10 More Writing Tips from J A Konrath

As promised in my last post, here are 10 more writing and publishing tips from J A Konrath's amazing book, "The Newbie's Guide to Publishing (Everything A Writer Needs To Know)." 

11. Give your character flaws. Ask the following: “What personal, internal problem will get in the way of the hero reaching his/her goals? Addiction? Illness? Disability? Neuroses? Readers don't want characters to be happy. They want them to be tortured for 90,000 words, and then happy at the end. Maybe. That's the essence of a page-turner."

12. Ask yourself: “Who will make a worthy opponent for your protagonist?”

13.  Create a strong adversary. “Good vs. Evil is conflict in its purest form, and any sports fan can tell you that competition is a lot of fun.”

14.  “Conflict is the main ingredient for successful fiction. The question of ‘What happens next?’ is what keeps your audience glued to the page. Not pretty description. Not clever phrasing. Not cute dialogue. The motor that drives the story is conflict. The central plot of any story should be centred around a conflict. The sub plots should introduce more conflict. There should be conflict on every page, and even in every paragraph.”

15. Write what you like to read.

16. If you want to be a writer you have to make writing a priority.

17. Rewriting and editing is where you take a good book and make it great by cutting out all of the fat, exposition, and unnecessary action and dialogue.

18. When writing dialogue, make it sound natural. “People talk differently than they write. Writing is slower, more deliberate, and more thought goes into it. Speaking is looser, freer, less constricting, and less precise. Record some dialogue in natural settings—at the mall, on the phone, on the radio. Then transcribe what you heard. You’ll notice a big difference between the spoken word and the written word.”

19. Read everything out loud. You can find a lot of errors when reading using your voice, rather than your mind, because your mind tends to see things as you wrote them, not as they appear on the page.

20.  Get the scissors. Sometimes the words are there, but in the wrong order. Don't be afraid to switch sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters.

I'll be back next time with 10 more writing tips from J A Konrath.

10 Writing Tips from J A Konrath

I recently downloaded a Kindle ebook written by mystery, thriller, and horror writer J.A. Konrath. It’s titled, “The Newbie´s Guide to Publishing." It's a huge book with over 370,000 words of writing advice, tips, tricks, and observations. That's more than 1100 pages. It's the biggest book on writing and publishing ever put together.

Joe Konrath has written over 100 books, and he says he earns most of his income from ebooks that are read on Kindle Unlimited, and he’s sold more than 25,000 copies of his self-published ebooks.

I've been reading this ebook and have come across some worthwhile advice about writing fiction that I thought every writer would find valuable.

I made a list of 40 tips and tricks about writing that I thought would be the most helpful. I've divided the list into 4 sets of 10 tips, and I'll publish each set over the next four weeks.

So here are the first 10 writing tips from J A Konrath:

1. When writing a book, have a set daily word count to reach (he aims to write between 3,500 and 4,000 words a day). Don't turn on the internet until you've written your first 1,000 words, while you have a short break. Reach your word count no matter what, even if you're tired, it's late, and you want to go to bed.

2. Be entertaining.

3. If you’re paralysed with fear that your book sucks, do the following:

▪ When in doubt, keep writing anyway.

▪ Tell your internal editor to shut up until you’ve reached the end.

▪ Remember that you’re often a poor judge of your own work.

4. “I’m an advocate of cutting everything non-essential to the story. It’s the Kill Your Darlings School of Writing. If it ain’t needed, trim it.”

5. “Make each chapter, each paragraph, each word essential.”

6. “Well-drawn characters are important in fiction. If a reader doesn’t care about the protagonist and antagonist, it doesn’t matter how many roller-coaster twists the plot has. As writers, it’s our duty to make our characters memorable.”

7. One of the best ways to motivate yourself to write is by preparing an outline. “Here's the thing;  if you already have a template, you don't need motivation, and you don't get blocked. It's like painting by numbers. What an outline does is offer you a template. You simply need to fill in the colour.”

8. “In my books, I try to keep raising the stakes, constantly introduce conflict (both internal and external) . . . . Each scene has to have a point, a reason for existing. It has to fulfil some kind of purpose—reveal clues, enhance character, add suspense, raise tension, ratchet up the conflict.”

