Writing – Page 2 – Bucket List Journey

May 8, 2013May 8, 2013

How I developed the habit of writing regularly

A little while ago I wrote a celebratory post on how I’ve began writing regularly. This, along with reading regularly have been wonderful additions to my life. It’s weird but reading and writing regularly make me happier and better. I’m less cranky, more hopeful, always thinking and processing things. I used to have terrible success in doing things regularly that I didn’t need to. Writing my second novel (which I didn’t finish) happened because I needed to write it in a different sense. I had to get the images that were in my head, those scenes that described my life through this other character needed to get on paper as a sort of pensieve of that time in my life.

Anyways.

A friend left a question in response to that post that I want to reply to.

This is a good question. It was probably four years ago that I decided to take this desire to write seriously, even though I felt like I had nothing worth saying to anyone.

I acknowledged that I would never make time for anything I didn’t feel like was a priority. There are lots of good things in life and many great things. It’s a personal decision what you prioritize. Just over a year ago I decided to prioritize some things that involved writing because I wanted to grow in these areas.
Try Nanowrimo. Writing a novela in a month is a great way to develop the habit. It forces you to say no to certain things in order to say yes to writing. It’s thrilling. It’s hard. It’s a lot of fun. At the end of the month you’ve accomplished something that you might never look at again, or could be a good framework for an actual novel you continue to develop. I doubt you’ll finish the month thinking it was a total waste of time if you take it seriously.
Find a project/venue to write. For years (read: since 2001) I’ve blogged. This was always a writing outlet. I’m quite confident it’s the reason I can put an idea on paper so quickly. Having a blog or a writing project with goals helps tremendously. “Who would read my blog?” Who cares? Don’t write for other people, write for yourself. Write about what you care about, develop your voice. If you want to write fiction, give yourself a project and a deadline and a friend to keep you accountable. It’s just like any other goal you’d have. One of the projects I started writing this year was really just a project for me to think through certain things. As it was developing, I realized it might be a helpful resource to people eventually. So I kept going and am working on editing it.
It’s life giving to me. It’s hard to stop doing something that’s life-giving and that people give such positive feedback on. I now notice that when I don’t feel inspired to write or don’t feel like I have time to write, it’s because my life is slowly getting out of sorts. It’s a helpful compass.
[edit] Track it. I forgot to add this one at first. I’ve noticed that paying attention to when I write helps. One of my habits that I’m tracking on Lift is “Write for 30 minutes.” If I can do that every day, I’m doing awesome. Even if I do that a few times a week, it’s a good week. Having that reminder on my app every day helps me plan to make time to write.

If you’ve ever wanted to write go open up a wordprocessor this weekend or the next evening you have free and start. No one has to see it. No one has to know. Do it for you because you want to and it is (if you acknowledge what’s going on deep down inside of you) important to you. Work on it for 15 or 30 minutes another day. Have a notebook or notepad app with you to jot down your ideas when they come. Keep plugging away at it. Soon you’ll be amazed at what you’ve accomplished!

Have anything else to add? Have you developed the habit of writing regularly? How did you develop it?

April 27, 2013

eBook and Writing

It’s been a few weeks since my Easter Weekend Project and this past week I had some time to look over the book, make some suggested edits as per my brother’s recommendations. Willy took a quick look over it, gave me a few recommendations and the next step is to edit it for reals. I’m still debating whether I’ll let Willy edit it or not. Being edited is hard. I haven’t decided whether opening myself up to his criticism is better than someone else’s. He’s already read it now, so I guess he can already see it for what it is before being editing.

Both my husband and my brother agreed it’s something I can be proud of. This makes me smile.

Right now it’s a series of steps to help you dream big, decide on your bucket list goals/life goals and start making them happen — nothing particularly new for this blog except for all in one place. The working title is Reach Your Goals but that sounds pretty lame and self-help-y. I’m open to better suggestions.

“You’ve written a lot this year!” Willy pointed out. I hadn’t really thought about it, but once I did, I realized that yeah I have written a lot. As it stands, this ebook is roughly 10,000 words. Another one I’ve been working on for the last 8 months (as ideas come) is 20,000 words. The novel I wrote in November was roughly 50,000 words and none of this is including all of the blog posts I’ve written and personal journaling I’ve done. The best part is, my life doesn’t seem to be interrupted by all this writing.

I’m celebrating a little bit in my heart as I write this for having been able to so easily work toward this goal of writing regularly.

April 4, 2013April 2, 2013

Easter Weekend Project

Four days off in a row. How awesome is that? This is the first year we didn’t spend with family. Usually we end up spending one or two days at my dad’s but this year we’ve stayed home in Montreal for all of our holidays except Christmas. I never knew how awesome four-days-in-a-row is when you aren’t obligated to do things other people want to. I was telling my dad this yesterday when I called him to wish him a Happy Easter. It was really relaxing to not have to visit family, even though I love them. They totally understood, which is very nice.

I spent a lot of the weekend writing. It was wonderful!

I’m slowly moving ahead on some of these smaller goals that lead up to (I hope) getting published one day. This one is the easy first step: an ebook related to this blog. Now, I know, it maybe doesn’t sound thrilling (or does it?), but I promise you it’s actually pretty not bad!

As I took all the most-popular posts from this blog and the other posts that are very key to what I think will help someone define goals and move towards them, over the course of the long weekend I wrote an ebook. It is meant to be short and to the point. It is meant to be given away freely. I think it does a really good job of streamlining what I’ve learned in the last several months about making life changes to structure your life to reach your goals.

