How's That For Fast Writing?

So often I've talked (wrote?) about how important it is to write quickly.

I'm not saying that you have to write as fast as you can, but if you write daily, your writing speed will increase with practice without you even knowing it.

And when you get quicker at writing, you'll also find you can write more in less time, or write more than ever in the usual time that you write every day.

And how much my writing speed has increased was brought home to me recently.

The other day I was pottering around doing a few chores before I sat down to write.

One of the things I did was to set up my bread machine to make some dough because I wanted to make bread rolls for dinner to go with the soup that I'd made.

The bread machine takes one hour and 30 minutes to mix the dough, warm it, let it prove (rise) and knock it back ready for me to take it out and shape it into bread rolls. And all I have to do first is put in the ingredients (gotta love bread making machines).

I'd put the bread machine out on the deck because it was a hot day and I didn't want it to heat up the kitchen.

It was right beside the outside table where I sat down to write. So as soon as I sat down I looked at the timer on the bread machine to see how much longer it had left. 35 minutes.

Just before I sat down I'd had a cup of coffee while I outlined a marketing article and a blog post.

So I took out my scribbled outlines and set to work writing the marketing article,  proof read it and submitted it to EzineArticles.com.

Then I wrote the blog post, proof read it and published it to this blog.

Just before I finished I looked down at the bread machine timer. 4 minutes remaining.

How good was that?

So I quickly added a category to the blog post, previewed it and hit 'publish' just as the beeper sounded on the timer.

I thought to myself "That was pretty amazing."

I'd written and uploaded 2 articles in exactly 35 minutes.

And that's what I mean about writing daily improving your writing speed.

I've always said that it's possible to write an article in 15 minutes.

And you can write and publish two of them in just 35 minutes.

I just proved it can be done.

Current Writing Competitions

Today I have a list of writing competitions for you. All of them are free to enter but some of the closing dates are soon.

Announcing the Halloween Sitcom Trials - scripts wanted
We want sitcom scripts that we can perform in the tried and tested Trials format (a 10 minute sitcom ending in a cliffhanger with a 3 minute payoff scene, to be performed by no more than 4 actors, you'll see details in the files). And this time, though you can write your sitcom on any subject, we're particularly looking for scripts with a Halloween or horror theme.
The deadline for script entries is midnight Saturday October 10th
http://sitcomtrials.co.uk

Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2016 Short Story Competition
We're offering you the chance to win £500, plus a place on an Arvon writing course of your choice! All you have to do is enter a short story (for adults) of no more than 2,000 words, on the theme of 'ageing'.
The closing date is midnight on Monday 15th February 2016.
https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/competitions

Gatehouse Press New Fiction Prize 2015
Gatehouse Press is excited to announce the opening of submissions for the 2015 New Fiction series. With a word limit of between 10,000 and 13,000 words, the open submission process seeks to encourage new writers to explore the possibilities of length within the short fiction genre. The winning stories will be published as part of Gatehouse Press’ ongoing New Fictions series in 2016.
UK submissions only.
Deadline: 10 October 2015
http://www.gatehousepress.com/2015/07/1553/

The 2016 Times / Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition
What Chicken House are looking for:
Original ideas, a fresh voice and a story that children will love! To enter, you must have written a completed full-length novel suitable for children/young adults aged somewhere between 7 and 18 years. By full-length we suggest a minimum of 30,000 words and ask that manuscripts entered do not exceed 80,000 words in length.
First prize is a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House with a royalty advance of £10,000, plus representation from a top children’s literary agent.* All longlisted entrants will receive a reader’s report of their work.
The competition will close on Friday 18th December 2015.
http://www.doublecluck.com/submissions/

Short Story Writing Competition
Enter up to two short stories each month.
This month's theme is: Gothic
400-1500 Words
Fainting heroines, dark mysterious castles, and supernatural beings. Send us stories of spooky happenings and things that go bump in the night in time for Halloween.
We're looking for short stories from all genres, so it doesn't matter if you have a touch of comic flair or enjoy writing thrillers full of suspense, this is the competition for you.
Winners who have their story published in the Anthology will receive a monthly prize of an equal share of the sales profits!
The deadline for this month's entries is the 28th October 2015.
http://thewritersnotebookgroup.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html

How Much Writing Is Too Much?

How much writing do you do every day? Have you ever thought of what your daily writing output is?

I recently received an email from a subscriber telling me that they had downloaded my 12 Month Writing Challenge but felt that the first month of sending out 30 submissions in 30 days was "beyond" them.

And that got me to wondering how much do writers write every day?

I know that horror author Stephen King only writes for one and a half hours a day. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov averaged one huge novel a month during his writing life. And novelist Dean Wesley Smith writes over 100,000 words every single month - and blogs about it daily.

So is submitting 30 pieces of work in 30 days too much to achieve?

I don't think so.

Magazines usually only want to see an article outline to begin with although if it's fiction, they want to see the whole story.

But even if you had to write the article first, is writing one article a day too much to do?

Are you actually writing less than that?

If you're not writing enough (meaning you know you're capable of much more than you're doing) or you're not writing at all, then maybe it's time you upped your writing output.

And if you're writing every day but not earning as much money from your writing as you'd like to, then you need to start writing more too.

If you're a writer, then there really is no excuse not to be writing.

And if you're not sure what to write or where to start, then perhaps you need to do The 12 Month Writing Challenge too.

:)

5 Rituals and Routines That Changed My Writing Life

I recently read an online article called "5 Rituals and Routines That Changed My Writing Life" and it was fascinating and thought-provoking, so I thought I'd share it with you.

The reason why this article was inspiring for me is because I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a new responsive layout for my Cheriton House Publishing website. And because I'm not really up to date with webpage design (it's incredibly complicated these days) the whole process is taking me a lot longer than I thought. It's also been holding me back from getting my writing done.

I keep telling myself that this is only a temporary set back and once the website is finished, I can get back to my usual writing.

And I think that's why this article struck a cord with me, because I've been letting my writing slide quite a bit lately and that doesn't make me happy at all. But this article prompted me to start writing again every day AND gave me a way to do it.

One of the first things it said is that it's no good wanting to make money from your writing and then deciding that you can only write when you "feel inspired" (or in my case, have the time to write). That will just keep you doing nothing and being broke.

Instead it said "Finding success as a writer requires you to be intentional about your writing. To do things with purpose."

What this means is that you need to get serious about being a writer and use rituals and routines that get you writing every day and taking your writing seriously instead of treating it like a hobby.

And that entails acting "as if" which means acting as though you already have a best selling book.

What would you do every day if you were already a best selling author? Would you spend your time on social media or playing computer games all day, or would you be busy promoting your book?

See the difference in those two mindsets?

My two best takes from this article were:

Write before you do anything else every day

and

Write 5 days a week.

So even if I only sit and write for an hour and then get on with other things, no matter what else I do, my writing is done.

And if I do this every day (5 days a week) then that's a lot of writing. Although I usually only write for 4 days a week and have a long weekend. But even 4 days of writing can create a huge output.

So that is what I'm going to do from now on.

No matter what other projects I have to do (book cover design, webpage design, formatting, editing, etc) I won't do it until I've done my writing. Even if it means only spending an hour or two writing every morning.

How about you?

What are you going to do to write more every day?

--------------

Writing Rituals

Write faster and make
more money by learning the productivity skills
of professional writers.
How much of your "writing time"
is lost to writer's block and procrastination?

How many hours do you lose simply
because you are not staying tightly
focused on your writing?

And how much more would you earn if
your writing productivity increased by
25%, 50% or even 100%?