9. Your protagonist has to have a goal (or goals); that is, a dream or something that they desperately want. The plot centres on your protagonist’s attempts to achieve those goals. However, you need to make sure that your protagonist doesn’t achieve his or her goals until the very end, and maybe add a surprise twist in the end by thinking, "What would no one expect could happen next?"

In the meantime, torture your protagonist as much as you can. At every turn, ask yourself: “How can I make things worse for the protagonist?” (As another writer put it, chase your protagonist up a tree and then throw rocks at them.)

10. “Make sure the first chapter starts with action.”

... And there you have it. 10 ideas to make your writing great and the whole process simple.

I'll have 10 more for you next week.

Writing Freely and Hypnotically: Put Your Readers in a Writing 'Trance'

One of my favourite books on writing is Dr Joe Vitale’s "Hypnotic Writing." It's good because it's full of so much useful informa­tion. It's also good because it's written "hypnotically", so once I start reading, I can't stop.

And that is exactly what hypnotic writing is. It's written in such a way that the reader can't stop reading, which is exactly what we want from our writing, isn't it? We want our readers to be drawn quickly and deeply into what we have to say. 

And hypnotic writing is actually easy to do.

In the book, the author says that we have two Inner Writers, so inside all of us we have two inner selves.

Self One is the critic.

Self two is the master writer. 

Self one is a critic who picks on everything we write, so this is the one to ignore (easier said than done).

Self Two is a master writer. The author says, “When you allow the Master Writer to write freely and not be impeded by Writer One, the critic, you can do your most extraordinary writing. This is usually called 'free writing' and it's fun.

3 Steps to Free Writing

Step One. Set a goal of not only what you want to write, but also what you want

to achieve from it:

A sale? 

A Sign up? 

A drama? 

A comedy?

Step Two. Start writing and stay in the moment. Ignore Self One, the critic, and don't let him into your head.

Working this way is what Stephen King calls" the writer's trance." This trance is only possible if you can write without interruption from your inner critic.

Step Three. Trust what you're writing, whether you think it's good or bad. Just allow Self Two, the master writer, to come through completely, and you're writing will be great. If it’s not, it's because you allowed Self One to guide you.

Self Two, the master writer, will always come through if you give him complete freedom to do so.

Just plan what you want to write, then release Self Two. Trust him no matter what, and he will come through for you. 

I believe this 100% because my best writing is when I'm free writing.

" There is no great writing, only great rewriting."

    ~ EB white.

Write first and edit later. 

Hypnotic writing helps in the editing stage when you make improvements and make it all perfect so that your writing really works for you. You may even need to tidy up only a few sentences.

If you haven't tried it before, do it right now. Plan and then free write for just ten minutes. Release your creative master writer and silence your inner critic.

Just keep writing and see how hypnotic your writing really can be.

Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words
https://amzn.to/3ID9dO3

Copying Other Writers

 I’ve always loved to read about how other writers work. Not how they write, but how they structure their time. I can’t even say why this subject fascinates me, but it always does.

I used to subscribe to a UK writing magazine (I think it was called ‘Writing Magazine’), and it had an ongoing series called “My Writing Day.”

The series was interviews with successful writers about their lives and how they structured their writing time.

Some writers wrote every day, while others wrote in writing sprints for a day or two or a week or more, and they talked about what time of day they wrote and where they wrote. I always found it so interesting.

But I did notice that the way they described their lives sounded somewhat simple and predictable, making it easy to fit in plenty of time to write.

My life always seems somewhat chaotic with unexpected things happening all the time, no matter how much I try to plan and schedule my days.

But I do learn a lot by reading about how other writers work. One thing I did learn was to not try and be like any of them. We all have to do things our own way.

What else I’ve learned over time is:

- Not to try and force things to happen, just let them happen, and they will. 

- To know how I feel about things in my life. 

- To only do things that are fun.

Fun doesn’t mean only leisure activities. It can be renovating a house, working in the garden, or even cleaning the car. I love the satisfaction I get from working on big projects, so it makes them fun to do.

And this carries over into my writing. I only want to write things I love to write about. This makes it fun, keeps up my enthusiasm to do it, and makes my writing more authentic.

If you pay attention to what you love doing, it’s easy to love your life, be your authentic self, and enjoy what you do.

