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all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

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ATTENTION WRITERS

Google BetaBooks. Do it now. It’s the best damn thing EVER.

You just upload your manuscript, write out some questions for your beta readers to answer in each chapter, and invite readers to check out your book!

It’s SO easy!

You can even track your readers! It tells you when they last read, and what chapter they read!

Your beta readers can even highlight and react to the text!!!

There’s also this thing where you can search the website for available readers best suited for YOUR book!

Seriously guys, BetaBooks is the most useful website in the whole world when it comes to beta reading, and… IT’S FREE.

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Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

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Legit Tip #183

or - “Writing Characters with Mobility Impairments”

There’s a lot to be considered when writing a character with any kind of disability. One of the challenging things for a writer is writing a character of impaired mobility - i.e., a character who uses a wheelchair, a walker, canes or crutches in their daily life to get around. 

Whether this character is the POV character, a side character or even just a character who appears briefly in the narrative, it’s easy to be insensitive. And that’s not the fault of most writers. It’s just the fact that most people haven’t lived with a disability like this - heck, many people haven’t been around people (especially younger people) with impaired mobility for a lengthy amount of time. 

Even for those that have, it might be difficult to figure out how to properly write these characters too, especially when so much of narration is centered on characters w/o these disabilities. 

Disclaimer: For the record, I don’t have a disability related to mobility. But I HAVE had many good friends who’ve used wheelchairs and/or crutches in their daily lives (and for a short time dated a man who used a wheelchair). I’m not saying that makes me an expert, but I hope it gives me some insight and sensitivity. 

How do they Move?

One of the first things that a writer may wonder about when writing a character with a mobility impairment is how to go about the “problem” of writing movement. I’ll urge you to remember two things. 

Don’t overthink it. 

But do think about it. 

What I mean by that is this. If you spend all of your time focusing on details like this and you put that into your writing, it’s going to be very obvious to the reader that you’ve done so - and that’s a problem. For example - 

Caleb wheeled his way to the front counter and stared up at the barista, clumsily digging for his wallet. “Uh, just a white chocolate mocha, please,” he said as he pulled out his credit card.

“That’ll be three fifty,” she said with a short smile. Caleb reached over to the card machine. Then he hurried to wheel himself back out of line, careful to avoid…etc.

Okay, so. That’s all well and good if the actual subject is about the difficulty people with mobility issues face on a day to day basis I guess. But you don’t want to FILL your story with writing like that. If he’s grabbing a coffee on his lunch break and thinking about the cute girl who smiled at him, how about instead -

”Next!” Caleb snapped out of his thoughts - the image of the girl from earlier still fresh in his mind - and moved to the front counter, looking up at the barista. 

“Hey - uh - just a white chocolate mocha, please,” he said as he dug for his wallet. The barista smiled at him as she tapped his order into the register. And sure, she was cute. But it only made him think of Minami again and he felt his cheeks heating up as he pulled out his credit card and clumsily reached for the card machine.

Just remember that you SHOULD think about it and showcase it when it IS important. There will be times when your character may struggle. Just don’t make every moment a struggle. Disability doesn’t have to be nor should it be a tragedy in fiction. 

How Do You Write Interactions?

Right. So with that out of the way, how do you write good interactions between characters with mobility impairments and your other characters? Well, a lot of that depends on the “character” of your character, of course. But there are some things that you should keep in mind.

For example, it’s polite for a person interacting with a person in a wheelchair to not bend down like the person in a wheelchair is a child. Because - you know - they’re not a child. 

Another thing to remember is that for a person who uses a wheelchair, crutches, prosthetic, etc., that object is a part of their personal space and it is VERY rude to touch/lean on/otherwise interact with the item without their permission. If a character uses a wheelchair, don’t have another character hop into their wheelchair for a joyride UNLESS they are very close and/or have the wheelchair user’s permission. 

Above all, it’s a good idea for you to just do research on the type of mobility impairment your character has and the type of etiquette that’s appropriate given the circumstances! Remember that things might be different given different mobility aids, prosthetics, etc.

On Romance

I feel it necessary to make this final point. When writing characters with mobility issues, especially those in wheelchairs, it’s NOBODY’S BUSINESS whether or not they can “do the deed” and I highly suggest you avoid putting these conversations in your story altogether. ESPECIALLY IF THE DISABLED CHARACTER ISN’T INVOLVED IN THE CONVERSATION. 

Why have I seen this so often? It’s baffling! And it’s nobody’s business but those involved in the relationship. 

