still going to blog about what I've been doing, what I've discovered works for me, and what I think is going to lead me somewhere in the future.

   Okay! Back on track! :D

   I haven't been wanting to write lately, because I had no inspiration. I had no ideas, no thoughts on where I wanted my stories to go, or what I wanted to happen next.

   Here are just a couple things that have helped me sit down to write, even when there is nothing in me wanting to.

       1. Writing sprints.     
              A very good friend of mine is good about saying that we all need to sprint more. I didn't learn what sprinting was until July when I did Camp NaNo. If you don't know, sprinting while writing is just setting a specific amount of time to write, five, ten, or twenty minutes to start with, and then writing until that time limit is up. Just let your fingers fly and don't worry about if the scene is making sense for the plot, if there are plot holes, what on earth the character is doing, just write. Sometimes people use these for editing or world/character building. It's just a good way to get stuff done when you're on a time limit, and not getting distracted by anything else.

      2. One idea. Just one.

              Sometimes, if I'm stuck, I'll ask someone for one word. My family members are usually okay with obliging. ;P If there's one word I don't like, I'll say no, and they'll pick something else, until inspiration strikes. It doesn't normally take long for me. Someone can come up with a really cool word like my brother did, and my fingers typed out about a whole chapter and a half. XD His word was 'wait'.

      3. Talking with someone else. 

                I have another good friend who is a super big fan of Evidence for Angels, and Losing the Assassin's Way. I send her my documents anytime I write something new in either of my books, and she reads it over. She gives advice, squeals when something good happens, and smacks me over messenger if a plot twist happens. *shrug* That happens a lot. (sorry girl.) ;P But, talking with people who know you're writing can help. And also, with someone who doesn't know your story can be hysterical and can you give you awesome plot twist ideas.

     I was having trouble with my book 'Abbie', book one in Evidence for Angels, and I was talking with my brother-in-law about it. I poured out my troubles, and he was so confused, (poor guy), but he said something that was pretty crazy, and almost had nothing to do with what I was wanting, but it struck an evil idea in me, and I absolutely loved it! Someone also did that recently with my fantasy trilogy, and I'm super excited to incorporate it into the book. *evil writers chuckle* 


   So. Those are just a couple things that work for me. Maybe you already do all of this, maybe you have this worked out really well, and that's okay. This is how I find works for me, and I wanted to share it with y'all. I hope be able to start teaching more in depth stuff that will really help you all, but for now, it's just little bits here and there. :)

Keep writing!