Mission Critical For Life

The 10 timeless lessons in this little book will help you to go from social awkward to extremely confident and help you gain more acceptance, more peace of mind and more money than you ever thought possible.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCFL.html

People Forms Habits, Habits Form Futures

    That title is not my own. I ‘borrowed’ it from motivational guru, Mike Litman who said it years ago. And it’s still true.

The reason that we create habits is to make our lives easier. When something we do becomes habitual, we no longer have to think about it. Take walking for example. When you were a baby, learning to walk took a lot of mental and physical effort. But as soon as it became a habit, you could do it without thinking, and you still do.

It’s the same when we learn to drive. At first it seems hard to have to cope with thinking about so many different things at once while trying to be safe on the roads. But once you get your license and start driving more, it becomes a habit and you can get behind the wheel and drive without even thinking about it.

We acquire many habits during our lifetime like daily showering, brushing our teeth, and even walking the dog. These are things that we do without even thinking about them.

I find it’s the same with household chores. I do them several times a week and always at the same time, and I do them without even thinking. People often ask me how I can be bothered, but I tell them that, first, I don't have a lot of furniture (I’m quite the minimalist) and second, I’ve been doing chores for so long that it never bothers me. I’m so used to doing them without thinking that I call it ‘busy hands empty mind’ time so I usually listen to audios while I work because I don’t have to think about what I’m doing.

But you’re probably wondering what this has to do with writing.

Well, you can use habitual routines to get your writing done every day.

If you don’t usually sit and write every day, then doing so takes a lot of thought because you have to remember to do it and you probably have to stop doing other things.

But once you make yourself sit in your writing chair at the same time every day, it quickly becomes a habit, and before you know it, you’re sitting down without even thinking about it.

Most mornings, I do my usual morning routine and do whatever chores I usually do each day and then I go straight to my writing chair. 

When I first started writing professionally, sitting down to write every day was a chore in itself at first, but once it became a habit, it was easy, and now I look forward to it. I like to get other things done first every day so that I can sit down and write, knowing that other things have already been taken care of.

It’s a writing habit that I’ll take with me long into the future because people form habits and habits form futures.

Stop Procrastinating

And Take Back Control Of Your Life

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/sp.html 

When is a Problem Not a Problem?

How many times have you heard someone say that they want to be a writer, but they just don’t have the time?

If you’re like me (and every other professional writer) the answer is always because they have a job or a family, or they don’t know what to write, yet they swear they have a novel inside them just bursting to be written. But things are always in their way.

All these these are excuses. They are not insurmountable problems. A problem is something to be fixed. If you don’t want to fix it, it’s not a problem.

When I first began writing, I did a writing course, a web design course, a copywriting course, I learned how to self-publish, I read many books about writing and working online, and I talked to others who were already doing what I wanted to do. And I did it all while having a job and a family to look after.

I tell others this and they’ll say, “Yeah, but you’re so energetic and have much more time than me.”

Well, I hate to disappoint them, but I have 24 hours a day just like them.

If you think that you’re not writing because something about your life is holding you back, then you don’t have a problem because you don’t want to fix it.

Just look at Stephen Hawking. He spent most of his life in a wheelchair unable to move, but he didn’t let it stop him from writing. And problems don’t come any bigger than that.

My advice to anyone who thinks they have problems that hold them back from writing, is to start writing.

It really is that simple. 

No problem at all.

 

Mission Critical For Life

Discover the 10 timeless life-changing lessons in this one little book and follow your own writing mission.

Unlocking Productivity: The 6-Step Ivy Lee Method

"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."

      ~ Louis L’Amour

There’s no question about it. If you want to have success as a writer, you have to keep writing.

That sounds simple enough, but it’s not the whole issue. For instance, you have to know what you’re going to write, and have a system of working so that you can get straight down to work as soon as you sit down.

Productivity is always a hot topic, especially for writers.

One of the best known productivity hacks was Ivy Lee’s Success 6 method of getting more done.

The story goes that in 1918, Charles Schwab was one of the richest men in the world. He was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation which was one of the largest ship builders and the second-largest steel producers in America at the time. Schwab was known as a master hustler who was constantly looking for ways to have an edge over his competition.