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masterlist of resources for writing disabled/chronically ill/neurodiverse characters

Disclaimer: I do not have every condition listed here (though I do have quite a few). I have verified as much as I could that each resource is a good source of information. If any of these is misleading or wrong in any way PLEASE let me know. I will fix it accordingly.

Wanting to branch into writing more diverse characters? Wanting to include representation for those who are neurodivergent, disabled, or chronically ill? The first step to branching out is to research the various conditions/diseases/disorders your character could have. You also need to research what day to day life would be like for them. These links should provide a starting base of information in writing and portraying these characters:

Resources for writing/handling a chronically ill character:

4 tips for writing a chronically ill character

Writing about a chronically ill character

Spoon Theory

Writing about chronic illness (many different chapters about it)

Writing a character with Chronic Pain

Treating disabled people like humans

Trauma and chronic illness

Talking to disabled people about their disabilities

Spoon Theory Graphic

Executive Dysfunction

Chronic Pain First Aid Kit

How Hogwarts A Mystery can be used to describe spoon theory

Why you should never say “but you don’t look sick!”

Writing disabled characters

Writing a neurodiverse character

What it means to be neurodiverse

An interview about a neurodiverse character and author

Resources for learning more about various chronic illnesses/neurodiversity:

Mental illnesses/Neurological Disorders:

depression

anxiety

post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

bipolar disorder

ADHD

obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

boderline personality disorder (BPD) / more resources

eating disorders / more resources

Cushings

autism

Tourettes

Epilepsy

Dyspraxia / more resources / more resources

Autoimmune Diseases:

rheumatoid arthritis

type 1 diabetes

lupus / more references

inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)

Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s

Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Guillain-Barre syndrome

Graves’ disease

Hormonal/Reproductive Disorders *these disorders are not only women’s health issues. trans men and non-binary indiviudals can suffer from them as well. please do not refer to them as solely women’s health issues*:

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)

premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) / more information /

Adenomyosis

Endometriosis

Gastrointestinal Conditions:

gastroesophageal reflux disease

Barrett’s esophagus

Celiac Disease

Skin Conditions:

Rosacea / more resources

Eczema / more resources

Psoriasis / more resources

Various other illnesses/conditions:

Ehler-Danlos Syndrome

B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia

Type 2 Diabetes

Iron deficiency anemia

Chronic migraines

Arthritis

Fibromyalgia

Recommended places to look for more information on your own:

The Mighty

PBS list of resources

PCOS awareness association

Right here on tumblr. there are tons of posts under tags related to the topics as well as the “#chronically ill” tag and “#spoonie” tag

Try and find either government websites or websites that belong to the specific research groups for those conditions

Psychiatry journals/texts

Reach out to those you know with a chronic illness (but ALWAYS be sure to ask if it is okay. for some people talking about their illnesses is traumatizing and personal. others (like me) are okay with it!

If there are illnesses not here that you would like represented, let me know! I plan on keeping this updated and continuing adding to it. Every link should take you directly to the source/post.

Remember, a lot of these are more common than you think. there will always be someone out there who feels represented by a character with one of these conditions/disorders/diseases. this kind of representation helps normalize the idea that it is okay to exist as a neurodivergent, chronically ill, or disabled person. you are allowed to have adventures and live a happy life.

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Have created a new novel-writing approach for myself that I am calling Very Gentle Writing. Very Gentle Writing is an approach for people who live nearly every waking second in self-castigation and actually need peaceful slowness to unleash their creativity. 

Very Gentle Writing does not set staggering word count goals and then feel bad about it. No! Very Gentle Writing for me sets an extremely low word count and then feels magnificently productive when the low bar is exceeded (which is easy…it’s a low bar, I mean really low). 

Very Gentle Writing is about saying hey yo maybe I just want to listen to a chill playlist for a while and feel one sentence spill out. Go me! 

Very Gentle Writing is kind of about realizing I have a really limited amount of time to write in between work, and adulting, and taking care of a thousand life responsibilities, and trying to heal&deal from trauma in 2020. So I want that writing time to be….just…..nice. 

Very Gentle Writing means I have a goal of enjoying every single time I sit down to write. Really. I use all the fun words first. 

Very Gentle Writing came to me as an idea when I started to think about how as someone actively trying to recover from a lot of lifelong trauma, the usual word harder!! Work harder!! mantras in the world of “people doing hard things” didn’t motivate me at all, they only hurt me. I truly need a voice saying work less hard, personally.

