Wednesday 25 July 2018

Six top tips for summer writing


Yorkshire moors - Bronte country
FreeImages.com/Jenny Rollo


1.       Start early – beat the summer heat. Set your alarm for no later than 8 am and postpone all your household or admin jobs until the afternoon. Keep your mind as free as possible before starting work, and get down to it as soon as possible after you get up. The author Monique Roffey writes as soon as she wakes up when she is working on a novel; the mighty J.K. Rowling works in bed first thing.

2.       Set yourself achievable goals. Be specific and realistic. Can you really take the NaNoWriMo approach and write a entire novel in August? Seems unlikely – and their word goal is 50, 000 whereas you will have to craft at least 70,000 to reach conventional novel length. It might be better to work on one short story, or two produce two or three good chapters, or to resolve an issue that you haven’t had head space to address before.

3.       Choose the right place to work. It may be that you have a quiet office in the house (we currently have builders next door so I am feeling the pain here). Or it may that you have a café or library where you can work well. Wherever it is, make sure that you spend at least three hours a day in that place, writing, and only writing.

4.       Say ‘no’. I very rarely tell anyone I am not meeting them/taking something on because I’m writing – it somehow has the same effect as saying that you are staying in to wash your hair. People feel snubbed, weirdly, because the convention is that writing should be your lowest priority in the modern, speed-driven world.  But I have a range of substitute excuses, usually to do with my (admittedly demanding) day job, or family stuff (and there is admittedly also plenty of that). Whatever reason you give, just say ‘no’. Don’t feel pressurized to fit in barbecues or building a new extension on your house. This is your summer of words.

5.       Be active. This may sound contradictory, but do also make time to move about. A writer is not a brain on a stick, and getting your blood circulating helps your brain to work. There is also a weird connection between creativity and walking. Virginia Woolf was a great fan. Ernest Hemingway used to go hunting after putting in a morning’s writing. There is no need for that.

6.       Read. There is also a lovely connection between reading and writing. The voice and created world of another writer is inspiring and curiously restful. Choose the right author – you may not want to immerse yourself in the work of the prize-winning writer whose book was published this year to wild acclaim and is writing in your chosen genre. You’re only human. Read nonfiction, poetry, an established classic. Read like a writer, seeing how they have addressed the problems and challenges you are facing in your own draft. And read like a reader, paying close attention and letting the writers take you where they want you to go.