Tag Archives: writing

Getting re-inspired – 10 top tips #NanoWriMo

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We’re already more than a third of the way through NaNoWriMo and the clock is ticking! If, like me, your writing time is squeezed into the spaces between work, bath time with the small one and the other myriad distractions life throws at you, you might be finding it tough to get into the flow.

Alternatively, you may have blasted through the first 15,000 words, but have now hit a wall, the blank page challenging you to figure out what comes next.

Wherever you are, it’s always a good time to take stock, take a breath, and regain some of that excitement you felt on the 1st November. Below are my ten tips, in no particular order, for doing exactly that.

  1. Go for a walk. This may seem an obvious idea, but almost all of my ideas come when I’m wandering the woods near my home, or when I’m travelling. The time that they rarely come is when I’m sat in front of my computer, hands poised above the keyboard. It is however, difficult to convince yourself that going out for a walk can be valuable to your writing. Stepping away from the word count and changing your environment can make your brain work entirely differently. There may even be some form of coffee or cake somewhere on your walk, which might also help with the inspiration. Having said that, see #9 below!
  2. Find new Paths. If, like me, you tend to ‘pants it’ most of the time, what feels like writers’ block can actually be that you’ve forgotten why you went in a particular direction. If you’re feeling like you’ve hit a dead end, go back to the original concept of the book, be it a detailed mind map or a napkin, and explore it. Decide whether your book is still going in the right direction. It may mean deleting the last thousand words, but in the long run it will almost always be an improvement, and get you writing again.
  3. Free Yourself. I have an advantage here, because I write fantasy, but I think that it’s relevant for everyone. There are no rules in writing, except that you write what you want to. Most genres have conventions, but if you view them like that, as guidelines only and instead focus on what the story wants, you can find solutions to pretty much anything. Similarly, your original plan may have been stymied by one of your characters, who decided to do something different from the plan. Let your characters rule and go with them, rather than stressing that you can’t fit what just happened into your original plan. Speaking of which…
  4. Engage with your Characters. In almost any good story, the characters will drive what happens. You need to care about them and be inside their heads. If you’re finding plotting is dragging you down, reconnect with your characters. You can create fact files for them; write their diary for a few days; describe them from the POV of their children/boss/partner and so on. Anything that helps you to understand what they would do in any situation, and why.
  5. Listen to music. I’ve got another post upcoming about this in more detail, but music, along with smell has to be for me the most powerful trigger for mood and feelings. Find some music that creates pictures and transports you somewhere and just sit and listen to it. (unless you want to dance, which is fine. Actually, depends upon where you are. If you write in your local coffee shop, maybe stick with the sitting.) Let the music move you in the same way as a great story and rediscover your muse.
  6. Talk to Someone. You can talk about anything (family, work, interesting diseases), but try at some point to tell someone about your writing. Describe your story and characters and describe why you do it. Try to express the passion you have that makes you sit down every day and actually write. Reconnecting with this passion may well break that deadlock.
  7. Write something different. Despite the deep-rooted need to meet that word count, taking a day out to write something new can be hugely refreshing. Pick something really manageable, say 500 words and a title entirely outside of what you normally do, ‘Chase That Monkey’ or ‘Why carrots are evil’, and have some fun. Also, push yourself to write it differently. Normally verbose? Keep it as simple as you can. Always write in the first person? Go for third person. Stretch yourself with no bigger agenda than having fun.
  8. Use a Timer. Often, just grinding something out can help with your sense of achievement. Sit in your chair, choose a word count (something short) and set your stopwatch, maybe 20 minutes. Then just write. Try to entirely disconnect with your inner critic that says ‘what you are writing sucks’ and just do it. The writing muscle atrophies so quickly, so doing something every day will soon get it working again.
  9. Eat well and sleep well. It seems obvious, but writing when I’ve had the small one trampolineing on my head from half four in the morning is considerably harder than after I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Equally, though less obvious, when I’m eating crap it just doesn’t flow as well. Look after yourself.
  10. Big yourself up. You know that you can do this, and often just reminding yourself of that can make all the difference. Try reading something you’ve previously written that you like. If you’re already published, dig out that screen grab of your book appearing on the Amazon best-seller/NYT best-seller/greatest novel written in Amersham in May 2012 list and revel in a little self-congratulation.

If any of these have inspired I’d love to hear from you, and if you have any other handy inspiration tips, please share them below!

Cheers

Mike

 

Inspiration, where does it come from and can I get me some?

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In my writer’s block blogs I managed to palm off the question of inspiration with the vague promise of future exploration. Alas my wife has been reminding me and so the time has come. It strikes me as wholly ironic that at this point I’m staring at the screen feeling somewhat lost.

I asked my wife, a hugely creative person who has 500 ideas a minute, where she got her inspiration from. For her, the following works well.