In 1918 he was looking for a way to increase efficiency of his team and find better ways to get things done. To this end, he arranged a meeting with Ivy Lee who was a respected productivity consultant.

Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab that all he was going to do was talk for 15 minutes to each executive of the company and give them simple instructions. Charles Schwab asked how much this was going to cost him. Ivy Lee said it would cost nothing in the beginning but that if his method worked, then Schwab could pay him whatever he thought it was worth.

What Was The Method?

Ivy Lee then met with each of the company executives and told them a simple daily routine that they had to follow.

He told them, that at the end of each day they were to write down the 6 most important things they needed to accomplish the next day. But only 6 and no more. Once they had their list they were to number them in order of importance. He said, tomorrow, do the first thing, number one on the list, then work through the list in order. At the end of each day, move any unfinished tasks to a new list of 6 for the next day, and repeat this every working day.

After three months, Charles Schwab gave Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000, which was a lot of money in 1918.

Why Did This Method Work?

Ivy Lee’s method of prioritising was simple yet effective, and made it easy with a short list of only 6 priorities each day.

Warren Buffett had a similar method which he called his 5/25 Rule for achieving success in life. His rule was to list 25 life priorities. They could be anything you want to achieve in life, including career, personal growth, relationships, health, or financial prosperity or anything else you want to do.

You then go through your list and pick out THE 5 most important things you want to achieve first, and concentrate only on them and forget about the other 20 completely until you had fulfilled your first 5.

Both these productivity methods remove the friction of starting. It lets you know what you have to do first, which means you can get straight down to work by minimises what you need to concentrate on.

Fewer priorities leads to doing better work because it enables you to focus, knowing that everything important will get done.

And doing the most important thing first every day is all you need towards consistency and focus.

What are your six important things to do today?

Putting an End to My Lack of Writing

"Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret."

    ~ Success Minded

2024, as I’ve already talked about, has been a bad year for me. So many bad things happened that I had to deal with which resulted in me getting little writing done.

The result of it all is that I still feel bad about not writing. But I am determined to make the next 12 months my best in writing.

Part of what went wrong last year (and there were SO many things) was that my husband and I were forced to move. We desperately looked for a new place to buy but found nowhere suitable.

But, I feel, or rather, I am determined, that the bad things are over. 

Although we didn’t find a property to buy, we have landed a one year lease in a nice 3-bed rental property in a quiet area and within walking distance of the local shopping centre, so all is pretty good at the moment. And renting means we don’t have to do anything to the house (in Australia, rental properties are not allowed to be changed in anyway whatsoever without the landlords permission) which means I’ll have more time to write.

We have also been moving some of our furniture around, including my writing bureau which was in the dining area next to the breakfast bar. I don’t know why I put in the middle of the house, but it was probably because that’s where it was in our previous unit for the past year. Anyway, I wasn’t happy with it there so we moved it into the spare bedroom. We sleep in one bedroom, my husband has the second bedroom as his study, and the third room is where our daughter sleeps when she comes over to stay now and again. So I thought, why waste that room most of the time? So far I’m loving having my own space again (except when said daughter comes to stay again, but that’s never for longer than a night or two).

I also have a plan (which I’ve already started) to write for at least 2 hours a day. 2 hours isn’t too much, and when I get back into the swing of writing every day, I’ll be able to increase it. But, even at 2 hours a day, that’s a lot of writing. The 2 hours is only for writing new words, not doing other writing related work. And if I write at 1,000 words an hour, which is my usual writing speed, even if I only manage 5 days a week, that’s 10 thousand words a week or 520 thousand words a year, which is pretty prolific for such a short amount of time each week.

And I’m determined to stick to my writing plan, especially now that I have my own writing place again. I’d forgotten how much I missed it.

The problem with not writing when other things get in the way, is that it’s important to find out what exactly the problem is and then it can be fixed. A writing schedule (plan) of how much you can reasonably achieve every day is also important.

Now that I’ve sorted out what was stopping me, I’m already writing more and it feels good to be back in my writing chair. And it doesn’t even matter what happens with my writing, whether it gets published, is appreciated, or earns a lot of money. I just want to write, so that is what I’m doing.