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Blurbing;

How to relay a story with minimal headache* 

*Minimal headache is still some headache. You’re trying to summarize something that needs thousands of words to properly convey. It’s not going to be easy.

Blurbs are an absolute necessity for marketing your book, and the sooner you have a good one, the easier it is to get people interested in your work. Unless you’re writing a short story, you’ll never be able to include all the interesting parts of your book into a single blurb. That’s okay. The point of the blurb is to pick out the key focus of the story as a whole, and relay that in the most interesting way possible.

When writing blurbs, it’s good to end up with one short/mini blurb, or logline, which should be a single sentence, and one longer blurb which should be a few paragraphs. (Note that a synopsis for a query letter is quite different from a blurb. There are links at the bottom of the post which will help you with a query-worthy synopsis.) 

Tips and tricks:

Know what your story is about. No brainer, right? Keep in mind that this isn’t the same as having a summary or outline. You want to know the focus of your story, the thing that remains when you strip everything else away.

Use a formulaic starting point. A good formula to start with looks something like this: “When [INCITING INCIDENT OCCURS], a [SPECIFIC PROTAGONIST] must [OBJECTIVE], or else [STAKES].” Just remember this isn’t a cheat. You’ll still need to rework the resulting sentence.

Start small and expand, or start large and cut out. Figure out a solid short blurb and then turn every key aspect (the protagonist, the inciting event, the objective, and the stakes) into a sentence or two of it’s own, or write the full blurb first and cut away words until you have a single sentence. 

Write many versions. Without any rereading, try speed writing 25 short blurbs and 5 long blurbs. Come back when you’re done and pick out the points you feel worked the best and were most true to your story.

Get feedback. Throw your favorite few blurbs at people you trust who are also part of your target audience. Which ones create the most interested in the story itself?

Good explanations on how to write loglines, blurbs, and synopsis, from non-tumblr websites who’s links shouldn’t die:

On short blurbs (loglines)- | One | Two | Three | Four | On long (back of book) blurbs - | One | Two | Three | Four | On query-worthy synopsis- | One | Two | Three |

Edit from 2/23/18:

Since I just spent some time reading a bunch of sci fi and fantasy blurbs in preparation for writing Pearl’s, I thought I might update this.

There is no right way to write a blurb. Some are a single paragraph, some are a full page. Some have quotes from the book, some directly mention the author, some focus just on the plot or dedicate most of their space to the worldbuilding. It doesn’t matter what your blurb looks like as long as it sounds good and gets people interested in your book!

A nice, simple format I’ve found to work really well for Speculative Fiction looks something like this:

Part one — The world. Give a strong sense of your worldbuilding and the set up for any political, magical, or technological building blocks important to your plot. This can double as a protagonist (or antagonist!) introduction, or you can leave that for the second paragraph, depending on what flows best.

Part two — The inciting event. What happens to get the story rolling? This should be something within your first few chapters, which sets your protagonist on their path. (If it’s not, you may have some structural edits to do for your novel.) 

Part three — The hook. Leave the reader questioning what’s to come! Focus on the disaster the plot is heading for, or point out a game changer or upcoming obstacle.

As mentioned above, this is certainly not the only way to write blurbs. Some novels downright can’t follow this exact structure for one reason or another. Most don’t need to. But it’s still a nice, fairly headache-less exercise to try out when working on a blurb, and it might give you something worthwhile once you’re finished.

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Fiction Writing Advice Posts

Hey all, Some of you know that in addition to this Tumblr blog I also keep a blog on my website. A lot of the posts overlap, but not all of them, so I’ve made this list for your reading pleasure:

How to Control Your Pacing

How to Write During a Pandemic

How to Read Like a Writer

What if Your First Draft DOESN’T Suck?

How to Do World-Building Research

How to Properly Format a Manuscript for Submission

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

Show Don’t Tell? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

8 Ways to Improve Your Fiction Writing

How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

5 Reasons to Kill Your Critique Group

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Why Nobody Cares About Your Plot

How to Use Adverbs Like a Pro

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

3 Easy Ways to Transform Boring Descriptions

3 Ways to Increase Conflict in Your Dialogue

A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Killer Feedback from Beta Readers

How to Know What Kind of Editing You Need

10 Best Books About Fiction Writing

xoxo

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Narrative Anchors: How to hold your readers’ attention, wherever you take them.

One of my old fiction professors, Tom, used to always grab coffee with us students whenever our story had been workshopped.

We’d meet at the downtown coffee shop, where we fought the flocks of students for a table, pulled out a couple wrinkled copies of the story, and discussed feedback over bland coffee.

