#FirstDraft60 Day 9: Monday Motivation–Don’t Think. Just Write. #amwriting #nanoprep #nanowrimo
Mondays are the day of the week on which I need the most motivation to get going with anything, whether it’s work or writing or any other responsibilities/obligations I may have. So on Mondays, we’re going to take the time for some “motivational speaking,” whether from me or from other writers.
Today, I’m actually going to refer you back to a post from last year’s FirstDraft60 for that motivation.
Assignment 1: Read the post “Don’t Think. Just Write.” and go through the exercise there, determining what you do during writing that’s “thinking” (or analytical) and what you do that’s “creative.” How can you balance these in order to unleash your creativity when it comes time to write in November?
Assignment 2: Review last week’s assignments (listed below) and work on anything you haven’t finished yet. What project last week was most helpful to you? Which one do you still need to put more work in on?
Assignments/Projects from Week 1:
Day 1: Answer the guided questions and considerations.
Day 2: Figure out how you’re going to keep track of your revisions, style info, and research—and go ahead and set them up as best you can.
Day 3: Set up your Story Bible including sections for characters, settings, and props.
Day 4: Set up sections in your Story Bible for your story’s outline/structure and synopsis and for a calendar/timeline for the events in your story.
Day 5: Get yourself more organized with lists!
Day 6: Answer the Four Character Building Questions for your main character(s).
Day 7: Create a S.H.A.P.E. chart for your main character(s).
Day 8: Week 1 Reflections
And don’t forget to check in below with your progress/questions/comments!
Trackbacks
Comments are closed.
KayeDacus.com 
Day six was the most helpful. I need to keep working on day seven.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My most difficult to turn off analytical issue is critical self talk. At about this point in the process my brain tells me I can’t do this, that I’m a terrible writer, that I have no creativity left. I get hypercritical of every idea, every thought. I’ve been focusing the past few days on ignoring that. It’s hard. But I think practice will make it easier.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And, I realize that is not exactly what you were talking about, but that’s where it starts for me. Then I get into the word choice tailspin, the GMC tailspin, not enough action, needs more description, only three senses in that scene instead of all five. And so on…
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s never a right or wrong answer to any of these. Anything you post is/can be helpful to me and anyone else who reads it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Assignment #1 On my creative side I do these things:
Writing (longhand)
What If-ing
Listening to the voices
Listening to music
Brainstorming (off a single word)
On my analytical side I do these things:
Trying to find the ‘right word’
Trying to figure out how to show not tell
Trying to think of something other than ‘said’
Trying to apply GMC to every scene before writing
Inner editor won’t shut up so I constantly rework what I’ve already written
Critical self-talk about being a terrible writer and/or never going to finish anyway so why bother
Convince myself I need to go and research something more instead of write
I’m going to try caging my inner editor in a mentally pictured prison cell/box with lid. I’m also going to try to remember to pull out some of these creative methods when I feel “stuck” rather than sit there and stare blankly at the screen until I convince myself I need to go online to research something. lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Using the big (11×17 inches) pad of graph paper to write most of these exercises out longhand has been really helpful for me this go-round, because, as you said, it’s tapping into my creative side more.
I’ve never been a GMC’er (I’ve never even read the book) when I’m in the writing process. It’s something that I’ve learned to look for in the revision process, though. For me, it’s the internal editor and, now, the thoughts of whether or not a specific editor at a specific publishing house is going to like something, what they might want changed, what a certain critique partner might say (though I haven’t had crit partners for a few years, so that one has gone away), etc. And the added pressure of that internal “professional author” telling me I have to get it right/perfect the first time because if I’m on deadline, I’m not going to have time to go back and get it right later (back when I was on deadline for three books a year)—this voice still hasn’t gone away.
LikeLike
Assignment #2
Assignments/Projects from Week 1:
Day 1: Answer the guided questions and considerations. – Done!
Day 2: Figure out how you’re going to keep track of your revisions, style info, and research—and go ahead and set them up as best you can. – Done!
Day 3: Set up your Story Bible including sections for characters, settings, and props. – Done!
