Fictionistas Office Hours take place on the last Tuesday of every month, starting at 7am EST and running throughout the day… or night, depending on where you reside on this little globe of ours. Come and go as you please. It’s an opportunity to meet other fiction writers on Substack, ask and answer questions about writing fiction, and share ideas about how to improve the community. Here are a couple discussion starters if you’re feeling shy:
What does your writing routine look like?
What’s your biggest writing “win” so far?
Don’t have a big win? Share a small win that had a major impact!
Hello! Since I am a bit shy, I'll use one of the discussion starters: What does your writing routine look like?
Personally, I do not have much of a routine when it comes to writing, which may be why I never finish any of my novels. By serialising my work monthly on Substack, I hope to build a good routine, but I'd like to hear from others as well!
Your plan to serialize is great! so many riders get hung up on not starting or writing anything.
Are used to have a more strict writing routine, but now I usually answer emails, look for jobs (I’m on the hunt!) and then switch to writing. My only plan is to write into my brain is mush lol.
I don't have a consistent writing routine, but sometimes I go to a coffee shop to write. I find the inherent deadlines that come with serializing on a schedule to be useful for getting it done. Have a bit of an aversion to strict schedules like 'write for x time,' feels too much like school.
I once wrote an newspaper article about coffee shop writers. A young mother getting a degree in engineering said she needed to be away from the cooking and laundry at home. Another student said his apartment mates were noisy and untidy. A social worker going over notes said she preferred to meet people for the first time in a cafe. Most found a cafe a safe environment with enough mild buzz around for stimulation, but not distraction.
Me, I go to cafes to people-watch. Have gotten some story ideas doing that.
Currently my writing routine involves writing one 100 word story every single day. As long as I do that then I consider the day of writing a win. It will take me, on average, about 15min to accomplish this. So I spend at least 15min per day on my fiction writing and the rest is devoted to life and work. That 15min can be in the morning, afternoon, sometimes at night before bed. It can happen on my phone, my laptop, or sitting at my desk. The when is all over the place but as long as it happens is all that matters.
I strictly write a complete 100 word story daily. I also write short stories but at the moment I'm only sharing my daily 100 word stories on my Substack.
My advice would be to develop a writing habit. A common example is to write everyday a certain amount of time. But the important part isn't so much the amount or even the 'everyday' part as the consistency. It could be once a week or even once a month, but whatever you do, stick with it. And if you can always write at the same time, that should help too.
Setting yourself deadlines can also help a lot, which is why serializing might indeed do the trick.
And also, I'd recommend keeping track of your word counts. Every time you sit down for a session, write down the time you start. When you're done, write the end time and the amount of words you did. Then you can see your progress (and speed) more clearly and can set yourself goals (like, today I want to do 500 words). If you don't meet them, that's fine, it'll just motivate you to do better the next time ;)
Then try with smaller goals, that might work better. Once you have that writing habit, you can increase your goals and you'll find they become easier to meet.
The most important thing is sitting down to do the work. Whether you have a specific routine or not, finding time to sit down and write is the most important thing.
I don't have a writing routine and never really did, and so I write anywhere and everywhere as long as I have my laptop. Though I also have friends who write on their phones and have completed entire novels this way.
I did have a 1000 (later 1250) word goal everyday. I aimed for this for 5 years and while I didn't hit it everyday I did write over 1 million words by the end of it. The routine enabled me to write fiction on demand, plus I made certain to finish things (even when I wasn't enjoying it, which I think is inevitable in any creative endeavour). There will be times when you hate it and times when you love it, you have to continue on just the same in either feeling.
This year I have altered my tact a little and now only write for what I need to (short stories on Tuesday's and Thursday's plus a couple of novel length projects (unpublished)). I write fewer total words but I edit a lot more, making sure to embed myself in every story and really aim to hit the right tone each time. All I would recommend is consistency, routine, habit, whatever, just write regularly.
My biggest writing win this month has to be having an article featured in The Writer magazine and the headline on the cover! “Writing in the Twilight Zone
Curio Fiction: What it is and how to write it.”
I’m still geeking out! It’s available digitally now and should hit newsstands in a couple weeks! This is my first time being a freelance writer and how it came about is just as crazy.
Hey Fictionistas! Thanks for these discussion ideas, Probably the best input I can give for any writer's routine is simply a link to some more writing retreat opportunities, in the US and worldwide.
The Res Artis site (link below) had many retreat search filters by date, place, etc and often has some really interesting and otherwise hard to find retreats and events. I don't know them personally, but I gather that they collect from a wide variety of independent organizations and events. So if you'd like to get out of the house to combine writing and travel, you might find something here.
My routine is to get up at 3am. My brain sometimes takes another 45 minutes of tea before functioning, but at least I get a good chunk of time in before the Day Job. I need to keep working on efficiency though. Time does not always = productivity. Sigh.
As I noted above, I am asleep by 8pm-ish. That gives me about 7 hours of sleep. More than 7 and I feel worse than if I am slightly sleep deprived. The cost/benefit ratio is that, it's that early or never. I developed this habit while taking care of aging parents. If I waited until the end of the day, I was too exhausted. Now the key is to make myself focus and not just surf around while getting the tea to my brain. There's no point getting up that early to waste it.
I was worried about your sanity, stemming from sleep deprivation. 😂
Mostly I have trouble contemplating being productive and creative at that time of day, but I know people who do it.
I would definitely get up at 3am if there was a fire, not just a practice drill.
It's interesting how easy it is to adapt to weird habits quickly, and how hard it is to break them when a need has passed.
After my Mum died, I still woke up multiple times a night, nearly hourly, for more than a year. Other times work has required absurd stretches without sleep, and I'd continue to live like a vampire instead of sleeping like a normal person.
Long ago, I was a night owl. Then I lived in Southeast Asia with the neighborhood mosques calling out the times of prayer, starting around 4am. That was the beginning of resetting my body clock. Now I capitalize on it. My Mom passed in October, (unexpectedly - 34 days from diagnosis) - I still jump when the phone rings. I had my Dad on a video monitor and automatically woke up to check it about every hour to be sure he hadn't tried to get up and fallen... It takes a while to shake these things loose!
As someone who gets up at 5am I am "in bed" by 6:30pm every night. It's when our son goes to bed. We are up while in bed till about 10pm. But most nights we're lucky if we can last till 830pm before we're passed out! Usually I'm the last one to go to bed so I'll stay up a few hours longer to do some more writing on my phone and try to get to bed by midnight. 5hrs of sleep is MORE than enough time for me.
