Grabbing Hold of the Ideas in Your Head
The way I really got into writing was by reading. When I would read various books, they would stimulate my imagination and give me ideas. Eventually I started writing all of these ideas down, which turned out to be very important because, the more ideas I wrote down, the more ideas came to me. I would write them on whatever I could find and started saving them all in a folder, which I promised to use one day. Honestly, I doubted that I would ever write anything, but just jotting down ideas was fun.
These are most of my jotted ideas. After finishing book one, I decided to organize them into folders. I know that I still have other ones floating around in my various notebooks and other hiding places, and, hopefully, someday I will organize those too.
I think that jotting down ideas is very important because it gets you thinking and imagining. It also stimulates your own ideas, instead of trying to write something similar to another author. (hopefully my books will be unique). I originally thought of ideas for book 15 in my series, but decided to start at the beginning so that the reader could grow up with my world.
I found that my best ideas came when I was riding in a car or bus (not driving), in the shower (when I wasn't thinking of other things), when I was reading (though I hope I didn't copy anyone) and when I was about to go to sleep. The last one was the most annoying, because my mind would start racing and then I wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. I don't think my wife enjoys this either. I found that the best way to get a good nights sleep is to keep an i-pad close at hand so that you can write down any ideas that come up and not worry about losing them.
Organization of your ideas, so that you don't lose them, is good. I think a lot of my old ideas were lost during the various times I moved houses. They were probably in notebooks that i threw away. I remember one with a dark wizard on an island attacking with green fireballs. Can't find it now. Any, put scribbled ideas into notebooks. Use the note section of any smart device you have, this way they don't get lost. Occassionally type them out on the computer and save them. I have various folders of book ideas, all of which I hope to work with some day.
Starting to Write
So, the thing that really slowed me down in the beginning was thinking of names. For me, this was very hard to do and I felt like I couldn't start writing until I had the names of my characters. Eventually, this bothered me so much, that I just started writing, calling my charcaters A, B, C...
After I started writing, the names quickly came to me and I was happy with the ones I ended up with. Another thing that I found was that when I started writing, I started thinking of more ideas and writing more.
Thus I found that one of the best ways to write is to write.
Once getting past the name hurtle, I thought my book would just spew forth onto the pages and I would be done within a month. I mean, I had the book planned in my head and knew how the trilogy was going to end, so it should be easy. Not really. I fund that, on a very good day, I could maybe get 20 pages written. (very very good day). On average, I would say that I did somewhere between five and ten pages a day. My ideas were there, but I wanted to make sure my writing did them justice. Also, the more I wrote, the more ideas came to me.
While writing I discovered a good way to organize my ideas. I would write them down on sketch paper, each character getting his own section.
As you can see I used different colors for each character. It helped me while writing, because an organized, color coded outline makes me feel happy.
I didn't set out to write a certain number of pages, I merely had a story in my head that I wanted to share. Thus, I just kept writing until I got to the ending.
Sometimes when I was writing I would get really excited. I believe that these are the best parts in my book and I hope the reader feels the same.
Sometimes I hit a wall while writing. Occassionally I would try to break through this wall by clenching my teeth and continuing to type, though I often edited those parts later on. I found that a good thing to do when you come to a hiatus in your imagination is to print out what you wrote thus far and read over it, OUTLOUD. You will catch mistakes, get into the flow of your story once again, and will hopefully jump over the wall of writer's block.
Another thing that I found to be very helpful was constantly sharing my ideas with my wife. She was always excited and supportive and this really helped motivate me to continue writing. If you have a loved one that is close by, they are a captive audience that has to listen and respond. They can't run away or avoid you. :)
Other things include:
Setting aside a good amount of time to write. I currently teach English, thus only write on weekends or vacation. I find that writing a little here and a little there is difficult. When I sit down for a while and go at it, that's when things come to me.
Finding a good place to write. While writing my first book I was in a tiny studio apartment with boxes of stuff everywhere (I'm a pack rat). When my wife moved in things got even more cramped (she's a pack rat too). Thus, I would go to a coffee shop to write. It gave me a quiet place away from home where I could think better. Now I live in a two room place and usually sleep in the living room. (avoiding noise from the street). I often use a folding table and sit on my bed to write. But, just finding a place that you can say is "your writing place" is a good idea. That way, when you get there, you start writing. Pavlov's dogs.
Sharing Ideas. I assume that sharing ideas with friends is a good plan. I tried to do this, but I've been abroad for so long, that I've lost contact with many people. Some of the people I got in touch with got back to me, but most did not. The thing you have to know is that everyone has their own life. You want them to get back to you the next week with a review about what they thought of your whole book. The one friend review I got came about 6 months or so after I sent the copy, and I think that was after I pestered him a little. If your waiting for responses, calm down and take a breath. Also know that you won't always get them.