So the next step is to get it edited and reviewed by a few people and then release that bad boy.

I’m excited!

March 13, 2013

Scratch that.

Having big goals requires having a bunch of little ones to check off the list to help you get there. I’ve written some of my smaller goals here that will help me get to the bigger, badder bucket list items. Today, I got to check one of those off. I now have some articles published somewhere other than my own blog.

It feels like a big day but maybe that’s because the sun was still up at 7PM.

The writing is different from what I usually write here. It’s more personal, or at least a different kind of personal. Also, it’s been edited! It’s weird seeing words that did not come from myself. It was also helpful to see how unclear I can write or how I can mix my points and switch topics mid article. Humbling.

Read on

Confessions of a Former McDonalds Addict
McDonald’s and I have had an interesting relationship over the years. I love McDonald’s and have had a tendency to lose self-control around it. At first it was infrequent during late-night study sessions with friends, entirely on impulse. Then it stopped being so infrequent.

I moved to Montreal after I graduated University and found myself in a new (big) city with few friends. My evenings after work were spent alone in those first few months. I didn’t have a lot of energy to meet new people at the end of a long day. So I watchedBig Bang Theory instead. During this time, I had moved right across the street from a McDonald’s. The mouth-watering scent of salty fries were carried on in the warm September breeze across the street and into my bedroom window.

I was doomed.

Click to read more.

It feels good, people. Now that the sun is down I can say confidently that it does feel good to scratch this off the list.

What smaller steps have you scratched off your Bucket list recently? Leave a comment here.

February 27, 2013

Journaling challenge

Last fall I did a bunch of posts on journaling and gave a way a great hand bound journal. I just stumbled upon a challenge that I thought I’d share with you because it’s a great idea. Over at Cloud Productivity, they’re throwing out a challenge starting March 1 (that’s this Friday) to start journaling. It gives you some time to decide whether you want to write or type, to pick up a fresh journal or buy an app or just open a new window in Word.

“Can journalling can make you more productive?” was my most popular post on journaling, which you might find motivating to start.

Have you recently started journaling? Have you tried before and quit? What did/didn’t you like about it? Do you think you’ll give it a shot this time? Comment here with your thoughts.

December 1, 2012

6 things about Nanowrimo 2012

It was surprisingly easy this time around.

I’m a little embarrassed by how easy it was. I guess my life is not really all that busy or I can write like a machine compared to the first time I did Nanowrimo 8 years ago. But it was quite easy. Then I surprised myself by accidentally finishing two days early! These are not meant to be brags! I’m honestly shocked and like I said, embarrassed. I’m embarrassed because I’m hearing ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s about how I’m writing a novel (which isn’t a big deal because people do it all the time with Nanowrimo) and people make it sound like it’s hard when it’s just not. Not because I’m special, but because people are just making it out to be bigger than it really is. I think? That’s why I want people to do Nanowrimo. So they can see that it’s not that hard. Just like anyone can run a 5K, anyone can win Nanowrimo with the conditions in their favour.

Having cheerleaders helps make it fun and actually get it done.

This year I got to know a group of Montrealers who were doing Nanowrimo as well. I had a lot of fun encouraging them via twitter, writing with them in real life (the one time I was able to make it to a write-in), doing word-wars with them where we’d compete to see how much we could write in 10, 15, or 20 minute time slots. The first time I did Nano, I was keeping it a secret from basically everyone because I didn’t want to be embarrassed by my own failure if that was the case. Being open about it helped so much! I would never do it alone again. That’s torture.

StayFocused was hugely helpful for my focus (thanks, Di!)

My friend Diane suggested the browser plug-in StayFocused. You input the sites you want to block and what days/hours you want them blocked and it will simply not let you on them at those times. It was really revealing how in a split second I could open a new tab and be on Facebook, completely subconsciously! Even after I would just close the window, I’d lose my train of thought and be back. It was actually kind of eerie a few times. StayFocused helped me, well, stay focused.

It turns out I have a lot of free time in the evenings/weekends.

This semester with my husband having to leave by 5:45 every day for class, it means that we eat early. It also means I can get a lot done if I actually have things to do and energy to do it with. I can only think of three days where my story was hard to write and it took me 2 hours to write my 1667 words. Otherwise, I pumped out my word count in an hour and then did other things. The main thing is having motivation to do things with people since I find myself pretty tired from hanging out with people all day long at work.

My favourite thing about Nanowrimo

My favourite thing is the freedom in writing to let the story tell itself. If you sit in on the NanoMTL chat room you’d daily hear someone say “I have a block” and then someone else say “KILL A CHARACTER” with much viciousness. Both times I did Nano seriously, I was shocked at how the story ended up telling itself almost better than if I had painstakingly planned out every scene. I just planned broad stroke ideas. It did the rest. I love that. And no, I didn’t kill any characters (though in my first novel, I burned down an old folks home. Everyone that was healthy made it out safe because I couldn’t bear anyone actually dying.).

Finally: “Can I read your novel?”

People have been asking me if they can read my novel. At this point, I’m probably going to say no – mostly because taking the time to read through it to make sure there are no major plot holes etc. will take time. Writing in 1667 word batches makes for a lot of forgetting what was said/done in the previous section! But I might be persuadable as long as people don’t expect anything close to literature.