I've read about that in the past. He has a whole rigid routine. It can't be that he sticks to that all year around, eg, when working or traveling. It's still odd, given he has the luxury of wealth and staff, he doesn't need to keep those hours just to get a bit of me time.
Brandon Sanderson's routine involves getting up at 1pm. He writes and plays online games during the night. That's one way to get out of school drop off duties.
I do that a lot lately as well. I figure I'm awake, might as well work on my laptop while in bed than waste time scrolling on my phone. So I will get a lot done from 5am - 7:30am when the whole house starts to get up.
I've recently retired. When I worked, I got up at 3:30 in the am to do my writing so I could be at work by 6:00 am start time. But I went to bed late, 10:00, sometimes 11:00, depending on how involved I was with whatever I was doing. Now that I'm retired, I get up at around 6:00'ish--although I slept in today. But now I'm up until 1:00 in the morning. 5 hours is enough time for sleep, although I'm trying to sleep longer. But I get distracted by looking through my inbox and trying to stay ahead of the game. It's starting to feel like whatever I'm working on is a distraction from all the media overload.
Interesting. After retirement you can definitely do as you please, as long as you’re making progress on the writing, ha.
Sometimes I just put my laptop and phone on Airplane mode when I write, just to stop all the notifications. That gives me a nice bit of peace, especially if I’m writing during the day. Try something like that, maybe?
I think I write myself into little corners and try to think of a way out, but in the back of my head I know that I have three or four weeks before that particular section has to go up, so I can dog it if I want. I can write 100 words if I want, or even 1000.
3am is damn impressive. I try to go for 5am if I can manage it, which gives me a good 1.5hrs or so before I need to start moving and get on with the day.
That's excellent. As I've said, my 3am rise does not always result in productivity. For me, getting up is the easy part. Really getting started is what takes the discipline.
Small win of sorts: My current serial fiction has an odd framing device where I treat it like the walkthrough (with script) of a fighting game, to help sell that I put together a lengthy post of win quotes for each character when facing a specific other character. It was quite the undertaking to do in addition to writing each chapter, since it required writing 196 lines of dialogue that are each supposed to stand alone. Nice to know I'm able to pull off extras like this.
Has anyone been playing around with the Substack feature for hidden posts? Want to try messing with it myself. Or just any unusual formatting for fiction that Substack has helped enable.
I haven't seen them used much, but I recall a Substack announcement that now you could set posts so that they could only be seen with a link, not even accessible from the archives. Which had some brief discussion about using it for things like Choose Your Own Adventure type stories. Very niche feature so I'm not entirely sure how to use it myself.
My small win is that I've published 3 short stories on substack, and a few folk have actually read them 🙂. Trying for weekly on my non fiction and maybe monthly on short fiction. Started a novel years ago but it's been sitting for at least 12 years because life. Maybe I'll dust it off when I get back into things...😉
I have a question about finding readers. Have any of you found success in online communities or other methods in connection with an audience more closely? How has that worked or not worked for you?
They're not what I'd call communities exactly , but places like Inbox Reads and similar have been pretty good for finding readers. As for actual communities like LinkedIn and Twitter, etc. I've had pretty much zip from those zones. I tried them for a while, but haven't even been logged in there for quite some time.
Not really. Other platforms might produce clicks to your page, but no much else. Substack has been the biggest draw so far, but sadly, it’s all just other writers—hardly any pure readers.
This is the question: how to attract readers for our own fiction niche? Drawing in writers is cool - we like to hang out with each other. But how to find readers? $64,000,000,000.00 question.
I tend to follow suit. Twitter does nothing for writers. I've had 1 subscriber from Twitter. Substack brings in 90% of my readers. Why bother with all the others? I still do, but it's just to get it out there with the hopes of picking up one more reader.
My wins are that I've published three short stories in gay literary journals, self-published a memoir, and "published" my novel on Substack. Just continuing the search for a new agent now.
Thanks. And yet it all feels underwhelming, because I'd really like to get my novel published by a major house, meaning that I'll need to get an agent, which appears to be nearly impossible. Argghh.
Not a giant "win" and I actually don't think about wins that much, but I just published my 33rd story here on Substack and that's been a lot of fun.
I don't have a routine exactly. Sometimes, it's 11pm. Midnight. Sometimes, it's 5am, sometimes (not too often), it's 3am. My schedule varies quite a bit because I sleep when I'm tired and get up when I'm not. Not conducive to a real job I know, but fortunately I don't have one of those.
This is unrelated to the three questions, but I’m wondering who in this community would be down to have a “tag” or “mention” system to workshop stories? For instance, one of us posts a new story or chapter, mentions/tags people from the community in the post or in Notes, and then people can comment on what worked, what didn’t, and what questions arose.
I think this would be a good way to for us to workshop while getting our stories out there. And I’m sure many of us would be happy if someone we mentioned/tagged, cross-posted the story to get more people involved in the feedback. I realize this wouldn’t work for all stories, especially first drafts, but for later drafts that we’re comfortable sharing with the public.
Hi Nolan, this has been brought up in the community before, and there is a behind-the-scenes thread bringing it up again. We definitely recognize the value, especially for new writers getting started (or just started on Substack), and I think it's come down to kickstarting the process and someone managing it. Do you think it would make it easier or harder if we facilitated that through some sort of monthly discussion thread where you could post the link to your story and ask for feedback? Or would you find it better to kickstart some feedback process through the use of mentions directly from your story? How might you choose the individuals to mention and ask?
hi there! I think personally, I'd love to have a discussion thread where I could share the link to my story. I'm relatively new to fictionistas so I don't know if I'd have anyone specific to tag in my stories, plus I'd love to get input/editing advice from any user who takes the time to read my stories!
I personally see more value in a tag/mention system because it would help to get stories out there and possibly entice more feedback. A tag/mention system would allow people to choose the stories to which they know their feedback can add value.
To kick start it, I think a post from Fictionistas asking who is interested would help. Everyone who wants to partake can comment “I’m in”. That way, we can all see who is willing to be mentioned in a post and contribute. I also think it’s important people mention Fictionistas every time to grow the Fictionistas community.
But these are just some ideas! I might be overlooking something.
My writing routine has been a bit of a mess lately. I don't write every day, which is normal, but what I try to do is write intentionally. If I have an essay or short story, I will focus on that for several days, write it, edit and then schedule for posting. Then I won't really write again until I have something I know I want to write. However, lately the intention is getting harder. I find myself writing a couple paragraphs, getting distracted and it's taking longer. I'm doing a lot of context switching these days, spread too thin, etc., and I'm hoping to rein myself in and be more disciplined.
