Write Now

No matter how much you prepare and study technique for a fight will it properly prepare you for actually being in one. So the most important writing advice, as many will tell you, is to just write. Don't know where to start? Here is my method along with some cheat codes.

I boiled an idea for almost 2 decades, yes an absurd amount of time. Time that would have been better spent focusing on developing plot, character, and world building in pomodoro sessions. I studied how to write during that time in preparation. Not that I regret consuming a large amount of information, but it should have been coupled with purpose, direction, and practice. 

When it is the "write" time it's the right time. After attempting to start a few times and losing direction I was at an authors event at the local library. The author, Tosca Lee, asked the audience if anyone was a writer. Several people raised their hands, most of those people were a local writing group that I am now apart of. Anyway, she asked the audience if anyone was a writer and a few hands went up. I gave the half-half sign. She said "What is that? What does that mean?" and I said "Well, I have been wanting to write for a long time but haven't actually written anything down." She said "That's ridiculous you are a writer. You are a writer." So I went home and thought well if I am a writer I better write. So I did. It was far past time to begin anyway. 

One day I sat down and wrote, and wrote, and wrote letting the writing that had been boiling out of my head and onto the page. This is what I refer to as a creative pomodoro or think-sketching. I just wrote out everything and anything I needed to. Thinking on paper or white board.

There is a structure to writing, most people are typically architects, gardeners or a hybrid. I am an architect the more accurate the map the more often I don't get lost along the way. Most gardeners just write and then cherry pick the story from there and rewrite. As an architect I plot and plan but at the same time that fight metaphor, you will find that things go a different way and you adapt as it goes. Much like having a playbook for sports. Many people use index cards to map out plot points then arrange them into acts and from acts into the order they need to be in. Try to write a description of what happens in your novel and then break it down by sentence into the plot points. Then expand your description of what is to happen in the scene. Use theme or the moral and tone of your story to keep it on track. Think of it as a palette color you choose for your story.

I keep an evolving print-out of the scene lists for an overall view of what is going on. I also keep a living to-do list of notes on what needed to be altered and where that was often printed out and checked off. The first novel was written scene by scene whenever I felt like writing specific parts of it and would arrange them in Scrivener as needed. The prequel was written in a straight shot from start to end with an ensemble cast based on 16 synopses that were originally going to be short stories but they all told an over-all story anyway so it became a novel. Do what works for you as long as you spend some of your pomodoros on it. 

Once you get going reduce the number of creative pomodoros and increase the number of produce pomodoros (pomodoros that produce fruit). 

Cheat codes: Look up beat sheets, Save the Cat, a Heroes Journey. Conflict is the fire that fuels your story. Conflict arises naturally when needs vs wants and values of a character or characters are at odds. Don't forget that tropes and character archtypes exist for a reason. In the end write what you want to write just make it the best version of whatever your making that you can.