Writing Motivation

Writing Motivation

     Particularly during the summer, it's hard to find the motivation to write. It's so easy to just neglect your half finished novel for months, and make excuses. And sometimes we forget (*cough cough* like me forgetting this blog post until today) Sometimes people really are that busy, but when I find myself making bad excuses to ignore my novel these are some of the things that help:

     A good mix of routine and change.

Routine is extremely helpful whenever you'd like to be able to snap into a certain mindset. Even if you hate routine, small things like eating a peppermint right before (and only right before) you write can help so much. Having a specific place where you write and only write, a time when you write each day/ week, a shirt you wear when you're writing, etc. can help as well. However, introducing a new variable can help me see things from a different perspective when I'm feeling stuck. Coffee shops are wonderful for this!

     Don't compare.

Everyone lives in a different situation. We're all at unique combinations of stages in our writing lives and our novels themselves. How can you compare the 500 words you got this week (during which you had work, babysitting, and try-outs) in your novel to your neighbor's 10,000 words she got this week (during which she was bored and excited with her novel)?

     Incentive.

Telling myself I can finally read that cool novel once I've written 1,000 words is wonderful for my writing. Sometimes small goals work better for other people- an M&M for every 100 words, or larger goals such as telling yourself you can go see a movie next week (but only if you write three chapters this week).

     Think about what you're going to write beforehand. 

This way you'll feel more accomplished. It's much easier to write- after all, you already planned out what the hero was going to do when they ran into their crush at the ice cream store! You don't need to stare at a blank page/ computer screen / whatever you write on thinking. I've also found it's easier to brainstorm when I'm /not/ staring at said blank writing object!

I hope this was helpful!

On another note, it's almost August and both me and Alexandra Grey will be busy with school and other activities shortly. To allow for this, we will be switching from posting once a week to once a month.

Question of the week/month: What motivates you to write?

Stay foten!

-Elly Toast

Summer Thoughts

     Well, our blog hiatus is over. My June was lovely and I hope it was great for you, too. Since we are in the midst of summer, I thought that's what I'd talk about today.

     It's easy to relax and do absolutely nothing when school is out. Sometimes we do need a little bit of "nothing" time. However, I'd rather have a summer full of well-used time to look back on than a summer of Netflix on the couch.

     This is one of my favorite quotes:
"In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an Invincible Summer." ~Albert Camus
If we're going to have Invincible Summer through the year, what better time of year than summer to discover it! I've been feeling like summer hasn't even started yet, but also like it's almost over. (My brain is such a paradox.) So this week, I made a list of things I associated with summer. It included things like pineapples, sunglasses, fireworks, reading, and swimming. I'm planning on trying to include as much of the list as possible in my summer and appreciate the little joys I have while they're here.

     Speaking of joy, at the OYAN Summer Workshop this year, they had quests for everyone to complete. There were three different themes, and the one I chose was 'wonder'. It helped me to sit and contemplate the small beauties God gives us even when everything around seems crazy and busy. When I got home, I realized I didn't want the quest to end, so I made my own. I picked a different focus for each day of the week (I'm indecisive like that) and though I'm not giving myself specific tasks to complete, I will be writing down what I did that counted for the quest. The list of summer things I made was part of the joy aspect.

     I'm challenging you guys to also make quests for yourselves. They don't have to be seven different themes, you can go with one or five or twelve or whatever you like. It can be for one day of the week, all the days of the week, just weekends, anything. It can just be for the summer or continue indefinitely. You can print out specific tasks for yourself and put them in a jar and choose randomly, or you can do what I'm doing and kind of keep the quest at the back of your mind, looking for a way to carry it out. Have fun!

     The comment for this week is three parts:
1. If you were at the SW this year, which quest did you choose?
2. What do you think of when you think about summer?
3. What does your quest look like?

Be foten,
 ~Alexandra

Some Favorite Books

(Alexandra here, posting this for Elly. It's been a busy weekend for us both so sorry this is late! Hope you enjoy a list of her favorite books!)

It's summer, and the perfect time to read! I'm on vacation and don't have much time to write, but I've compiled a quick list of book recommendations for some excellent summer reading. Enjoy!
Ender's Game
A Wrinkle in Time
The Giver
Fahrenheit 451
Mockingbird (different from to kill a mockingbird)
The Republic
Code Name Verity
Time to Die
Pathfinder
Arsenic and Old Lace
From Homer to Harry Potter (DISCLAIMER: I've not completely finished this one)
Keepers of the Lost Cities
Both of us will be at One Year Adventure Novel's Summer Workshop so we will be taking a short break from posting for three weeks.

Stay foten,
Elly Toast

Comment and let us know if you have been or will be at the SW this week!

Chapters and Conflict

     As readers, we've all said "oh, I'll just finish reading this chapter," and then gone on to finish the entire book. Usually, it's not just a collective lack of self discipline. Some books are just that good. How do you write a book that people can't put down? There are many, many elements that keep a reader's attention from chapter to chapter, so here's just one method for keeping suspense.