How to Write More in 15 Minutes Than in The Last 15 Days
https://ruthiswriting.com/articles/2025/15-minutes.html

Why You’re Not Writing and How to Fix it

 

I recently admitted to you all (to my subscribers) that I haven’t been doing much writing lately.

I’ve had a lot going on in my life for the past several months, and most of it was not good and was either emotionally or physically demanding. But it was still no excuse for not writing. Sometimes a week or more would go by without me writing a word. And it bothered me. I wanted to write, so why wasn’t I writing? I didn’t understand it.

Then one day I was reading a book by Kristine Kathryn Rusch called, How Writers Fail: Analysis and Solutions.[This book can only be bought as part of a series https://amzn.to/426rfQ9] It was fascinating (and I read it several times), and one thing in particular struck me.

Kristine is married to author, Dean Wesley Smith, and she said that he cannot write without a deadline, even if it’s just a self-imposed deadline. And I realised that was my problem too. I had no deadlines.

I was overwhelmingly busy with so many other things going on, including selling our apartment, packing up everything we own, looking for another property to buy and finding nothing suitable so having to quickly rent a house and unpack everything we own. So I’d jettisoned my writing because other things seemed more important, like being days away from being homeless. But I still should have sat down every day, at least for an hour, and written. But instead I did nothing. No writing.

The problem with being human is that when faced with a choice, we default to the easiest thing to do, with is usually watching TV or playing a computer game, while telling ourselves that we deserve a rest.

When you have a job to go to every day it gives you a deadline to work to. It always gives you deadlines at home too because your time is limited.

But it’s too easy to put things off if there are no deadlines looming. When I put off my writing, it felt like there was little consequence because no one knew I hadn't done it and I still got plenty of other things done.

We always put off doing things we know we have to do if there isn’t a deadline, even things like washing the car, exercise, cooking, and even going for days out. It’s always easier to do nothing. Yet we always feel better if we do what we’re supposed to do.

It’s also a matter of priorities, the things you deem important enough that you’ll do them no matter what.

Some people aren’t even aware of their own priorities. It see parents at the park staring at their phones instead of interacting with their kids. Dogs not walked, dirty homes, unmade beds. All of it leads to depression.

Many studies show that productive people are happy people. They have a sense of achievement and have everything they want because they get things done. And it works the other way around too. Not only are productive people happy, but happy people are said to be 13% more productive. But productivity shouldn’t be confused with being busy. People who are busy all day, are said to be miserable. There is also a correlation between happiness and having a job. According to the World Happiness Report (WHR), having a job is a major step towards happiness.

So your writing has to be a priority or it won’t get done, and you’ll be unhappy. To get it done you need a schedule and deadlines.

I organise my days for everything I want to get done that day, and I do it whether I want to or not. If I didn’t, I’d be miserable, just like I have been these last few months when I wasn’t writing.

I have a publishing schedule for everything I write, including blog posts and books. Freelance work always comes with deadlines so that always gets done on time. I already know that I have to finish my latest book by the end of this month. I also have other writing projects to do, as well as all my chores and obligations in my personal life.

And deadlines, like having to finish my book in three weeks, keeps me on track every day.

I definitely need deadlines, as I proved to myself recently.

And having a schedule and deadlines means I know what I’ll be working on every day, meaning I can get straight down to work with no time to procrastinate.

Now that’s what I call a win-win.

Cheriton House Publishing
https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com
Books on writing and self-help

Knowing When I’m Too Ill To Write

 I’ve been ill with a flu-type of virus that’s been going around. Nearly everyone I know has caught it in one level of severity or another. I guess it’s just part of winter flu season.

I rarely get ill, and even when I do it’s only just a bit of a touch of whatever dreaded lergy is doing the rounds at the time.

The reason I rarely get ill is because I pay attention to my health. I have a vegan (or plant based as they now call it) diet which means I don’t consume dead body parts or any animal products. When I was younger I ate meat like most people, but as an adult I looked into the logic and cruelty of slaughter houses and animal “farms” and how bad eating these animals is for our health, and decided it was a bad idea.

So I transitioned to being a vegetarian for many years and then cut animals out of my diet completely. And I’ve never looked back. In fact, I found that some of the things I was eating were making me ill. For example, I’ve always suffered from headaches. It didn’t take much to give me a headache and they were painful and long-lasting. I also constantly came down with colds. If someone had a cold, I knew I’d catch it because I always did.