You can try sharing ideas with strangers on the internet, writing forums and what not. I thought about but was honestly scared that someone would steal my ideas or write something very similar. The reason I felt this way is not because I think I'm so wonderful, but because you see many books that are very similar to each other...i.e. big super powerful enemy, blacksmith, magic schools (especially after Harry Potter), the list goes on. You might not be as paranoid as I am, but do watch out and know that the world isn't all gumdrops and lollipops.
Editing your book
I'm an ESL (English as a second language) teacher. I always teach grammar, check over papers that need a lot of work and help students with writing. Thus, when I sat down to edit my first book, I was surprised to see that I had made so many mistakes. Though, remembering my time as a student, maybe I shouldn't have been soooo surprised.
I'll start with a brief summary for those of you that don't want to read the whole post.
1) Read this blog post http://www.karenafox.com/commonmistakes.htm
2) Don't repeat yourself. Most of the times this means using the same word, you can right click the word to get some synonyms. I also found that I would write whole paragraphs that said similar things and thus deleted a paragraph or two.
3) Add dialogue
4) Make sure you use the right names, i.e. sometimes I would write Wolf instead of Wing.
5) Read over everything you wrote and do it OUTLOUD. Listening to the words helps me catch mistakes.
6) Put it aside for a month or so then read it OUTLOUD all over again. I believe Stephen King suggested this in his book On Writing, though it's been a while since I read it.
7) Everyone makes mistakes so don't worry. You can even make revisions after you publish your e-book. I may have done this after my mother told me a few things about what she read. :)
8) Enjoy yourself and love what you write. This is one of the most important things.
So, I started my editing by reading over what I wrote at various times during my writing. I would print out my book, put it in a folder and then read silently on the subway, bus, or at home. This helped me think of my story and catch some mistakes, but it's not the best way to edit. The best way is reading outloud.
After I had finished writing I went to google and typed in beginning writer mistakes. I wish I had done this when I had started because the website it took me to was very helpful. It was a blog posting from an author named Karen Fox.
http://www.karenafox.com/commonmistakes.htm
After reading this post I went back and editied again, this time reading outloud. I caught more mistakes and had a better understanding why I didn't like some parts of my story. I even found myself x-ing out whole paragraphs. I highly recommend that every new and old writer read her blog post.
So, after reading through my whole book, OUTLOUD, I waited for a month and then read through it again. This gave me some time to relax my mind and, when I came back, I was fresh and could catch more mistakes. Here's a pick of most of my edited pages. Fun stuff!
I'll start with a brief summary for those of you that don't want to read the whole post.
1) Read this blog post http://www.karenafox.com/commonmistakes.htm
2) Don't repeat yourself. Most of the times this means using the same word, you can right click the word to get some synonyms. I also found that I would write whole paragraphs that said similar things and thus deleted a paragraph or two.
3) Add dialogue
4) Make sure you use the right names, i.e. sometimes I would write Wolf instead of Wing.
5) Read over everything you wrote and do it OUTLOUD. Listening to the words helps me catch mistakes.
6) Put it aside for a month or so then read it OUTLOUD all over again. I believe Stephen King suggested this in his book On Writing, though it's been a while since I read it.
7) Everyone makes mistakes so don't worry. You can even make revisions after you publish your e-book. I may have done this after my mother told me a few things about what she read. :)
8) Enjoy yourself and love what you write. This is one of the most important things.
So, I started my editing by reading over what I wrote at various times during my writing. I would print out my book, put it in a folder and then read silently on the subway, bus, or at home. This helped me think of my story and catch some mistakes, but it's not the best way to edit. The best way is reading outloud.
After I had finished writing I went to google and typed in beginning writer mistakes. I wish I had done this when I had started because the website it took me to was very helpful. It was a blog posting from an author named Karen Fox.
http://www.karenafox.com/commonmistakes.htm
After reading this post I went back and editied again, this time reading outloud. I caught more mistakes and had a better understanding why I didn't like some parts of my story. I even found myself x-ing out whole paragraphs. I highly recommend that every new and old writer read her blog post.
So, after reading through my whole book, OUTLOUD, I waited for a month and then read through it again. This gave me some time to relax my mind and, when I came back, I was fresh and could catch more mistakes. Here's a pick of most of my edited pages. Fun stuff!
And here's a pick of the editing I did yesterday on book number two. 154 pages (A4 not ebook) done so far.
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