It was during one of these discussions that Tom pointed out something I’d stumbled into doing well. (He’s very good at that.)

“I think this is great, Mike,” he said, tapping my story on the table. “From the opening line, the question is whether these two will sleep together, and that grounds us. If my attention ever wavers, I can always fall back on, ‘Oh, well have they slept together yet? No, not yet? Okay, cool. I still know where we are, then, and where we’re headed.’ That makes the story easy to follow.”

This wasn’t, admittedly, a major focus of our conversation. We moved on to discuss more important things (like the story’s key flaws), but somehow that comment stuck with me over the years.

And now, looking back, I realize it was the first time I started thinking about something I’d eventually call “narrative anchors.”

What’s a narrative anchor?

It’s something I made up. But trust me, it’s helpful.

In short, I consider narrative anchors to be the craft elements you include in a story to ground your reader. On the one hand, they can help you craft a story that rings with simple, crystal clarity, and on the other hand, they can empower you to challenge readers with fresh, creative storytelling, without ever losing them at sea.

I put narrative anchors into three categories:

Plot Anchors

Character Anchors

Style Anchors

Plot Anchors

Plot anchors are a clearly defined situation, goal, or destination for a story. Tom (above) pointed out a situational plot anchor in my story, but you’ll find plot anchors everywhere. For example, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang needs to master the four elements and defeat Fire Lord Ozai. We know from the beginning that defeating Ozai is the end-goal, so we feel grounded at every stage of the story, knowing where we’re going.

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, is another great example. Ahab is hellbent on hunting down the White Whale, and we never lose sight of that goal, even as the narrative stretches across hundreds of pages.

That’s the point of a plot anchor: to give your reader a clear direction, so they always know where they’re going.

Character Anchors

These anchors are the clear motivations and arcs you give your characters. Disney does this well in their musicals, always using an “I want song” (more about those here) to clearly declare what their main characters want: Mulan wants to express her true self, Hercules wants to find where he belongs, and so on. The rest of the story then circles around that character’s pursuit of their “want.”

When readers have a strong understanding of your character’s motivation and journey, they have a much easier time following the story as a whole.

Style Anchors

Style anchors are my handy little catch-all for every other craft choice you make to bring clarity and simplicity to your work. Style anchors can include: short chapters or paragraphs; simple and accessible language; straightforward writing forms; clarity of description; engagement with the five senses; using a smaller cast of characters; sticking to a single POV; and so on.

Cool. So when (and how) do I use these narrative anchors?

Tip 1: Don’t start with anchors. Start with the story. Take your idea, begin developing the characters and plot, and start writing.

Tip 2: As you write and revise, start thinking about anchors. Ask yourself what kinds of anchors you already have in place, what others may be helpful to add, and whether or not you’re doing enough to ground your readers in the story.

Tip 3: Consider your audience. Readers of popular fiction will want to be reasonably grounded, so you should try to always use at least a few anchors. But if your audience likes super artsy, experimental fiction, you may be able to get away with fewer tethers.

Tip 4: That being said, don’t be afraid to challenge your readers, whoever they are. If you want to get creative, go for it. If you want to experiment with form, language, plot, character arcs, or whatever, PLEASE do!

Tip 5: But when you challenge readers one way, try to compensate by grounding them in other ways. For example, maybe your story lacks a clear plot anchor, but you include a character with a clear arc and motivation. Or maybe your story is incredibly challenging on a stylistic level, but you give readers a clear character motive and plot (this was my experience reading Moby-Dick).

Tip 6: If big anchors don’t fit, consider smaller ones. For example, if your story lacks a BIG plot anchor like defeating Fire Lord Ozai, maybe use smaller plot anchors to drive individual sections of the book. Or maybe instead of a BIG declaration of your character’s motive at the beginning, include little anchors for your narrator that act like breadcrumbs for their motives and development.

Tip 7: Mix and match anchors as necessary, because there is no magic formula.

Long story short?

Write the story you want to write — then use narrative anchors to keep your readers reading, wherever your story takes them.

Tom may not have said that all in so many words, but if I bought him a coffee, I bet he’d agree.

Good luck, everybody, and good writing!

— — —

Everyone has stories worth telling. If you’re looking for writing advice or tips on crafting theme, meaning, and character-driven plots, check out the rest of my blog.

