Planning VS Pantsing. Which Writing Method Suits You?

    I’m a dedicated plotter and planner when it comes to writing books, but I always think how great it would be to be able to sit down and write a book, just like that! No idea of what I was going to write about. Just sit down, open a note pad (I always write by hand) and start writing - any time, any where.

    How amazing would that be?

    This probably explains why I’ve read so many books by Dean Wesley Smith, because he’s a life-long pantser and has written several books about how he writes books, and writes them fast. He can write a novel in as little as five days - a perfect first draft too. Damn, I’d love to be able to do that.

    And if that’s not amazing enough, his wife, Kristine Rusch, set up a challenge recently with a bunch of writers to each write three stories each in a month. But she lost the challenge because her first story turned into 43,000-word ‘surprise’ novel. Damn! So impressive.

    I sometimes write without an outline but only for short stories, https://writeaholic-inspiration.blogspot.com/2019/08/debunking-myths-of-writing-fast-or-slow.html and even then there’s a couple I never finished because I couldn’t think of an ending. Even now when I read those unfinished stories again I still have no idea where the story was going, and I think to myself, what if that happened when I was writing a book?

    I always use and extensive outline for book-length projects whether fiction or non-fiction. I find it makes for a clean first draft, and even if I stop and start writing, with my detailed outline I always know where I’m up to.

    With short stories it’s fun to write into the dark (as they call pantsing), but only if I’m writing just for fun and the stories may or may not be published one day.

I’d love to dark write a book, just sit and start writing, not knowing what’s going to happen next until I write it.

    But I’m an aggressive plotter, which is probably something to do with  my personality type. I alway need to be in control and I don’t like surprises. I clean my house routinely and prep meals. I wake up every day, at the same time, with a plan already in place for my mornings and afternoons, as well as a plan of what to make for every meal that day.

    And that is probably why I prefer to plot my books first. I find writing easy and enjoyable when I know where I’m going.

    But I still dream of sitting and writing with a blank page and writing off into the dark  for  a few days and creating a whole first draft of a book.

    Now THAT would be amazing. And intense and fun.

Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline
https://amzn.to/3EKs1Vl

Writing Tips, a Writing Competition, and Over 100 Writing Markets

    Today I want share with you 3 writing articles that I found extremely useful and insightful, a writing competition that pays $2,000 first prize (plus many smaller prizes), and links to over 100 of the latest writing markets, including many that pay over $100.

    I found this list while surfing online and I thought I'd  share them with you here so that you don't have to waste time looking around online too.

    Hopefully a read through this list will inspire you to write and submit.

    Happy writing.

How I Became a True Crime Writer By Stowe Ronald 

https://writersweekly.com/marketing-secrets/how-i-became-a-true-crime-writer

10 Time-Saving Ways to Boost Writing Speed

https://makealivingwriting.com/boost-writing-speed/

Tips to supercharge your creativity

https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/creativity-inspiration/tips-to-supercharge-your-creativity

80 Websites that Pay Writers in 2025

https://freelancewritinggigs.com/websites-that-pay-you-to-write

7 Pet Magazines and Websites That Pay Freelance Writers

https://writersweekly.com/marketing-secrets/7-pet-magazines-and-websites-that-pay-freelance-writers-by-william-opar

39 Online Magazines That Pay $100+

https://makealivingwriting.com/freelance-writing-jobs-online-magazines/

Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest (no fee)

First Prize: $2,000 plus a two-year gift subscription to Duotrope

Closing Date: April 1, 2025

https://winningwriters.com/our-contests/wergle-flomp-humor-poetry-contest-free

Dusty Attic

Open for submissions of previously unpublished short stories and poems which are spooky, fantastical, or both.

Pays $10

Closes January 31st, 2025

https://dustyatticpublishing.com/submissions/

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