Once I gave up dairy and eggs, my colds and headaches disappeared. Gone! Just like that. All my life I’d thought it was just my bad luck that I was susceptible to head colds and bad headaches, but it turned out to be my diet. For the last 3+ years I haven’t even been to see my GP at all because I’ve never had anything medically wrong with me. My health has been great. The last time I saw my GP was because I’d hurt my foot.

My usual good health is probably why, when I caught this flu bug, it took me completely by surprise. The worst thing about it is that it’s so long lasting and has been driving me crazy because I’m so used to being healthy.

It started three weeks ago. I woke up one day with an incredibly sore throat. It hurt so much I could barely swallow and my head hurt and my nose wouldn’t stop running. 

I suffered through it for 7 days. It did start easing after the first 3 days but I felt miserable the whole time. The first day I thought I’d be ill for just that day. But nope. I spent the whole week laid on the couch, watching TV, napping, and feeling downright sorry for myself.

I even thought I’d try and get some writing done during that first week, but I found that I was too ill to think and I didn’t really want to sit up for too long either. 

I thought about it while I was laid there wallowing in self-pity, trying to figure out how being ill meant that thinking was hard, after all, it wasn’t a physical thing. Thinking was just thinking. But even trying to concentrate on something on TV felt taxing and I kept nodding off.

I thought about reading instead, but just the thought of picking up a book felt like too much hard work, which didn’t make sense to me because I love to read.

After 5 days of kidding myself that I wasn’t really THAT ill and if I put my mind to it I’d be able to write, I gave in. I figured that when I had a regular job and I had a boss and had to go out to work every day, when I was too ill to work, I’d take a few days off to rest and get better so that I could go back to work as soon as possible.

That being the case, I figured that working at home shouldn't be any different and if I rested, I’d get better faster. After all, it worked when I had a regular job. I never thought of doing anything but getting better when I wasn’t working so that I wouldn’t miss too many days away from my job.

So that’s what I did. I laid down and did nothing but rest and nap, even though I didn’t want to, and it worked. By the eighth day, I was not only sitting up but moving around a little and I was back in my writing chair. But I still had to be careful not to overdo anything because even though I was up and about, everything I did, even mental things like reading and writing, felt exhausting.

And now it’s 3 weeks later and I still haven’t shifted the virus completely. To anyone looking at me I look fine and I’m living my usual life. But I still don’t feel 100% well and I’m not doing as much in a day as I usually do and I’ve been avoiding socialising because that seems way too hard right now, even short conversations seem hard. I’m not comfortable with socialising anyway, but now it feels harder than ever. It’s easier to stay at home and write and not talk to anyone, except Dean of course, who caught the same illness I did but only mildly for a couple of days and then he was okay again, although even he isn’t 100% yet either.

But what this whole experience has taught me is that (and it was a hard lesson because I’m not used to being ill anymore) is that I need to treat my writing as a job and if I’m ill it’s okay to take some time off to get better and not feel guilty about not getting my writing done.

And treating my writing as a job isn’t just good advice for when I’m ill, but for always.

That’s why I have set writing times every week to make sure I get to work and get my writing done.

Mission Critical For Life

Start Living Life On Your Terms By Pursuing Your True Life Mission

https://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCFL.html

Why Most Writers Are 100% Wrong In The Way They Use Their Time

One thing writers often talk about is time. They think it’s all about working out how many words they can write in an hour, multiplied by how many hours they set aside for writing every day. 

They think that this alone will tell them how much writing they can do, how many articles they can write, and even how many books they can write in a week/month/year.

But they are completely wrong for looking at their time this way.

I’ve been a writer for over 20 years, and I earn all my income from my writing, so I know what I’m talking about.

Don’t get me wrong, knowing how fast you can write is important, but there’s one thing that’s crucial.

If you want to get more writing done in the time that’s available to you, you must protect your time. You must preserve your time. And you must not, under any circumstances, let anyone steal your time.

Let me explain what I mean.

When I first began writing, I had a full-time job and a family to look after, so I had to squeeze my writing in whenever I could, which usually meant writing in the evenings or at weekends.

Eventually, I managed to earn enough money from my writing so that I could change to a part-time job, and when I was earning enough from my writing, I quit my job altogether.