My Drafts area in Substack always has about 6 things I’ve started and not finished. Then I’ll just start something else, finish that, and leave the old stuff I’ve lost interest in sitting there hoping the interest will return to finish it. I really need to give myself a blank slate. But for whatever reason I can’t seem to bring myself to abandon the old stuff. Even if they might even be outdated. Ugh, the struggle is real!
Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to have to force some focus like that. Thirty minutes, no phone, writing in solitude, enough to jump start a longer session.
My win is both a writing and a small substack win. I do a daily post, where most of my audience I brought with me from facebook, and a mostly promotional newsletter that I brought over from mail chimp. I have done a good job of keeping these subscribers, but not growing them. This month I started putting a short story in my mystery series up as I write it, scene by scene in the daily newsletter. (will publish as ebook once done.) And this has increased opening clicks a bit, but most successful, is that I mentioned that I was doing this in my monthly newsletter and about 50 of these subscribers came over and subscribed to the daily newsletter, which was my first spurt of growth since I started a year ago. So I saw this as a win (both as a way to get my short stories out but also increase engagement.)
Hi from Chicago! I generally try to write in the mornings, but it can vary. I work for the Chicago Cubs during the baseball season and work mainly the days games. My typical writing time on a game day obviously won't happen. I do try to bang out at least 100 words when I get home. Said wordage might not see the light of day beyond what's on my laptop, but it's something.
I'm fairly new to this 'I'm a writer' thing, so my big win so far is realizing/coming up with goals for me over the next year or two. I'm looking into taking some sort of online writing course (I REALLY like UCSD's course, I think it'd be a good "fit", but it's a tad out of my price range.) and I'd love to be able to go to one of those writing conferences I see advertised in the writing magazines I subscribe to.
So far I've written a couple of short stories, one flash fiction story, working on two books that both originally started out as NaNoWriMo entries and when the mood strikes, I do 100 word prompts.
Thanks for the advice, I was thinking of an online course to....well to quote a U2 song
"The sea throws rock together but time leaves us polished stones". I guess I just think my writing could use some polishing up. If I go that route, it wouldn't be until the off season, as that will be when I have the most free time.
The conferences are really still just a 'something I might like to do' or explore, but it wouldn't be until next year. A lot can happen in that time.
I pesonally think that one of the best ways to become a writer is to awrite a lot when you write but not necessaily every day. KEEP A NOTEBOOK OR EVEN PAPER with you at ALL times in caseyour imagination starts blooming, even if it is only a bit of conversation, image etc.
There is another way. to learn about writing that I seldom see mentioned. READ WRITERS. Study their sentences, paragraph,chapters, dialogues. I'm staunchlyorhere to say that over the years I have learned more about l than any college class , wprkshop, prompt etc, Ive ever taken. Ive alaso been fortunate to have been in several writing groups of writers close to my politcal outlook and aesthetic sensibilty. BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT MORE AND MOreRE, wriiiters aretaing wrting workshops, going going going to this reading that reading,that lecture, this open mike but I HARDLY EVER SEE ANY WORK!!!!
When I was eighteen going on 19, I went to Antioch College. It had one of the nation's first work-study proggrams where you study for three months. work for three months, RETURN AND STUDY FOR 6MONTHS.
My shift for most of the time was from 8pm til 4am.
I knew no one in Washington dc. I was a copy "boy" for the Washington Post in the spring and summer of 1964. I wanted to see iif I wanted to be a journalist and found out ally" b;d;;s'''''''very quickly thatI I didnt.
In the course of those six months three civil rights workers were murdered by racists in Mississipi. The Vietnam War "offcially: started although we'd had "operatves" there two decades/
It was a time of growing protest and growing cultural changes . But I I wantedd to simply read some of the MasterpeicesoftheCanon and
and add writers I was readng .
So for six months I read almost maniaclly and STUDIED THE WRITERS WITH MY OWN YOUNG MAN]s practice. I read the main novels of Virgina Wolfe, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthoouse, and Jacob's Room. I circled favorite sentences, dialogues, and the switches in the streams consciousness, a form I Love because it is so difficult. I did the same with Faulkner's big four: The Sound And The lk
this is a continuation of the above. I studied Faulkner's "big four" - The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light In August, and Absalom, Absalom. I particularly dove into The Sound And The Fury. And I think Ilearned more about writing than any ten writing workshops, poetry readng, lecture; than anything connnected with writing nowadays where you can spend one year going to workshops doing prompts and "collaborations , it is almost nothing. I should add that it was one of the most exhilratng times of my lilfe. I also read Ulysses and all of Finnegans Wake ( every word - my only "mistake" was not reading it aloud!
I admire those who are able to write in a disciplined way, but alas I've tried and failed. Today I'm calling my routine 'bubble writing' (did I just coin a term?). Ideas bubble up and I write them down. The big bubbles turn out to be the best. They are full of passion, creativity and are self-motivating. Sure, they pop big when they hit the surface and some smell funky at first, but I'm onto my third book with my bubble writing non-routine.
My 'win' is being halfway through (24 chapters) posting the entirety of my first book on Substack. Please check it out!
I rarely check in, but wish you well on your projects. This is a book promotion year for me. My goals, increase sales & make money to publish the next novel.
Hey, my first comment. I hope you'll indulge me with the following question: how do you tackle the first big review and edit for a longer writing project. Here's the context: almost five years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo. I have an idea for a SF novel (possibly a trilogy) where I developed some back story, characters and some general plot ideas before the start, so I had some (not a lot) but some world building in place. I powered through, focusing on hitting the word count and probably generated a lot of filler/stuff to be cut. I also used the technical that Frederik Pohl used in Gateway: interspersing other bits of color and backstory in between chapters or sections of the novel in progress. I purposely wrote a bunch of crappy stuff at times in order to keep the flow going. In the end, I feel like I've written maybe one third of a novel, so a decent start.
Now the problem: I'm faced with a huge amount of material to sort through, review, edit, cull and possible rework. A really zero level draft or shitty first draft hides in a binder, taunting me.
So my question: is there a recommended or often useful way to take a jumbled up manuscript in progress and try to turn it into something readable?
It's almost been five years and I'd like to get back onto this novel and finish it some day but I kind of feel paralyzed.