     It's about conflict. Fiction books are often made up of hurdles for the hero to overcome, which together, make up the giant conflict for the overall story. I'm not sure that I've ever read a fiction novel that was not split into chapters. I hear a lot of writers asking how to split up chapters. Most do it by length, which is a good way to go, but it's even better to couple it with the plot.

     Many readers see the chapter breaks as convenient stopping places (I do, at least). So it's a writer's job to make it difficult to stop at the chapter breaks, lest the reader put the book down at the end of the chapter and never pick it up again. In my first novel, I wasn't really sure how to do chapters. I would end it right before a problem was resolved, and then at the beginning of the next chapter I'd tie up the conflict real quick and move on. I broke my second and third novels into chapters purely based on word count. Neither of these methods are hugely effective in getting people to read on.

     If you really want to hook your readers, open a new conflict right at the end of the chapter. It sort of gives a sneak peek for the next chapter, and you can drop some big bombs that way. Each chapter should focus on one conflict, escalating the story a little bit more. The new one introduced at the end can be as little as a sentence long, it doesn't have to be a huge chunk.

       Using this method, your conflict and chapter cycles should look something like this:
-Hero works to combat the issue at hand.
-Issue is either conquered and the hero pays in some way, or the hero fails but gains something important.
-New issue arises as a result of the previous one!
-[End of chapter] [New chapter]
-Continue above pattern.

     Hopefully this will be useful to you! Improve your skills at keeping suspense through chapters and conflict by practicing it and reading lots of books. Try to identify the conflict and chapter patterns in the books you read. I was actually reading Nadine Brandes' A Time to Die (which I reviewed two weeks ago) when I finally understood this concept.

     Comment: What are some things that keep you hooked when you read?

Stay foten,
Alexandra

Ten Tips for Watercolor Pencils

   

  Finals week is coming up for many people (including me), and with that comes lots of stress. I never really fell into the coloring book craze, but art has always been a way for me to de-stress- especially watercolors and watercolor pencils! Watercolors are known for being very fast and colorful. But often they can be intimidating. Whereas colored pencils make it less intimidating and less easy to slip up, but take much longer. Watercolor pencils are the best of both worlds! You get the ease and control of colored pencils, but with the simplified, colorful look of watercolors. And because you don't need to worry about getting tiny details right, it takes about as long as a watercolor too! Here are a ten quick tips for anyone just starting out with watercolor pencils.

#1. Draw the outline of your subject lightly with a pencil before you color. I respect anyone who can draw colored pencil drawings without an outline. Seriously. If you're one of those people, you can ignore this.But if you're used to making an outline using regular colored pencils, make an outline. It won't hurt anything. Just make sure you do it very lightly.

#2. Don't press too hard with the pencils. This is important with colored pencils too, but it can ruin a watercolor pencil drawing (painting?). The pigment gets ingrained into the paper and the water won't blend it as smoothly, leaving either it looks just like a colored pencil drawing at best, or a watercolor with an ugly scar line that's darker than the rest. Go softly. if you want to make a color darker, go over the section more than once.

#3. Use watercolor paper. Even though these are colored pencils, to begin with, when you put the water on the pigment acts like watercolor. You know how watercolors warp copy paper and thin drawing paper? The same is true for watercolor pencils.

#4. Don't go for realistic. Maybe other people can get watercolor pencil drawings to look like real photographs, but it's much easier to go for the same artistic, simplified look used with watercolors. Don't be afraid to use lots of colors and don't worry about that many minute details- they might be lost when you wash the whole thing with water. Even in dull, monotone subjects, there are usually some surprising colors if you look close enough! An apple can have hints of yellow, orange, pink, black, and purple alongside the red.

#5. Be okay with not controlling the color. Like watercolors, when you begin to wash the picture, don't overwork it. if a color doesn't more how you'd like it to and the green section runs into the orange section, don't try to fix it. Usually, you'll end up liking it better once it's dry! If you over-work the paint you can hurt the paper and take away from the watercoloresque effect.

#6. Rinse out your brush in between sections. If you wash the firetruck-red section of your drawing first, be careful all of the red pigment is out of your brush before you move to a lighter color.

#7. Only load your brush with a tiny bit of water. Dip it in your cup/ bowl/ water-holding item of your choice and then drag or blot some water out of your brush. This way there's not a pool of water on your paper.

#8. Sometimes it helps get the pencil strokes out by making a zig-zagging motion (such a technical term, I know! :P) with your brush. This gives a more authentic watercolor look.

#9. Don't worry about what it looks like at the end! This seems like overkill, but trust me- it's very useful. For large sections of sky or background, a wider flat brush or round brush is a good idea. Can you imagine trying to cover a large area with a super fine brush? I've done it- I wouldn't recommend it. But for the fine lines of red spidering over an apple? You'd want to use a fine brush. If the red spreads too much it could be bad- of course, you should have a little bit of spreading, but be careful not to cover any other beautiful colors! 

#10. Use multiple kinds of brushes. Either way, watercolor pencils are a fun and addicting way to pass time. If you worry about it, you won't have as much fun in the process! And after all, it's only a picture! Have fun! :D

The question of the week: Have you used watercolor pencils before? For those who have, how would you compare them to watercolors?

Have a foten week!

-Elly Toast