Finding Your Own Path

This week, I have been thinking a lot about my writing process and how to approach it. I have to confess that, at the beginning, I did read interviews with authors, looking at how they approach their writing, trying to pick up tips to assist with mine. If it worked for them then surely it should work for me, right? Not necessarily.

The belief that published authors will somehow have some magical formula; wisdom that they can impart that will suddenly help you produce your book all comes down to many of them, in my experience, saying the same thing. There is no magic formula, aside from sitting down and actually writing.

That’s half the battle with writing a first draft, at least with me and that’s finding what works for me. I am forging my own path, my own way of working – finding which elements work for me and putting them into practise so that I can sit down and write.

Take the planning and outlining. I started out not doing much but I am finding that a little goes a long way. Writing for a bit every day works for me. At the moment, I am aiming for five hundred words as a daily target. It keeps me motivated but it may work out that doing a longer stretch, three times a week will work for you.

Sometimes I prefer typing it straight onto a computer and then I will have an urge to write it longhand. At first, I felt that not typing it straightaway was a waste of my time but it can sometimes stifle the creativity if I’m not feeling connected to the keyboard. There is something great about writing longhand.

The important thing to remember is that, although writing a novel does have certain conventions, it is also your book, so your rules. If you want to write at night, then do it. If you work better in the morning, set aside some time. If you work better writing in bed, then do that and don’t feel as though your approach is wrong. Just find what works. That’s what I am trying to do, every day.

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.