It was a long and laborious process, and the hardest thing was protecting my writing time.

It seemed like every time I wanted to write, the universe had other ideas. One of the kids would get sick or an emergency home repair needed doing, or the dog had to go to the vet, or a friend or family member would need my help with something.

There always seemed to be something to interrupt my writing time. And let me tell you, if you try and say to someone that you’re too busy writing to help them, they do NOT like it.

Friends and family were quite scornful and mocking about my wanting to be a writer. Even now, so many years later, no one ever wants to talk about my writing, and if I mention it, they quickly change the subject. It’s as though it’s taboo to mention my writing.

One day, when I was visiting my father, I saw a magazine on the coffee table. I opened it to one of the feature articles and said, “Look. That’s my article. I wrote that and it was published this week. See?”

My father’s wife leaned forward, closed the magazine, and said, “Right, who wants coffee?”

I was so hurt (and confused). I thought surely when I pointed out one of my published articles in a magazine they might have at least been interested or maybe even smiled. Instead they gave each other a quick sideways glance and pretended I hadn’t said anything.

And it’s this attitude that other people always seem to have and they think that your writing time isn’t important. So they think nothing of taking it from you and using it for their own gain. For a long time, people that I knew thought my writing was a joke, even though I was being published regularly, had set up and was running a writing website, and had thousands of subscribers. Try telling your friends you don’t want to go out drinking with them because you want to go home and write a short story and see what happens. They won’t like it at all.

This is why it’s important to train your friends and family to respect your writing time, and don’t be afraid to tell them that you’re too busy to talk on the phone, or to go for a coffee or to go to lunch. Once you start saying no to them it’s amazing how quickly they stop asking.

And when you’ve trained them to leave you alone, and you get to write more, the most amazing thing happens.

As you write more, it gets easier and faster. It’s just like anything we do repeatedly. It takes far less effort, and becomes quicker.

Having a strict writing schedule helps too because it not only makes sure that you have time to write, but once others know it’s your writing time and that it’s off-limits to them, they’ll leave you alone.

Don’t let others steal your writing time. They’ll never give it back. And it’s far too precious and important to lose.

P.S. Don’t let emails and social media steal your writing time either.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS1.html

This Simple Little Tip Will Get You Writing Like A Pro - Instantly

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

Do you know how people become top athletes?

Practice.

They become great at what they do through practice, and they practice all the time.

They usually need a coach to become great at what they do, to show them how it’s done.

Likewise, professionals need a university degree to be able to do what they do, or a business course.

In the same way, writers need to learn from the best, and it’s easy to do, and free.

Whatever type of writer you want to be, find some great writing in your preferred genre/field, and practice writing it out.

Copy out passages from their books, ads, join their email list and copy out their emails too.

We all know that writers are readers, and we learn a lot about writing from what we read. But what works even better is copying it out by hand. This gives us a good feel for the tempo, the words, and the flow.

Don’t plagiarize their work, just learn how it’s done. Have fun writing like your favourite authors. Spend as much time as you want writing like a pro till it feels natural and you have a good understanding of their writing style and how they tell a great story.

Athletes don’t go straight out and compete without years of practice. Professionals study hard and do work experience to get a thorough understanding of what they need to do and how to be good at it.

As a writer you need to do the same.

Study writing by copying the great writers, then go out and write as much of your own words as you can.

Never stop writing. 

Write every day. 

And this consistent practice will help you to become great at what you do.

 

How To Make Yourself Procrastination Proof

Procrastination is a dirty word, especially to writers, so why do we do it so often?

It’s easy to think that it’s something only unknown writers suffer from, but it’s not.

Even the most prolific writers find it hard to sit down and write when they don’t feel like it.

Stephen King, who is considered a prolific writer, in his book, On Writing, said that he writes a minimum of 2,000 words a day, which for him is 10 handwritten pages. But even he suffers from procrastination some days.

“On some days those ten pages come easily; I’m up and out doing errands by eleven thirty in the morning, perky as a rat in liverwurst.  More frequently, as I grow older, I find myself eating lunch at my desk and finishing the work around one-thirty in the afternoon. Sometimes, when the words come hard, I’m still fiddling around at teatime. Either way is fine with me but only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words,”

And in those words of wisdom lies the “secret” of how to procrastination proof yourself.