That's a tough one, Mark, but thanks for bringing the question to the Fictionistas community! I'm sure there's a number of ways to tackle it, but one idea I had was to finish the novel's story, making sure you have both a solid start (1-2 chapters) and solid finish (1-2 chapters), even if it still falls short of a complete novel. You didn't mention what third of the novel has been drafted, but at that point you could say the first pass is done. After that (or as an alternative) it might make more sense to start from the beginning at chapter one, copy/paste little snippets you want to keep and start writing.
I recognize it's more of a mental thing, but I wouldn't look at it as writing your second draft or writing a novel. For me personally it's less overwhelming to say I'm going to finish a scene, or write a couple pages a day. That at least kickstarts the process and gets you back into the story you're crafting. Hope that helps!
If you set a goal for writing a page a day, that 365 pages. If you write 1000 words a day, five days a week, before you do anything else, at the end of a week you'll have twenty pages-a chapter. If you do it first thing in the morning, then you won't get distracted by all the things that tempt you not to write. If you can type (I use three fingers and a thumb!) 1000 words is doable.
Do you use a writing tool beyond Word. If you imported your manuscript into a tool like Scrivener, you could "tag" scenes in various ways and prune and move things around easily. I use Scrivener and love it. BUT, there is a significant learning curve. There is a one time cost of $60 and they have a very good full featured demo version. Here is a link if you are interested. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/
I agree! I find little nuggets often. I am a retired software developer and I am amazed what the have done. And it costs sixty bucks, and no subscription fees.
Mark, Scrivener would definitely help you out. The demo version is actually quite unique. It is full featured and gives you 30 day OF USE, not clock time. For example if you activate the demo om 6/1 and use it for two days and stop using it for two weeks. when you come back, you still have 28 days of demo left.
i've written many NaNoWriMo novels. The best advice I have is to sit back and think about what your novel is about, what the main storyline is, what your protagonist's goals and needs are, etc. and try to build some scaffolding. A loose story structure, as it were. Then take when you have and figure out where it fits on the scaffolding (if at all - you have to be willing to be ruthless). From there, you should have at least an idea of where to go from there. If you have a general idea of an ending, that's helpful but not necessary. In other words, build yourself a roadmap for what the novel might look like when it's done, and start filling in the spaces with what you already have and start writing what you don't.
My writing routine is pretty straightforward—write when I feel like :P
I have a day job, so I usually get up at 4am to write, or weekends. I’ve made significant progress on my fantasy novel this way. But I don’t write daily at all.
My writing week begins on Sunday continuing through Friday. I've found that after 3pm each day is best. I get maybe half of my story down on paper, then as I type it up, the rest of it comes together. Editing is an ongoing process up to publishing by Friday midday. I have two ongoing serialized fiction stories alternating with other fiction and non-fiction pieces.. A big win for me - my Stack is growing and I'm almost 50 stories in. I suspect the bigger win is that on Substack, I've come across authors of stories who inspire me and make me sit back and say - "Wow, that's good! How do they do that?".
I also write in the morning, between 7 and 8 roughly. But I also keep one day a week, usu Sundays, writing-free. I just recently started writing regularly, feeling inspired, and seeing a horizon to my writing passion. What I don’t want to happen is to get this creativity burned out under the (unnecessary) pressure of setting deadlines and target metrics. On Substack I‘m still pretty new, but I guess getting closer to an idea of what my blog could offer. I write lit fiction, mind you, and based in Europe. A bit of an outsider if I look around here. Thanks for setting up this discussion threads!
As a writer living in Israel, I often find myself outside North American discussions. But Ive also found plenty in common with the writers in this space.
I love it for the writing process. I find it intuitive. I can color code each scene based on POV character, easily move scenes around, etc. But I haven't tried to format a book for publication and I understand that is the big learning curve for Scrivener. I've heard that Vellum is easier for formatting so I'll likely invest in it when I am ready.
There is a long learning curve but once you figure it out it is not that bad. I used Scrivener for my book and published both an EBook and a Paperback using only Scrivener.
I love Scrivener, but I feel it should come with a warning label. It is so different from things like Word and Google Docs that it can be intimidating. There is absolutely a learning curve. It's not hard to use - it's just a paradigm shift that takes some time to understand. If you get it, prepare to go through the tutorial, watch a YouTube video, or buy a book to work through how the "binder" works and so forth. Once it "clicks" it is so easy, but it takes a little time to get it.
And trust me, it's totally worth the investment of time to figure it out because it is so much easier to use for long writing than anything else.
I use Pages. It's just a blank sheet of paper--oaky, screen. I don't need much more than that. It might seem archaic to some, but it seems to work for me. I always have a piece of paper, or a notebook in case I come up with an idea I want to add. But usually I'll just add a note at the end of whatever page I'm working on so I know where the story's going. I'm really an old dinosaur when it comes to writing. I used to do it all by hand, and then I got a typewriter. I thought getting a computer with a word processing program was the cat's meow. I mean, I can back-space and delete, use "italics", or "Bold", move huge blocks of words around, and not get too distracted with all the bells and whistles. I guess you could say I'm a man of simple needs.
I reserve the first few hours after breakfast and COFFEEE for writing. The important thing is to write when my energy is high, resolutely resisting all other demands on my time. I schedule everything I can for the afternoons. (Question: why does doing laundry seem so seductive when I should be working on my fiction? Is it Nefarious Procrastination? Nah...cant be.)
Another thing is writing down my thoughts as soon as I can, after an incident or experience. I try to grab the impressions while they're still fresh.
Finally, It's important to remind myself that what I'm writing matters.
I recently bought one of those flip-able Pomodoro timers. I love it so much I'm buying a third. One for Day Job desk, one for the writing desk and one to roam. LOL! My diminished attention span makes a game of beating that clock.
My routine is every morning for an hour and then edit at night after work. My big win is finally getting my first book formatted and ready to publish on Amazon and IngramSpark! Small win is meeting so many awesome folks here on Substack :)
Of course! I'll write up a thing for it soon. It's fairly easy, but the main step is purchasing ISBNs. During the set up phase on both IngramSpark and Amazon, instead of using their free ones, you input the ones you've designated for your physical and eBook versions. That way it's not registering as two different books on Amazon. But the cover process is so much better on KDP. I was kind of frustrated with the IngramSpark UI. So I recommend setting everything up on KDP first and then going back to set up on Ingram, or simultaneously so you can copy paste things into each one.
