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 |  Here you'll get lots of tips, motivation and experience to finally write your novel |
 Welcome and great that you found your way to my blog! My name is Evie and I write books that take readers out of their own worlds and into new ones that readers won't soon forget. I blog for artists, writers, creatives, multi-talents and all those who want to become one. In life, you don't need to be rich: Joy, curiosity and commitment are enough to reach your goal. Just like I am doing right now. In this blog, I'll give you tips on how to finish the monster "book project“. I'll also give you tips on how to find motivation to write (daily?) and how to incorporate it into your everyday life. You can also expect some prompts, ideas and step-by-step instructions here. Let me surprise you! I wish you a lot of fun with writing, Evie |
| What is a writing tour? A writing tour is a string of tasks that you complete while writing. For example, a sprint of 250 words (by "sprint" is meant the number of words you have to write in as short a time as possible) or a WordWar of 15 minutes (by "WordWar" is meant the number of minutes in which you have to write as much as possible). You tell a story in the process. Where can I find writing tours? In the NaNoWriMo forum, you'll find lots of them, including ones for Harry Potter fans and ones for nature and animal lovers, ones for mythology nuts and frequent writers... There's something for everyone. They are very popular especially during NaNos and that's why you can find a lot of them in the forums. Of course, you can also make up your own. How long do writing tours last? It varies. Most of them last between one and three hours, depending on your writing speed. But of course there are also some that take days to complete and some that, if you're lucky, can be done in three quarters of an hour. What are the benefits of writing tours? They increase the word count in an entertaining way. They are fun and you can compete against each other if you want. Enough explanation. I think an example will make it all clearer. Feel free to try the following writing tour! Writing tour - a leisurely Saturday 1. You wake up and stretch. Do a WordWar of 5 minutes to wake up. 2. Spontaneously, you feel like: a) a cup of cocoa. Roll a 6-sided die and multiply the result by 2 to get the number of minutes you have to write. b) a tea or a coffee. Make a sprint to 200 words. 3. You're going to the zoo. You have to write the last three numbers of your current wordcount in the document again to get there faster (so, for example, if you have 31,721 words in the document right now, write 721 more words now). If you'd rather go slow, do a 20-minute WordWar. 4. Would you rather go to the elephants, the zebras, or the penguins (you may choose more than one)? If you want to go to the elephants, do a 400 word sprint, if you want to go to the zebras, do a 15 minute WordWar, and if you want to go to the penguins, jump on one leg while typing the next 100 words. 5. You'll read while you ride the bus home. Type about(!) as many words as your favorite book has pages. If it's over 1000 pages long, write 900 words, if it's under 250 pages long, multiply the page number by two. You don't have to look it up if you don't know exactly (although in the age of the Internet this can be done quite quickly), it's enough if you round it (so, for example, instead of 478 words write 500 and instead of 921 words write 900). If you have the problem that you don't know which book is your favorite, write 600 words. 6. You can have lunch now. Would you rather do it yourself (roll a 6-sided die and multiply the result by 3 to get the number of minutes) or order it (roll a 6-sided die and multiply the result by 80 to get the word count for your sprint). 7. You can eat lunch in peace. Don't hurry and write quietly for 10 minutes on your current novel project. 8. You can read again. Include at least one prompt in your novel while writing 350 words. 9. The day is coming to an end and you're going to sleep. Either write quietly for 10 minutes on your project or write at least 150 words. Congratulations for completing the "a leisurely Saturday" writing tour! Comment with your word count and time for each stage and I'll send you 100 Gift Points. Now you: a) do this or another writing tour b) invent your own writing tour c) write! |