And just in case you missed it, the “secret” is to sit down and write, and don’t get up until you’ve finished, no matter what.

In fact, if you did the same with anything you have to do that you don’t feel like doing – household chores, shopping, washing the car, doing laundry – you’d have what author Don Aslett calls a “48-Hour Day.”

They say that how you do anything is how you do everything.

So quit procrastinating about everything.

Turn off Netflix, put down your phone, stop reading this, and get your writing done, whether you feel like it or not, and no matter how long it takes, even if you’re “still fiddling around at teatime.”

There’s no excuses for procrastinating.

None.

Stop Letting Yourself Down

Photo courtesy of kaboompics.com

Do you know what the worst kind of decision is?

Surprisingly, it’s not a bad decision.

It’s indecision.

That’s because when you’re indecisive about something you end up doing nothing.

To quote Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With The Wind: -

“I don’t want to think about that right now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

That is blatant procrastination. Putting off doing something, not because you can’t do it, because you just can’t be bothered.

And as we all know, once we put off doing something, we usually never do it.’

Just think what your life would be like if you hadn’t procrastinated: -

    - How many books would you have written?

    - How many blogs would you have?

    - How many blog posts would you have written?

    - How many emails would you have sent?

    - How many subscribers would you have?

    - How many books would you have sold?

    - How wealthy would you be right now?

    - How great would you feel?

How amazing and different would it be if you just got up and got on with things every day?

And I don’t mean only about writing, but about everything in your life. About replacing all the timewasting things you do with productive things that improve your life and move it forward.

That’s what my latest eBook is all about.

It’s about why you waste time and, most importantly, how easy it is to stop procrastinating and take back control of your life in every way.

I Don’t Want to Write, I HAVE to Write

Image by Jon Hoefer from Pixabay

For the past couple of weeks I haven’t done any writing at all. Nada. Zilch. Zero. The only exception has been writing shopping lists and writing in my journal a couple of times.

My lack of writing was due to moving and trying settle into my new home which has included finding new places to store things, getting new daily routines, having new curtains and an awning installed and finding my way around the new area where I now live.

But now I’m pretty sure that everything that needs to be done has been done so I’m now back in my writing chair.

Since  I moved, my books sales have been doing well and I sold more books than usual, including my latest novel, What Goes Around Comes Around, which is a romantic story of how one bad deed had a devastating effect on a young guy’s life and created a chain reaction of events that he could never have foreseen. Through it all he meets a young woman who helps him through the darkest period of his life. But he worries that when he does’t need her any more will he still want her? She wonders the same thing too. 

You can read more at https://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/wgaca.html. 

This was such a fun book to write and it’s proving to be a popular book to read too. 

Book sales are a big part of how I earn money writing and they can go on even when I’m busy with other life-changing events, like moving home.

And throughout this past couple of weeks when I wasn’t writing, it felt weird, like something was missing from my life. I felt somewhat lost, even though I was so busy sorting everything out.

That’s when it hit me. I don’t write because I need to, and I don’t do it because I want to. I write because I HAVE  to. I can’t NOT write.

Writing is the way that I earn all my income, but even years ago when it wasn’t, I still used to write all the time.

I think it must be in my DNA. Everywhere I go I usually have a notebook and pen with me. A few weeks ago I was at the beach and later sat in the park near the beach and I went to a nearby newsagent and bought a notebook and pen and spent the afternoon sitting at a covered picnic table, writing.

Even on days when I don’t feel like writing, it feels wrong not to, so I usually end up curled up on the couch with my everyday notebook which is the one I write in when ideas strike me, or when I want to map out a writing plan, or when I don’t feel like writing so I write about it in my everyday notebook, and before I know it, ideas start to come and I start taking notes and start writing.

How about you?

How much writing have you done lately? How much more could yo have done if you’d just sat down and started?

Do you write because you need to? Because you want to? Or because you have to?

Right now I’m catching up with two weeks of non-writing time, and it already feels good.

I hope you get plenty of writing done too.

If you’re stuck, try my Monthly Challenge Writing Series. It’s guaranteed to get you writing and earning.

https://ruthiswriting.com/books/MCWS1.html