Thanks! So Amazon is not stocking their inventory with books they get from IngramSpark? It's two different productions, but they happen to use the same ISBNs you got from Bowker?
It's interesting how many different ways there are to do it. One of the authors at the author fair mentioned paying to be in some sort of program for IngramSpark, and Amazon then ordered books from them at a discounted rate. He also said at one point he sent them to Amazon to stock, but then he had to foot the cost basically to ship them twice.
That sounds horrifying. Hmmm. Let me get it completely finalized over the next week before I spread false info. They did ask if I wanted to accept returns. Which costs money since they ship them back to you. But I don’t expect bookstores to buy this book in bulk. I’m not too worried about that.
I write almost every day. I use Scrivener to write my stuff and "compile" into Word quite often. I am part of a critique group at the Pearl Buck Foundation. We meet monthly on Zoom. This forces me to have someting of reasonable quality as I do not want to have a bunch of people reading complete junk and wasting their valuable time.
I’ve been posting two books of mine for paying subscribers, a thriller prison novel, and my NYC Covid 2020 ‘fictional memoir.’ A few recent posts are free to hook readers in. But I confess I haven’t been writing any new fiction lately; it’s all been nonfiction diary entries on my other stack about my dad’s final days with his cancer battle.
It helps me to have a rigid routine. I’m at my desk by 9 am and write until lunch, take a break, then either write or do adjacent work (emails, etc) until dinner time. I like to walk in the mornings before I write to clear my head.
One of the biggest, most influential wins of my writing career was when I was in 7th grade. I submitted a Dave Barry-inspired humor column to the school newspaper. Usually, only upperclassmen (9th grade and up) were given regular columns, but Mr. LaChiusa took a chance on me, because he liked my writing so much. It was a confirmation I was on the right track and I’ll always be grateful to him. The column was well received, though I bet it’d make me cringe hard looking at it today!
I'm taking care of a newborn and two little guys, plus working so my writing routine lately is on my phone in google docs when i'm out and about and then in a furious flash in the two hours after their bedtime before i then have to go to bed haha
I wish I could say I have a writing routine. But with all the things I have to do, it's hard for any day to have a routine of any sort (plus I am easily distractable). What I do like to do is try to get some writing done in the evenings, usually after midnight. Right now I am in revision hell so it's sometimes hard to get motivated, plus I have to write a lot for work so that also can get in the way. I do like to participate in writing prompt parties (both here on Fictionistas and through Stop Writing Alone (https://stopwritingalone.substack.com/) because that ensures I keep writing new fiction at least a couple times a month.
I'm mostly an evening writer as well, but primarily through necessity. However, once my kids are out of school and I don't have to drive my son in the morning, I'm going to wake up early and write. I don't know what happened, but lately I've been feeling very morning motivated. Definitely not like me!
I got addicted to chess.com during covid. Now, when I sit down to write it's a struggle to not click on the chess.com icon and play chess instead of what I intended to sit down at the computer for. I can't tell you how much writing time has been translated to online chess. It makes me wonder if I should go old school and write longhand so that there is no viable way I can feed the temptation of play instead of work. But then again, I grew up composing on a keyboard and longhand is so slow I can't keep up with my thoughts as I write. Or maybe that's just a cop out too. Thoughts? Others have a similar story?
Distraction is real, I definitely understand that one. I've broken my writing time into blocks, essentially telling myself to write for "x" minutes, then take a break, and then write for another "x" amount of minutes. The trick has been always go with a smaller increment of time than before, so 50 minutes, then 40 minutes, then 30, for example, with a break in-between - maybe a game of chess would fit in well as a break? I've found coming back from the break to do more writing is easier because I can tell myself it's a shorter period of time than what I've already finished doing.
Right. Sounds like a system that could work. The only weakness is that chess is like a lays potato chip for me, I can't play just one! But that's on me. I should be able to will that one into being.
I’m going to weigh in on the question of routine. In recent weeks I’ve been waking at 5am and, if I’m bursting with ideas, I grab some cereal and write - either pouring these ideas into an app I use (Story plotter) or if it moves on my novel I put them into Word. If I’m not ready, I’ll pick up a writing prompt and get my brain and fingers writing a stream of consciousness for 100-300 words. These early mornings are my most productive tbh.
I then find one or two hour slots in the day to be disciplined. These normally add up to three or four hours.
My biggest "win" is the fact that I've actually put out 133 posts since I've started. I write long fiction, so I break the stories into sections that I put out once a week. And I'm also writing a new serial novel. I have 7 short stories that make up 37 posts. I have my first serial novel that has 37 posts as well. My Scribbles, a sort of journal I write once in a while, has 28 posts. I would've never thought, going into this, that I'd have that many posts, or that I'd have 170 followers after a year, so I think I'm doing okay. I could use a few more readers. I mean, it looks like I'm not going to get my 200 readers goal by June 2, but hey, don't sweat the small stuff.
My writing routine involves writing down random thoughts into a semi-organized Notes file. I will go through the file to see what relates or what are just one-liners. The ones that relate turn into an essay or a series or a short-form post. The one-liners are just that. They turn into Notes or Instagram posts I compile into a monthly Miscellaneous Nonsense post.
This helps me avoid writers block and keeps me posting 3-4 times a week.
But, my writing routine is "Write in between everything else." Which means I write in-between work, I write scenes, outlines or dialogue on my phone, I write on the...uh...throne. Basically it's kinda random and thus is not a routine at all lol.
My biggest writing win? The fact that I'm still writing my novel and loving it. When I was younger, I always got bored, lost interest and just never finished any creative endeavour I started. With this one, I'm well on my way to finishing it which is a major win for me.
A contrarian approach for me to answer What does your writing routine look like? I do write everyday, but I recently found out, when at my girlfriends house, was that as she did things around the house I brought my laptop to the kitchen table and started writing. I'm not sure if it was because she was keeping herself busy, but somehow it motivated me to continue to write. I was waiting for her to ask me to help with something or start talking to me, so in a way I was under a little pressure. I was surprised because I wrote fast and got more than I would've thought done.
Hello! Since I am a bit shy, I'll use one of the discussion starters: What does your writing routine look like?
Personally, I do not have much of a routine when it comes to writing, which may be why I never finish any of my novels. By serialising my work monthly on Substack, I hope to build a good routine, but I'd like to hear from others as well!
Your plan to serialize is great! so many riders get hung up on not starting or writing anything.
Are used to have a more strict writing routine, but now I usually answer emails, look for jobs (I’m on the hunt!) and then switch to writing. My only plan is to write into my brain is mush lol.
