As a novelist, particularly a fantasy/supernatural writer, people (read: my parents) sometimes view me as a wishy-washy creative type, from whom the words simply spill out onto the page. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case and, when it is, the words don’t always make much sense except in my head, where the entire story/context necessary to understand them usually resides. In times like these, I try to focus on disciplining myself.
Writing, like any other activity, requires a lot of discipline in order to improve and produce good works. Discipline is one of those qualities I’d love to be able to just inject into myself, but, alas, science hasn’t figured that one out yet (that I’m aware). I mentioned in my writer’s block post some months ago that you have to force yourself to write sometimes, and this is true. This is how you develop discipline. Not only do you have to be disciplined in your writing, but also in every other aspect of your life. I’ve tried tackling this recently, to varying degrees of success. As you can tell by the frequency of my posts here, I’ve been succeeding not as often as I’d like. The solution to this problem lies in my lack of being able to commit to a routine. So, from now on, I will force myself to commit.
I don’t know what brought on this mini-rant. I’m preparing for the epic adventure that November will be, with NaNoWriMo, and I fully intend to start and finish a novel in its 30 days. But, to do something like that, I’ll need the discipline to punch out at least a chapter every couple of days. Easier said than done. So I’ve started by making myself follow a schedule. I’ve even picked up exercise, as I’ve done before, and find that it’s easier to get into a rhythm when I have something active and fun to keep me going, in this case dancing.
Anyhoo, that’s my rant for today. It wasn’t much of anything, really, compared to my other posts, but I’m bored and killing time. If you want to read something a bit more entertaining by me, scroll down to my previous post about self-promotion! Good links down there if you’re a fan of fanficiton or short stories :).
Until next time.
Good luck on NaNo, this is my first year and will be checking in on your progress. I like the idea of finding others doing NaNo to encourage each other.
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Absolutely! I only just learned about this earlier this year and I’ve been looking forward to it for months! Definitely glad to find someone else who’s going to try it.
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