Top 10 Tips for Writing a Book

     You may have been thinking about stories of your own that you might want to tell because you clicked on this Topic that is the first step in this process it is a clear sign that you want to write a book and that you should today. I'm going to be giving you 10 practical tips of writing advice to help get you started on this journey :

      1- if you are more of a pantser like myself you don't really outline that much before the story itself begins you might not really know what's going to happen in the entire story and therefore not really want to try and put it down on paper in a plot format or an outline format how I tend to start my pantsing rough drafts is by writing out a couple dialogue snippets or a couple world-building aspects or even a couple scene ideas if I have any sometimes I don't but sometimes I do just to kind of give myself a gist of where the story is going to kind of be taking place because one of the first things that fall into place for me at least is the world-building and one of the ways that I choose to really lean into that is when I first have a story idea and I'm getting ready to start the drafting process I make this story a playlist and a Pinterest board these are much more inspirational things that can really just help you get into the headspace of your story.

      2-breaking down your goal now that you have the concept and that's amazing congratulations now that you've made a playlist and a pinterest board it's time to break down your goal the average novel is about a hundred thousand words that seems to be somewhere between 300 and 400 printed pages and that number alone can be very very daunting your story might be longer than that your story might be shorter than that but we're going to be using the hundred thousand words as our example today then you kind of want to think about is this going to be a for fun project or do i actually want to give myself an end goal for this rough draft i encourage you to give yourself some sort of timeline because i've noticed that when i don't i tend to be working on the project for a very very long time but if you want to write about a hundred thousand words in six months that is just over 500 words a day for six months if you want to write a hundred thousand words in three months that's a little over a thousand words a day for those three months and then you have a completed rough draft done so it's important to break down your goal and keep that end in sight .

      3- scheduling your time and tracking your progress now that you've broken down your goal into roughly how many words per day or per week you want to write it's important to actually find the time to write because intention is great but unless you can actually write the words your book's not going to get done scheduling time could mean waking up an extra hour early so that you get a solid 45 minute chunk in the morning it could be 10 minutes at lunch it could be a few minutes on your lunch break it could be after work or after school and i'm not gonna condone this but it could even be in class or at work i have done both i'm not saying it's good but if you have a few minutes between things it's all about finding time and then it's important to track your progress i choose to track my progress daily because i want to know how long i worked on my books, i want to know how many words i wrote in my creative projects, because seeing that progress is so encouraging to me and it spurs me tokeep going tracking your progress also makes your goals seem a little bit more bite-sized and manageable, because you can see how much effort you're actually putting into it instead of it feeling overwhelming because we don't want it to be overwhelming this is supposed to be fun.

      4- that when you get stuck take productive breaks productive breaks are something that I freaking love doing on the blog and realistically whenever I write because when I'm getting stuck or between writing sprints when my brain is getting just a little bit fatigued or needs a little bit of a break but I still want to do something and I still want to stay productive, I will do things like making my bed put away the dishes maybe even do a load of laundry something that keeps your body busy and only takes a couple of minutes, that way your brain can still be thinking about the story and then as soon as that task or productive break is done, then you go right back into writing and because it was a productive break, your brain is ready and rearing to get back into writing.

      5- to get a writing buddy or an accountability partner these people can be found all over the place but if you don't know where to start looking, I would recommend looking in Facebook groups because there are a lot of Facebook groups geared towards writers or you could even look on Instagram all of my writing buddies and accountability partners I did find online I found one on Twitter and most of the rest of them on Instagram and other people in the writing community.

      6- take a step back and look at the bigger picture writing a book is not necessarily an easy process, I know for me it takes a very long time and is a very hard process so it's important to try not to get bogged down and to make sure that you can take a step back and look at the bigger picture don't be too hard on yourself writing a book is a truly incredible thing you are creating something that has never existed before so in an effort to remind you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture I'm going to share three of my favorite writing quotes with you today, first, you must put sand in the sandbox before you can build castles you can't edit a blank page and the rough draft is as bad as your book is ever going to be all of these things are so incredibly true I think the true magic and beauty of a story comes out later in revisions but first things first you have to get the idea on the page which is what a rough draft is all about.

 

      7- if you need some motivation do some visualization that kind of rhymed what i mean are those milestones down the road that you will reach if you keep working on your story that includes but is in no way limited to the feeling of accomplishment when you get to type the words the end at the end of your manuscript that moment when you get to send your story out to your first round of beta readers for feedback that moment you get an agent if you're choosing to go down the traditional publishing route when you get a book deal when you get to dedicate your book to someone or something when you get to hold the printed out version of your book in your hands for the very first time getting to go on a book tour getting to see your book in bookstores or even thinking about that moment in the future when you might get a call that your book has hit the best seller list i know that these are all things that i think of when i'm lacking motivation and want to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and kind of those long-term goals and milestones that i want to reach at some point.

      8- goes back to tip number five a little bit but when you get stuck and you're not really sure where the story is going bounce your ideas off of someone that you trust with your story this can totally be a writing buddy or an accountability partner this could be one of your best friends this could be a parent this could be a sibling it's entirely up to you and who you trust with your story but sometimes just talking through the story out loud will give you the breakthroughs you need.

      9- is to enjoy the process yes i know this seems super generic but one of my favorite ways to enjoy the process is to track my words like i mentioned earlier because it makes me really feel like i'm actively working towards something i really really want to achieve and then through that tracking you get to start celebrating your milestones you can celebrate any milestone you want you can celebrate every time you get 10 000 more words written in your project you can celebrate with every 10 hours added to your project there are a multitude of ways and then on the celebrating side there are a number of ways that you can actually celebrate whatever milestone you are choosing to celebrate i have done a multitude of different celebrations for various milestones throughout my writing and that varies from buying new colored pens and new notebooks to baking something like an apple crisp that one of my writing friends has done when she finished her rough draft of her story was bought herself a birthday cake and then danced her around her apartment and ate cake for the rest of the night this is something that you can really have fun with but it helps you really enjoy the process of writing a book because it is all about the process all

right.

      10- is go after what you want if this year taught me anything it's that you have to go after what you want in life because life is so freaking short and you kind of just have to chase down your dreams with the machete because you made it this far in this topic it's very clear that you want to write this book and in reality that's all the reasoning you need to start.

so with those 10 tips, I'm wishing you all happy writing.