She will begin with a vague feeling about something, whether she’s writing a speech or creating some marketing. Often very vague, but what she will do is get excited about the prospect of the creation, without yet any clear idea of what it is. She will also try to figure out what is important to her about whatever it is that she is trying to create. She would describe this as being on a ‘values level’, meaning which of her core values, the things that inform the way she lives her life, does it really resonate with. Then, she will do something entirely unconnected with it, something that occupies her conscious brain. This gives her unconscious brain time to work on it and come up with something. When she then sits down to create, the answers and inspiration are there waiting.

So, that’s how I find my inspiration. Heheheh, see what I did there? Saved for another day.

 

Love to write about…Superheroes

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I thought it would make sense to talk about the things that I have a passion for and perhaps explore why I write about them.

The first one can’t be avoided, try as I might and it’s superheroes. I’ve spent many hours brainstorming an alternative name (sorry, it’s true) without success. However you frame it, the name just works and everything else sounds shockingly cheesy.

I’ve read comics since I was a wee lad and there’s still something about superheroes that I just love. The powers, the cool suits, the hot chicks with alliterative names, it just works. What I love about the world of superheroes as well is the complete lack of limitation. They come from all sorts of places, from distant planets, to next door via some sort of disaster. I guess I feel that once you’ve bought into the myth of the superhero, why worry about logic? This feels wonderfully freeing, both as a reader and a writer.

In my own writing I wanted to explore the concept of superhero origins a little more deeply and try and create some kind of reasonable explanation. This has been done quite recently and I’ve really enjoyed the new perspectives on it. The concept that I explore in The Assembly was one of the driving forces behind me creating this particular series.

I also really wanted to explore the personal conflicts superheroes may have if their powers weren’t necessarily good, or had caused pain to themselves or others. I felt that there was room for exploring it in a really serious way and metaphorically exploring the impact that uniqueness and difference can have on people and their families. Or something like that.

 

3 basic things to have in place to avoid writers block

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If I pick apart what I said in the last blog, I think I’ve come up with the basic things that I need in place to ensure that I avoid writer’s block.

Inspiration: It sounds obvious, but having something, be it a few words, a character, a situation, whatever, is essential. I won’t sit down to write now unless I have something in my head. Where does the inspiration come from I hear you ask. To be honest, I’m still working that out and will blog it once I do.

Some kind of plan: It doesn’t have to be detailed or particularly specific, but some sense of where I’m heading makes a huge difference. It means that at any point when I’m stuck I can always return to the final outcome, which then informs what will happen next. It also helps stop me from heading off down random paths that lead nowhere and kill both my flow and the momentum of the story.

Characters: Every story revolves around a character, or set of characters. It is the character that the reader will invest in, so I have to be invested as well. I’m in love with all of my characters, even the nasty ones, and it’s giving them lives that the readers will engage with that will make them want to keep reading. They help me write because it’s in imagining scenarios involving them, or putting them in situations where I worry about them, that I can create something.

In short, having one or more of the 3 above doesn’t automatically mean that you won’t have a block, but for me, they are the best way to avoid one. Or, slightly more prosaically, they are the tools that I can use to build a story.

Why I don’t get writer’s block, my simple process for writing a novel

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So in the last blog on this subject I entirely failed to describe why I don’t suffer from writer’s block. So to come back to the original question, I thought it might help if I go through the process I tend to follow when writing a book.

Although I began the first one with next to no idea of where it would finish, I hadn’t been at it long before I had a fairly clear picture of the entire story. Now that I’m a little more conscious about what I’m doing, I try to have a clear idea of the entire thing before I begin. No chapter headings, but the end goal and the important plot points that will get me there.

Once I have that I then split it up, normally into three chunks. This may change depending upon the book, but so far seems to be suiting me well. For each chunk I’ll develop a basic structure; what will happen where, beginning and end etc.

Then I’ll focus in on the first chunk. I already know what has to happen within it, so for me it’s working out how best to have those things occur naturally. At this stage I’ll try to write something, even if it’s the opening paragraph. This sets up the tone and is the best way to get my imagination working. As soon as I have something written down I’ll begin to see pathways in my head, ways that certain characters could react, things that could happen to them. From there, things begin to flow.

One weekend in the Cotswolds…How I started my writers journey

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I feel a little like I had writers block for the first 32 years of my life and then suddenly, in the course of one weekend, it was gone. I had no intention of writing a book when I sat down and indeed, hadn’t even thought about doing so for some time. My 20s had been filled with poetry but nothing approaching a story or barely even prose.

However, one weekend in 2010 my wife and I headed to the Cotswolds, her to run a retreat and me to wash up for the weekend. We’d hired a cook to make sure that things ran smoothly. Fortunately she turned out to be more than a little efficient and I soon found myself relieved of all but table laying and ensuring that the urn was kept topped up. I sat down with my laptop, still with no real intention and opened a new word document.

Gazing down at the plain white screen I experienced the excitement that I always get when faced with a page of possibilities. In the past I would generally type, delete, type, delete, think a bit, type some more and then close without saving. This time however, the words seemed to fit together. Without knowing where I was going, some guy called Mars was throwing himself out of a helicopter and embarking on a mission across London. By the end of the day, I knew exactly where I, and he, was going and more importantly, why?