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tropes i will never get tired of

fake dating

omniscient narrator who immediately contradicts the characters (“This is fine,” she said. It was, in no way, shape, or form, fine.)

deadpan jokes while swordfighting

the “I FUCKING LOVE MY WIFE” guy

oblivious pining that slowly escalates until A is going on page rants about how pretty B’s eyes are but still doesn’t seem to recognize they’re in love

Strong Leader Type having to physically fall down in order for the other characters to see how exhausted they are

funny villains who talk and make jokes with their heroes while they’re fighting them

the villains presented as the protagonists

*increasingly pulls out bigger and bigger weapons from more unlikely places*

“I said all of your weapons” *pulls out more*

“ALL OF THEM” *pulls out one last tiny dagger*

traumatized character using humor to cover up ptsd

characters going out for a break at a restaurant/movie/whatever and something bad happening

using the “*gasp* what’s that over there???” trick to avert the enemy’s attention and it working

a villain’s weakness being something totally random and nonsensical

a hero duo arguing over who’s the sidekick while fighting a villain

“don’t be silly, we don’t need [important thing]”  “you lost it, didn’t you?”  “yeah”

“what’s the one thing I told you not to do tonight?”  “raise the dead”   “and what did you do?”  “raised the dead”

“I think that went pretty well” *explosion in the distance*

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Procrastination and writer’s block

And how thwarting one can help beat the other.

[Image ID: Open books on a bed, a notebook opened in pages full of writing, printed papers of information with penciled scribbles, an opened laptop and a cup of coffee next to it.]

I swear I’m not full of BS. Just listen for a sec. I have been writing for half a decade now and I know that while writing is quite a fun and rewarding process, oftentimes it seems impossibly daunting and nothing you write seems good enough. All of these are valid feelings; as fun and rewarding as writing can be, it is also incredibly hard and you may procrastinate yourself into a writer’s block (and I should know, since I’ve done it an embarrassingly high amount of times myself).  The connection between the two might not seem visible from the get-go, so let me elaborate further.

Why do you procrastinate?

You procrastinate about things that make you feel uncomfortable. Yes, you read that well. You think about writing that one scene you are dreading and, bam, the pain centers of your brain light up. So, you shift  your attention to something more enjoyable, like, say, searching writing memes to laugh and commiserate with other writers in the same situation (even the best of us do it). This causes you to feel better at least temporarily. But sadly, the long-term effects of habitual avoidance can be nasty.

Now, what makes procrastination dangerous and hard to break out of is that, funnily, it shares features with addiction. It offers temporary excitement and relief from sometimes boring reality. It's easy to fool yourself, for example, into thinking that the best use of the writing time you’ve assigned for yourself is researching the historical ramifications of X event that happened that one year instead of actually writing the scene.

Breaking down procrastination.

In itself, procrastination is a habit. The thing about habit is that it’s an energy saver for you. It allows you to free our mind for other types of activities. You go into this habitual “zombie mode” far more often than you might think, that's the point of habit. You don't have to think in a focused manner about what you're doing while you're performing the habit. Habits can be good and bad, they can be brief like absently brushing back your hair or they can be long for example when you prepare a cup of coffee before sitting down in front of your laptop to write. You can think of habits as having four parts:

The cue is the trigger that launches you into “zombie mode”. A cue by itself is neither helpful or harmful. What matters is what you do in reaction to such a trigger. Cues usually fall into one of the four following categories: location, time, how you feel, and reactions, either to other people or to something that just happened.

The routine is the habitual response your brain is used to falling into when it receives the cue. Zombie responses can be useful, harmless or sometimes harmful. Your brain wants to automatically go into this routine when you've gotten your cue.

The reward is... pretty self-explanatory, really. Every habit develops and continues because it rewards us. It gives us an immediate little feeling of pleasure. Procrastination is an easy habit to develop because the reward, moving your mind's focus to something more pleasant happens so quickly and easily. But good habits can also be rewarded.

The belief is the crux of a habit. Habits have power because of your belief in them. To change a habit, you'll need to change your underlying belief. You may find that when the going gets stressful, you long to fall back into a old more comfortable habits.

Okay, so how do you stop?

Now, that you understand the problem, we can move on to fixing it. The first thing you should know, and I cannot stress this enough, is that it's perfectly normal to start with a few negative feelings. Maybe you think your writing is absolute garbage and that you’re bothering for nothing and that is perfectly normal. The key here is the way you handle such negative thoughts and feelings. Giving into these dark thoughts is what undermines your efforts, and doing so systematically is what sends you into a writer’s block. Instead, allow yourself to suck from time to time. Re-frame things, put them in a better, more positive light, like saying: “Future-me is going to love me for this.” (Remember that 300 words of bad writing is so much better than no words at all. After all, you cannot fix something that doesn’t exist).

