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Jul 23

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Five tools and tactics to increase writing productivity

Everyone I know seems to suffer from lack of focus these days due to information overload, apps, and gadgets that compete for attention. That’s especially bad news for our brains and our ability to get work done, writing and otherwise.

Here are a few of my favorite tools and tactics to stay focused. If you want to amplify your productivity, consider if these would work for you.

Shut down anything that pings. Anything that interrupts is bad for productivity, so if you want to focus on a project, turn off any notification or alert functions on your phone and computer for e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.

Close excess windows. Set times for research and times for writing that are separate from time spent on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I’m most focused on my writing when I close everything but my Word file.

Create urgency. Stay on track by using a timer. You might like the Pomodoro technique, in which you use a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute segments called “pomodori” (from the Italian word pomodoro for “tomato”), separated by short breaks. To learn more, check out the Pomodoro website and free PDF. Read more

Jul 22

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Draw your way into a scene

I’ve been experimenting lately with different ways to enter into writing scenes. One fun way is to use a sketchpad. I purchased a 5.5 inch x 8.5 inch Strathmore Sketchpad and colored pencils for doodling and have found it immensely useful for everything from sketching scenes to settings to drawing objects that might appear in a scene.

Not a drawer? Don’t worry, neither am I.  My “people” consist of stick figures and my depth perception is nonexistent. Fortunately, you don’t need to be Picasso to use sketching as a way to ignite your imagination.

The first thing I drew in my sketchpad was a dagger. One of my characters carries a dagger and I needed to “see” it in detail. As I was drawing the dagger and the sigils on the blade, I had a vision of the sigils glowing when activated so I added this into a scene.  As I continued to draw the dagger, I realized two other things about it that I hadn’t known before—these will also go into my story. Read more

Jul 18

How momentous events lead to compelling personal writing

What are the big events in your life? Big, life-changing, world changing events can be turning points and crucial material for writing a memoir, autobiography, or essay.

Some of the most compelling stories I’ve heard from students in my memoir classes have been about events, including 9-11, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Apollo 11 mission in which Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made history by being the first men to walk on the moon.

Writing about the big moments in history grounds your stories in time and place and adds historical context. When I began writing my memoir, I created a timeline with dates and ages of key characters, including significant events in my family and in history. Read more

Jul 17

Three posts to make your scenes stand out

Writing a good scene is all about paying attention to the details. Sometimes, I like to think of my scenes as mini-stories and, in order to help me remember everything that needs to go into the scene, I scan through some of our earlier posts on scene writing.

Below are three posts full of tips for making your scenes stand out.

“Four ways to revise scenes” gives a checklist of things to look for when revising.

“The shape of a scene: endings” shows how to use tension at the end of scenes to keep readers reading.

“How to use symbols in your writing” explains how I use symbols.

Jul 16

Warm up for writing with poem sketching

I’ve known artists who begin a painting by making a sketch. I see this as a form of experimentation or a rough draft to get a sense of what could be. As a writer, I practice my own form of sketching by playing with words on a page to see what images and ideas rise to the surface.

I first began this form of poetic sketching after reading the book “Poemcrazy” by Susan Wooldridge. I’d type random words in rows on a page, cut them up, and place them in a jar. Taking a handful of words, I’d see which words resonated and how they could be arranged to create a whole. This form of poem making reminds me of how I view writing poetry as a puzzle to solve, figuring out the best way to fit words together to form a pleasing whole. Read more

Jul 15

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How to choose small details to move your scenes forward

I was reminded the other day that writing short pieces is great practice for writing longer pieces. I had just finished my creative nonfiction submission for the Surrey International Writers’ Conference Writing Contest and was editing it one last time when I realized I hadn’t grounded my reader in the location of the initial scene. Yes, I placed it in a mobile home but where was that home in the world? I could have left it as is and it would have still been fine, but I decided that showing where the home was located would better serve the piece as a whole.

But how to include those details in a manner that served the story while keeping the piece under the 1,500-word limit of the contest? Read more

Jul 11

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Use images in a scene to ground your readers

Using images in a scene can be a good way to center an event or ground the reader in the here and now of the story. Writing images is all about going beyond the cliché and using sensory details.

One of my favorite ways to create an image is to take a simple sentence or idea and expand on it, calling in our different senses.

In my work-in-progress I want to convey at the beginning of a flashback scene that it was a hot August day. I could just state, “It was a hot August day.” This is simple and direct but, because I want to expand on the mood of the scene, I rewrote this simple sentence and fleshed it out—using some sense impressions and an image.

Rewritten example: Read more

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