Haha, sometimes I write so much at once that it's all I can think about for days. Not sure if my brain has turned to mush yet though...
I don't have a consistent writing routine, but sometimes I go to a coffee shop to write. I find the inherent deadlines that come with serializing on a schedule to be useful for getting it done. Have a bit of an aversion to strict schedules like 'write for x time,' feels too much like school.
I like to go to cafés to write sometimes too. Going out to another place just to write feels a lot more motivating than, say, staying home.
I am going to have to try the coffee shop idea.
Rewriting chapters on substack was a good way to proof the word doc one more time, and give me a place to have a copy of the chapters so there was redundancy against total loss due to unexpected failures elsewhere or accidental deletion due to user error. I just self published the novel I serialized here: https://www.amazon.com/F-U-KiD-Ted-Rorschalk/dp/B0BH2DQYDN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31JWBLHRI8L18&keywords=the+fu+kid+ted+rorschalk&qid=1685470048&sprefix=%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-1
I agree being too strict is no fun. I didn't like school.
I once wrote an newspaper article about coffee shop writers. A young mother getting a degree in engineering said she needed to be away from the cooking and laundry at home. Another student said his apartment mates were noisy and untidy. A social worker going over notes said she preferred to meet people for the first time in a cafe. Most found a cafe a safe environment with enough mild buzz around for stimulation, but not distraction.
Me, I go to cafes to people-watch. Have gotten some story ideas doing that.
I keep track of how much I write (word count). That has helped me be more aware of my productivity, set writing goals, and be a more active writer.
Currently my writing routine involves writing one 100 word story every single day. As long as I do that then I consider the day of writing a win. It will take me, on average, about 15min to accomplish this. So I spend at least 15min per day on my fiction writing and the rest is devoted to life and work. That 15min can be in the morning, afternoon, sometimes at night before bed. It can happen on my phone, my laptop, or sitting at my desk. The when is all over the place but as long as it happens is all that matters.
That's a nice routine. Do you write short stories, or do you add 100 words to something everyday?
I strictly write a complete 100 word story daily. I also write short stories but at the moment I'm only sharing my daily 100 word stories on my Substack.
I like your work, and I think it's cool that you keep a daily commitment to this. Just subscribed!
My advice would be to develop a writing habit. A common example is to write everyday a certain amount of time. But the important part isn't so much the amount or even the 'everyday' part as the consistency. It could be once a week or even once a month, but whatever you do, stick with it. And if you can always write at the same time, that should help too.
Setting yourself deadlines can also help a lot, which is why serializing might indeed do the trick.
And also, I'd recommend keeping track of your word counts. Every time you sit down for a session, write down the time you start. When you're done, write the end time and the amount of words you did. Then you can see your progress (and speed) more clearly and can set yourself goals (like, today I want to do 500 words). If you don't meet them, that's fine, it'll just motivate you to do better the next time ;)
A spreadsheet will give best results for this.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Yep: get the habit into the bloodstream 🩸
Yeah, I do something like that too. I set goals to right x amount of words by the end of every month, but I'm not too faithful to that goal.
Then try with smaller goals, that might work better. Once you have that writing habit, you can increase your goals and you'll find they become easier to meet.
I am taking the same serial approach. Check out https://scottocamb.substack.com/p/vision-quest if you are interested. You work looks interesting, I just subscribed.
Your work looks great too! Thanks for the support, and I just subscribed back.
The most important thing is sitting down to do the work. Whether you have a specific routine or not, finding time to sit down and write is the most important thing.
I don't have a writing routine and never really did, and so I write anywhere and everywhere as long as I have my laptop. Though I also have friends who write on their phones and have completed entire novels this way.
I did have a 1000 (later 1250) word goal everyday. I aimed for this for 5 years and while I didn't hit it everyday I did write over 1 million words by the end of it. The routine enabled me to write fiction on demand, plus I made certain to finish things (even when I wasn't enjoying it, which I think is inevitable in any creative endeavour). There will be times when you hate it and times when you love it, you have to continue on just the same in either feeling.
This year I have altered my tact a little and now only write for what I need to (short stories on Tuesday's and Thursday's plus a couple of novel length projects (unpublished)). I write fewer total words but I edit a lot more, making sure to embed myself in every story and really aim to hit the right tone each time. All I would recommend is consistency, routine, habit, whatever, just write regularly.
My biggest writing win this month has to be having an article featured in The Writer magazine and the headline on the cover! “Writing in the Twilight Zone
Curio Fiction: What it is and how to write it.”
I’m still geeking out! It’s available digitally now and should hit newsstands in a couple weeks! This is my first time being a freelance writer and how it came about is just as crazy.
Congratulations! That's super exciting!
Yes, good for you. Congratulate yourself and keep going.
Congrats!! 🎉
Congratulations, Erica!
Great news!
Hey Fictionistas! Thanks for these discussion ideas, Probably the best input I can give for any writer's routine is simply a link to some more writing retreat opportunities, in the US and worldwide.
The Res Artis site (link below) had many retreat search filters by date, place, etc and often has some really interesting and otherwise hard to find retreats and events. I don't know them personally, but I gather that they collect from a wide variety of independent organizations and events. So if you'd like to get out of the house to combine writing and travel, you might find something here.
https://resartis.org/open-calls/
My routine is to get up at 3am. My brain sometimes takes another 45 minutes of tea before functioning, but at least I get a good chunk of time in before the Day Job. I need to keep working on efficiency though. Time does not always = productivity. Sigh.
LOL! Those pee breaks... Sounds familiar after a pot of PG Tips.
Wow, that's commitment! I would probably fall asleep in my coffee at that time of morning. No amount of caffeine could wake me. 😂
By the time I start the Day Job, I've usually had a gallon of hot tea. Then I pour another pot. Get's me though. That and I fall asleep by 8pm.
I'm not getting up at 3am, even if I'm awake. Just never going to happen.
I need to know what time you go to bed to understand the cost / benefit ratio.
As I noted above, I am asleep by 8pm-ish. That gives me about 7 hours of sleep. More than 7 and I feel worse than if I am slightly sleep deprived. The cost/benefit ratio is that, it's that early or never. I developed this habit while taking care of aging parents. If I waited until the end of the day, I was too exhausted. Now the key is to make myself focus and not just surf around while getting the tea to my brain. There's no point getting up that early to waste it.
Sorry, I missed that; I was too stuck on 3am. 😁
At least you're getting a decent amount of sleep.