What I want you to learn, though, beyond that, is how to focus on process not product. By process I mean the flow of time and the habits and actions associated with that flow of time. As in, I'm going to spend 20 minutes writing. Product, on the other hand, is an outcome, like the chapter you need to finish. To prevent procrastination you want to avoid concentrating on product. The product is what triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate. Instead, your attention should be on building processes. Processes relate to simple habits, habits that allow you to do the unpleasant tasks that need to be done.

By focusing on process rather than product, you allow yourself to back away from judging yourself and to relax into the flow of work (which, coincidentally, is also the antidote to writer’s block). Equally important to remember is when a distraction arises, which it inevitably will, you want to just let it flow by. This is when the Pomodoro technique comes to save your ass. You push the distraction, a text from a friend or a notification on Tumblr, away for a fixed amount of time, say, 20 or 25 minutes or even an hour, it’s up to you, and you reward yourself during the break by dealing with it, shifting your focus away from writing. Then, repeat.

We can delve in deeper by analyzing how to stop yourself at different stages during procrastination.

The cue. If you want to stop it before it’s even begun, this is where you start. You should try to recognize what launches you into your  procrastination mode. The issue with procrastination is that, because it's an automatic habit, you're often unaware that you've begun to procrastinate. You can prevent the most damaging cues by locking away your phone or disconnecting from the internet for brief periods of time. 

The routine. This is your best bet of stopping yourself. As in, this is the reaction point where you must actively focus on rewiring your old habit. The key to rewiring is to have a plan. Developing a new ritual can be helpful. Your plan may not work perfectly at first, but just keep at it. Adjust the plan if necessary and savor those victories when your plan works. Don't try to change everything at once. The Pomodoro technique can be especially helpful in shifting your reaction to the cues.

The reward. This can be a powerful way of thwarting procrastination. Doing so, however, can sometimes require a little bit of investigation. Why are you procrastinating? Can you substitute an emotional payoff? Maybe a feeling of pride for writing that scene, no matter how short, a sense of satisfaction. Can you win a small internal bet or a contest about something you've turned into a personal game, like, say, writing 500 words every day? 200? 20? Remember that habits are powerful because they create neurological cravings. It helps to add a new reward if you want to overcome your previous cravings. Only once your brain starts expecting that reward, will the important rewiring take place that will allow you to create new habits. Don't feel bad if you find that you have trouble getting into a flow state at first.

The belief. The most important part of changing your procrastination habit is the belief that you can do it. Belief that your new system works is what can get you through. Part of what can underpin your belief is to develop a new community. Developing and encouraging culture with like-minded friends can help you keep on track. Do you know what that means? WRITING BUDDIES. 

And there you have it, the secret unveiled. As a little footnote, this is information I learned in a MOOC I took at Coursera, called Learning How To Learn.

[inkstains-coffecups]

A Few Tips All Writers Should Remember:

·Write to your comfort level. Meaning: give yourself a break when you need it and push yourself when you’re feeling motivated.

·Seek out sources of motivation. There are very few times when motivation hits me out of nowhere. Read a good book. Watch a good movie. Write down your goals.

·Find your space. Coffee shop. Library. Your room with the music blasting and the TV playing your favorite show. Find whatever gets you in the right headspace.

·Your first draft is just the first draft. Too many writers stress out about the first draft and they forget it’s just the first step in completing your novel. You can add to it, build from it, or toss it away completely.

·You will be rejected. Even if you write the next big hit, you’ll be rejected. Read the reviews for some of your favorite books—I guarantee someone HATED it. Not everyone will like your work, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

·Write advice isn’t for everyone. There’s no one-size-fits-all plan for writers. Pick and choose advice that works for you, ignore what doesn’t. Not everything will relate directly to you and your style of writing.

·It’s okay to stay in. Want a night to yourself so you can write? Don’t be afraid to cancel your plans and focus on your writing hobby. You don’t have to feel guilty about wanting to work on your writing.

·Let ideas settle. It’s tempting to jump right in to a new writing idea, but let things settle for a bit. Brainstorm. See what comes next. An idea needs to have legs and it needs to take your story somewhere. Let it grow.

·Outlines aren’t set in stone. Be flexible with your outlines. Plan if you need to, but allow yourself to explore new ideas. Let your story go in an unexpected direction.

-Kris Noel