| Sometimes I just lack the motivation to write. Then I can procrastinate for hours and suddenly think of 1000 other things I still have to do: take out the trash, cook, watch a series.... That's why I've collected my favorite tips for instant motivation here. 1. NANOWRIMO.ORG NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. As if the thought of thousands of people around the world doing the same wasn't enough motivation, you can register for free on the website and make friends, chat with other writers, and track your word count. You can also set your own goals - all year round. The forums, where members can motivate each other, laugh together, share their progress, and enter contests, as well as chat and post photos of their BuJos, are also open year-round. The writing challenges both keep you on your toes, but also motivate you immensely. I highly recommend participating! 2. (MICRO)HABITS & ROUTINES Solidifying a habit is a difficult thing to do. That's why I recommend starting with a micro-habit. For example, if you want to go jogging ten kilometers every day, the micro-habit would be to first put your jogging shoes on and then take them off at a fixed time every day. Then you will get used to this activity and it will be easier for you to jog every day later. Now a more practical example: you want to write 500 words a day. Then first get into the habit of writing 50 words a day. You should always be able to write 50 words, and most of the time, instead of 50 words, you will write 200. Then you can try the bigger habits and jog ten kilometers a day, or, as in our case, write 500 words a day. It helps if you have an anchor. So if you make yourself a cup of coffee every day after you get up, you can get into the habit of turning on your laptop (or whatever you write with) every time you pour the coffee and start writing. Then you have an activity that is already your habit (making coffee) and you can connect your new habit to it. 3. HABITICA.COM At habitica.com you can track your to-dos, daily/monthly/yearly tasks and your habits. You can also register here for free. Then you create an avatar for yourself. By completing tasks or a positive habit you get coins, life points, experience points and other rewards (e.g. items or pets). Negative habits will drain you of life points. There is the function of joining a party and together mastering so-called quests, i.e. defeating baddies by completing tasks. If you don't do a daily task or perform a bad habit, the others suffer as well. There are rewards for completing quests. 4. REWARD YOURSELF! The human being tends to give up. To prevent this, you should do one thing above all: reward yourself! You can do this with habitica.com, but also with a piece of paper or your bullet journal. You write down a goal, or preferably several, such as: - Write 25,000 words - Write scene x - invent character y - etc. To these you then write rewards such as: - Eat 1 bar of chocolate - put 1€ in the money box - do 1 hour of yoga - etc. You should keep the following in mind: "Writing a book" is not suitable as a to-do or goal. Sure, it's your goal. But you should break it down to stage goals, such as a standing plot, 10,000 words, 20,000 words, ..., finish rough draft, 20,000 words corrected, .... Do it! Now. Write down at least 5 goals and at least 5 rewards now! What do you mean, you're still here? Write it down now! Otherwise you will forget it in the end! You're reading this and you still haven't written it down? Don't say I didn't warn you.... 5. WRITING TRACKERS, BULLET JOURNALS & CO. This is a tip for all BuJo fans and statistics lovers. Those of you who keep a BuJo may already be doing it: keeping a writing tracker. There are a thousand different variations of this. I suggest the following: Make a monthly overview, where each day corresponds to a 3*3cm box. Depending on the deadline, enter the number of words/minutes to be written on that day in the corresponding box. Color the days on which writing was done and write the number of words reached in it If you don't have a bullet journal, you can of course keep statistics (e.g. on NaNoWriMo.org, in Excel or by hand). A tracker motivates you immensely to reach the word count. Of course, you can also set a goal, for example, if you reach the goal on at least 60% of the days and write on at least 80% of the days, you get a reward. But what is a bullet journal? In short, it is a notebook with page numbers. Most of the time, an index is used to keep track and the notes are written in unordered. A bullet journal is a combination of a calendar, a notebook, a project planner and a to-do list. Many people create real works of art out of their BuJos, but the purpose is more the order. Now you: - How do you motivate yourself to write? - Have you ever participated in NaNo? - Have you tried any of the tips? I look forward to your comments! Thank you for reading this article. If you want a second part, write me or like this article or the blog. I would also be very happy if you rate it constructively. For every review over 400 characters, I will give between 500 and 1500 Gift Points until 02/28/2023, depending on how good the review is. |
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