Wrote a 3000 word introductory chapter to my book. Finally started, finally some progress.
How do you guys keep it up?
Any tips?
Do you set goals for every day?
>>8166928
Wake up early every day, drink water, sit down and force yourself to write. Creativity doesn't come from nowhere, you have to channel it. It's the best feeling.
Usually I get up at around 4:00 and write for four hours a day, or do something. Drinking water, listening to classical music, stretch. By 8:00 and when work starts, I've already written for 4 hours, so at least I've got that going for me.
Good luck anon
>>8166935
I applaud you for being able to wake up that early man. 4 is a little too early for me.
I plan on writing this over a long period of time since I have school and work right now, but I'll definitely try to cut some time out of my week to just sit and write. You're probably write too, earlier the better.
Just break it into parts. A book is just a series of chapters, a chapter a series of pages, a page a series of paragraphs, a paragraph sentences...
You can only work at the level of words, sentences, pages and chapters. So don't get overwhelmed by the big picture. Just make sure to link up each smaller unit so it fits into a greater whole.
>>8166940
I wrote a rough outline of my book first, literally one page of just scene-scene-scene etc. Then I got to work, doing draft 1, etc. Don't worry about word count- I'm on draft 4 and I've been working on it for about 9 months now. I'm really proud of myself, and I'm excited to write.
Another really good tip is to read something you like. A passage that inspires you is the best. One that inspires me is the car salesman part in the beginning of CoL49. Some parts of If on a winters night a traveller is good too. Find something you really, really like and use that to inspire you.
>>8166949
How did you get confident enough to know that what you were writing wasn't total shit? I always find myself getting an idea for a story, writing about a thousand words, re-reading it, deeming it as shit and then deleting it.
>>8166969
a) had my girlfriend beat the literary shit out of me and help me organize plot.
b) raised my expectations of what was "good" or not. You know what's good because you're constantly thinking about it, learning from it, amused by it. Learn about words, learn about books, read something you'd never read. Honestly, go to Amazon and buy a used book for a penny, read it through, and find what you loved or hated. Any book. The more open you keep your reads, the more you'll figure out what you like and don't like, and you'll be able to tell what's "good" or "bad".
>>8166969
Also, no idea is shit. You get ideas from somewhere. The only ideas that are shit are undeveloped ones. My book is allegorically about marijuana legalization and Communist Russia in the United States, all set around our GMO problem. I love the book, I love the concept, and I've been busting my ass about it forever. Hope that you can read it one day in bookstores, my friend.
>>8167005
date an english major girl i'm not even lying
>>8166928
I have a really interesting idea for a book, but I don't feel like I have the skill to flesh it out. Feels bad
Basically, write an outline of as much of the whole thing as you can before starting. And don't get hung up on writing crazy amounts. If you can write about 500 words a day minimum (not much at all) it'll add up faster than you'd think.
One specific thing that helps me is writing the ending first. Even if the rest of the book changes as you write it, committing to a specific ending from the start helps everything else take shape.
>>8167146
she was an English major dude, so was I that's how we met. She hadn't even read anything by Mark Twain when me met, granted we're from a non-English speaking country but for fucks sake.