Day 4: Set up sections in your Story Bible for your story’s outline/structure and synopsis and for a calendar/timeline for the events in your story. – Done!
Day 5: Get yourself more organized with lists! – Done!
Day 6: Answer the Four Character Building Questions for your main character(s). – Mostly done (may add more characters or need to switch around some of my secondary & minor characters etc and possibly go deeper on the related & need questions & most important person question I’m unsure of answer still.
Day 7: Create a S.H.A.P.E. chart for your main character(s). – Mostly done but would like to flesh out the personality section more.
Day 8: Week 1 Reflections – Done!
I found the Story Bible set up the most helpful…the character stuff was good but I really felt like I needed to know more about my plot before I could do them so I really struggled with them. lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
I went through the descriptions of the personality types tonight and found the ones that matched my two main characters. I then went through them and wrote out key points from each description on my SHAPE chart for each of them. It really helped generate ideas for other parts of the chart for me (especially Heart and Abilities).
LikeLike
Assignment #1.
Creative Side:
– do timed writing bursts using the Pomodoro technique – keeps me moving forward
– hang photos of the setting, character models, significant items, etc. to pull me into the story
– freewrite what if and maybe then scenarios
– imagine my characters working through a scene like it’s a movie in my head
– imagine conversations between characters and various snippets of their daily lives while I drive, wash dishes, etc. in order to understand their lives better, even if the elements are not relevant to the storyline
Analytical Side:
– this is my worst habit: I read completed sections over and over a million times, partly to edit them but also to live in the story and see if it works; it would be much more productive to move forward into the new stuff and revisit the old after the first draft.
– drop everything mid-sentence to research something, even though I know it will pull me off track and may even lead to big distractions and time-wasting.
– fuss over the right word rather than plopping down a crappy sentence and moving on, trusting that if I can recognize that it’s crappy I can also figure out how to fix it.
I think the key to balancing these in November is to keep moving forward. Especially by using brackets to keep track of additions/ideas, reminders to research/verify info, note that something is terrible and give myself permission to fix it later, etc. Brackets are easy for me to locate using find/replace because I never use them in a novel in any other function aside from personal notes.
Assignment #2:
I found the S.H.A.P.E. chart and character development questions most helpful. I only did these for my one viewpoint character, but I really want to go back and complete them for the other key characters who shape the story.
Thanks for putting all this together, Kaye. It’s been really helpful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi, Sarah–
I’m so glad you’re finding this helpful. I like your idea of using the brackets. I’m so accustomed to using track changes in Word that it’s natural for me to use the Comments feature, but I know that isn’t as intuitive for others. It’s whatever works best for you that you don’t have to think about while you’re trying to be creative. 😉
LikeLike
Here’s my Analytical vs. Creative chart!
LikeLike
And I have now completed all of the tasks for Week 1, though some were in Weeks 2 and 3. But they’re finished and I can cross them off my list. Yay!
LikeLike
#1
Creative: brainstorming, writing longhand, listening to soundtracks or classical music, driving (lots of planning happens when you don’t see cars or civilization for 20 mile stretches).
Analytical: “right” word search, do I have too much dialogue, overthink 1st Person POV: too much I and me, not writing fast enough to meet goal
Plus all the normals that everyone else goes through on an hourly/daily basis.
#2: Finished everything (though they weren’t completed until last night).
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve already put into my calendar the seven hours that I’ll be in the car (each way) driving to and from my parents’ house for Thanksgiving the week of the 20th. I have a headset with microphone so that I can plug it into my laptop and dictate into the computer as I’m driving. And it falls more onto the creative side because I can’t stop and look at what I’ve just written to see what needs to be fixed. (That project will be saved for my scheduled writing time that evening—proofing and laughing over all the weird things the computer wrote because it didn’t understand what I said!)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh boy, I’m all analytical, so focusing on the creative is a challenge for me when writing a first draft. However, the exercise helped me to know what things NOT to focus on (picking the right word, show not tell, etc.). Playing catchup, I need to finish filling in the outline and the SHAPE portion for my main and some secondary characters.
LikeLiked by 1 person