Hey, Mary! (r) -- La Femme Nikita Fan Fiction Message Board

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Date Posted: Wednesday, November 09, 05:42:40pm
Author: JayBee
Subject: Hey, Mary! (r)
In reply to: Mary 's message, "Help, writer in distress!" on Wednesday, November 09, 04:20:23pm

Trust me, I've been in those shoes many, many, MANY times! I bet almost everyone here has, at one point or another. And I would imagine everyone has a slightly different strategy for dealing with it.

Here's mine:

1. Set yourself small, bite-sized goals. One page, or 500 words, or even 100 words -- whatever you can accomplish in one sitting. Make it as easy as you need to, because the whole point is to create a sense of forward progress, no matter how small.

2. Make an effort to achieve that goal even if you think what you've written is crap. Don't worry about whether it's good. It doesn't *have* to be good in a first draft. Even professional writers think their first drafts suck! Remembering this will take a lot of the pressure off.

3. Once you've finished a reasonable chunk as a first draft (the next chapter, or whatever breaking point makes sense), *then* go back and take another look at it after you've taken a few days break. Half the time you'll find upon rereading it that it's actually a lot better than you remembered it being when you originally wrote it. *g* The other half of the time you can edit and tweak and fix whatever it is that bothers you. This, for some reason, seems to be *much* easier than getting that first draft typed out.

This process has helped me many times, and I hope it does for you!

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Replies:

different ways -- warren, Thursday, November 10, 03:30:22am