LOL! I know. "3am" would have been a shock to me in the past.
I was worried about your sanity, stemming from sleep deprivation. 😂
Mostly I have trouble contemplating being productive and creative at that time of day, but I know people who do it.
I would definitely get up at 3am if there was a fire, not just a practice drill.
It's interesting how easy it is to adapt to weird habits quickly, and how hard it is to break them when a need has passed.
After my Mum died, I still woke up multiple times a night, nearly hourly, for more than a year. Other times work has required absurd stretches without sleep, and I'd continue to live like a vampire instead of sleeping like a normal person.
Long ago, I was a night owl. Then I lived in Southeast Asia with the neighborhood mosques calling out the times of prayer, starting around 4am. That was the beginning of resetting my body clock. Now I capitalize on it. My Mom passed in October, (unexpectedly - 34 days from diagnosis) - I still jump when the phone rings. I had my Dad on a video monitor and automatically woke up to check it about every hour to be sure he hadn't tried to get up and fallen... It takes a while to shake these things loose!
As someone who gets up at 5am I am "in bed" by 6:30pm every night. It's when our son goes to bed. We are up while in bed till about 10pm. But most nights we're lucky if we can last till 830pm before we're passed out! Usually I'm the last one to go to bed so I'll stay up a few hours longer to do some more writing on my phone and try to get to bed by midnight. 5hrs of sleep is MORE than enough time for me.
You'll be adjusting to a whole different sleep cycle when the teenage years roll around. 😁
Have you seen Mark Wahlberg's schedule? He goes to bed at 7:30pm and gets up at 2:30am.
I'm not sure what the benefits there are for him, other than being up when very few others are.
I've read about that in the past. He has a whole rigid routine. It can't be that he sticks to that all year around, eg, when working or traveling. It's still odd, given he has the luxury of wealth and staff, he doesn't need to keep those hours just to get a bit of me time.
Brandon Sanderson's routine involves getting up at 1pm. He writes and plays online games during the night. That's one way to get out of school drop off duties.
Hah! Didn't know that about Sanderson.
I do that a lot lately as well. I figure I'm awake, might as well work on my laptop while in bed than waste time scrolling on my phone. So I will get a lot done from 5am - 7:30am when the whole house starts to get up.
Hey, you’re me, just me an hour earlier! :D
I have a day job, too—so its all early mornings and weekends to write.
Call us obsessed but, we do what we must! LOL!
Absolutely. I’m treating writing as my retirement plan, so definitely gotta stick to this schedule! :D
I've recently retired. When I worked, I got up at 3:30 in the am to do my writing so I could be at work by 6:00 am start time. But I went to bed late, 10:00, sometimes 11:00, depending on how involved I was with whatever I was doing. Now that I'm retired, I get up at around 6:00'ish--although I slept in today. But now I'm up until 1:00 in the morning. 5 hours is enough time for sleep, although I'm trying to sleep longer. But I get distracted by looking through my inbox and trying to stay ahead of the game. It's starting to feel like whatever I'm working on is a distraction from all the media overload.
Interesting. After retirement you can definitely do as you please, as long as you’re making progress on the writing, ha.
Sometimes I just put my laptop and phone on Airplane mode when I write, just to stop all the notifications. That gives me a nice bit of peace, especially if I’m writing during the day. Try something like that, maybe?
I think I write myself into little corners and try to think of a way out, but in the back of my head I know that I have three or four weeks before that particular section has to go up, so I can dog it if I want. I can write 100 words if I want, or even 1000.
Admirable ❤️❤️
3am is damn impressive. I try to go for 5am if I can manage it, which gives me a good 1.5hrs or so before I need to start moving and get on with the day.
That's excellent. As I've said, my 3am rise does not always result in productivity. For me, getting up is the easy part. Really getting started is what takes the discipline.
Small win of sorts: My current serial fiction has an odd framing device where I treat it like the walkthrough (with script) of a fighting game, to help sell that I put together a lengthy post of win quotes for each character when facing a specific other character. It was quite the undertaking to do in addition to writing each chapter, since it required writing 196 lines of dialogue that are each supposed to stand alone. Nice to know I'm able to pull off extras like this.
Has anyone been playing around with the Substack feature for hidden posts? Want to try messing with it myself. Or just any unusual formatting for fiction that Substack has helped enable.
I'll have to be dumb and ask what hidden posts are?
I haven't seen them used much, but I recall a Substack announcement that now you could set posts so that they could only be seen with a link, not even accessible from the archives. Which had some brief discussion about using it for things like Choose Your Own Adventure type stories. Very niche feature so I'm not entirely sure how to use it myself.
How curious! Definitely niche.
My small win is that I've published 3 short stories on substack, and a few folk have actually read them 🙂. Trying for weekly on my non fiction and maybe monthly on short fiction. Started a novel years ago but it's been sitting for at least 12 years because life. Maybe I'll dust it off when I get back into things...😉
amazing!
Hey Beverly send in my way, if you can I will scroll a read, I am casually plugging myself here. https://kallolpoetry.substack.com/p/deepening-school-love-story
https://www.my-freedoms-wings.com/ for non fiction, https://mydragonswings.substack.com/ for fiction.
Take a look at mine? https://open.substack.com/pub/benwoestenburg/p/the-evil-that-men-do?r=254e8w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Awesome. Congrats. Having your work read is an incredible feeling.
I have a question about finding readers. Have any of you found success in online communities or other methods in connection with an audience more closely? How has that worked or not worked for you?
They're not what I'd call communities exactly , but places like Inbox Reads and similar have been pretty good for finding readers. As for actual communities like LinkedIn and Twitter, etc. I've had pretty much zip from those zones. I tried them for a while, but haven't even been logged in there for quite some time.
so interesting! i know Twitter is kind of a dead space now, what with the anti-substack stance.
Not really. Other platforms might produce clicks to your page, but no much else. Substack has been the biggest draw so far, but sadly, it’s all just other writers—hardly any pure readers.
This is the question: how to attract readers for our own fiction niche? Drawing in writers is cool - we like to hang out with each other. But how to find readers? $64,000,000,000.00 question.
I know, right!?
Ha, it just feels like we’re writing for other writers to come pat our backs, ha.
At least writers are readers too. But we need more, more, more!
if only we could all be Brandon Sanderson *sigh*
hahaha.... yeah...
