As I sit here in Sorrento being distracted by beautiful people,wearing beautiful clothes and speaking a beautifully language I thought it may be helpful to move away from the many distractions and pass on my top 3 tips of what works for me. What do you do when there are still 60,000 words to go and you need to focus ( today being a case in point)? These may seem over simplistic or to some just plain foolish but hey they work for me. If you try them and they work for you wonderful, let me know and we can feel smug together!
1. Start from the end. Where is it you want to end up? You can make this question as small as where do you want to be at the end of the day or as big as where do you want to be at the end of the book? The point is know where you want to be and work backwards from here, you can then plot accordingly.Once you’ve got that under your belt the fun can start. How on earth are you going to get from where you are now to the end? This for me is one of my favourite parts of the writing process – character daydreaming I call it.Let your characters take it from here on. If you are focusing on a few characters start adding a bit more depth. I always ask myself what’s in their record collection and it sparks from there. You can tell a lot about a person based on what music they listen to.
2. Never ever argue with yourself. I have wasted too much time arguing with myself. Let the story lead you, you can always refine when you edit if need be. Of course challenge yourself but if an idea is kicking and screaming for inclusion you would be foolish not to at this stage.
3. Write every day. Probably the most important of the three for me. It doesn’t have to be pages and pages. It may be only 2 lines but do it, they may just be the 2 lines that pull everything together.
If these tips have helped you in any way I’d love to hear about it or if you have your own top three let me know.Happy writing days. Ciao for now.