I stick solely to Substack and I’ve built up a good following of both free and paid
I tend to follow suit. Twitter does nothing for writers. I've had 1 subscriber from Twitter. Substack brings in 90% of my readers. Why bother with all the others? I still do, but it's just to get it out there with the hopes of picking up one more reader.
that’s wildly awesome!
My wins are that I've published three short stories in gay literary journals, self-published a memoir, and "published" my novel on Substack. Just continuing the search for a new agent now.
Nice work 💪
Thanks. And yet it all feels underwhelming, because I'd really like to get my novel published by a major house, meaning that I'll need to get an agent, which appears to be nearly impossible. Argghh.
Not a giant "win" and I actually don't think about wins that much, but I just published my 33rd story here on Substack and that's been a lot of fun.
I don't have a routine exactly. Sometimes, it's 11pm. Midnight. Sometimes, it's 5am, sometimes (not too often), it's 3am. My schedule varies quite a bit because I sleep when I'm tired and get up when I'm not. Not conducive to a real job I know, but fortunately I don't have one of those.
Thanks
This is unrelated to the three questions, but I’m wondering who in this community would be down to have a “tag” or “mention” system to workshop stories? For instance, one of us posts a new story or chapter, mentions/tags people from the community in the post or in Notes, and then people can comment on what worked, what didn’t, and what questions arose.
I think this would be a good way to for us to workshop while getting our stories out there. And I’m sure many of us would be happy if someone we mentioned/tagged, cross-posted the story to get more people involved in the feedback. I realize this wouldn’t work for all stories, especially first drafts, but for later drafts that we’re comfortable sharing with the public.
Hi Nolan, this has been brought up in the community before, and there is a behind-the-scenes thread bringing it up again. We definitely recognize the value, especially for new writers getting started (or just started on Substack), and I think it's come down to kickstarting the process and someone managing it. Do you think it would make it easier or harder if we facilitated that through some sort of monthly discussion thread where you could post the link to your story and ask for feedback? Or would you find it better to kickstart some feedback process through the use of mentions directly from your story? How might you choose the individuals to mention and ask?
hi there! I think personally, I'd love to have a discussion thread where I could share the link to my story. I'm relatively new to fictionistas so I don't know if I'd have anyone specific to tag in my stories, plus I'd love to get input/editing advice from any user who takes the time to read my stories!
I personally see more value in a tag/mention system because it would help to get stories out there and possibly entice more feedback. A tag/mention system would allow people to choose the stories to which they know their feedback can add value.
To kick start it, I think a post from Fictionistas asking who is interested would help. Everyone who wants to partake can comment “I’m in”. That way, we can all see who is willing to be mentioned in a post and contribute. I also think it’s important people mention Fictionistas every time to grow the Fictionistas community.
But these are just some ideas! I might be overlooking something.
Thank you for your feedback!
My writing routine has been a bit of a mess lately. I don't write every day, which is normal, but what I try to do is write intentionally. If I have an essay or short story, I will focus on that for several days, write it, edit and then schedule for posting. Then I won't really write again until I have something I know I want to write. However, lately the intention is getting harder. I find myself writing a couple paragraphs, getting distracted and it's taking longer. I'm doing a lot of context switching these days, spread too thin, etc., and I'm hoping to rein myself in and be more disciplined.
"bit of a mess" I can relate.
Picturesque - a mess on it's way to creation.
My Drafts area in Substack always has about 6 things I’ve started and not finished. Then I’ll just start something else, finish that, and leave the old stuff I’ve lost interest in sitting there hoping the interest will return to finish it. I really need to give myself a blank slate. But for whatever reason I can’t seem to bring myself to abandon the old stuff. Even if they might even be outdated. Ugh, the struggle is real!
I set a stop watch to keep me from distractions. Even 20 minutes helps.
Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to have to force some focus like that. Thirty minutes, no phone, writing in solitude, enough to jump start a longer session.
Good luck with that. The most extended I have reached is 45 minutes.
My win is both a writing and a small substack win. I do a daily post, where most of my audience I brought with me from facebook, and a mostly promotional newsletter that I brought over from mail chimp. I have done a good job of keeping these subscribers, but not growing them. This month I started putting a short story in my mystery series up as I write it, scene by scene in the daily newsletter. (will publish as ebook once done.) And this has increased opening clicks a bit, but most successful, is that I mentioned that I was doing this in my monthly newsletter and about 50 of these subscribers came over and subscribed to the daily newsletter, which was my first spurt of growth since I started a year ago. So I saw this as a win (both as a way to get my short stories out but also increase engagement.)
Hi from Chicago! I generally try to write in the mornings, but it can vary. I work for the Chicago Cubs during the baseball season and work mainly the days games. My typical writing time on a game day obviously won't happen. I do try to bang out at least 100 words when I get home. Said wordage might not see the light of day beyond what's on my laptop, but it's something.
I'm fairly new to this 'I'm a writer' thing, so my big win so far is realizing/coming up with goals for me over the next year or two. I'm looking into taking some sort of online writing course (I REALLY like UCSD's course, I think it'd be a good "fit", but it's a tad out of my price range.) and I'd love to be able to go to one of those writing conferences I see advertised in the writing magazines I subscribe to.
So far I've written a couple of short stories, one flash fiction story, working on two books that both originally started out as NaNoWriMo entries and when the mood strikes, I do 100 word prompts.
Thanks for the advice, I was thinking of an online course to....well to quote a U2 song
"The sea throws rock together but time leaves us polished stones". I guess I just think my writing could use some polishing up. If I go that route, it wouldn't be until the off season, as that will be when I have the most free time.
The conferences are really still just a 'something I might like to do' or explore, but it wouldn't be until next year. A lot can happen in that time.
Thanks again!
I pesonally think that one of the best ways to become a writer is to awrite a lot when you write but not necessaily every day. KEEP A NOTEBOOK OR EVEN PAPER with you at ALL times in caseyour imagination starts blooming, even if it is only a bit of conversation, image etc.
There is another way. to learn about writing that I seldom see mentioned. READ WRITERS. Study their sentences, paragraph,chapters, dialogues. I'm staunchlyorhere to say that over the years I have learned more about l than any college class , wprkshop, prompt etc, Ive ever taken. Ive alaso been fortunate to have been in several writing groups of writers close to my politcal outlook and aesthetic sensibilty. BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT MORE AND MOreRE, wriiiters aretaing wrting workshops, going going going to this reading that reading,that lecture, this open mike but I HARDLY EVER SEE ANY WORK!!!!
When I was eighteen going on 19, I went to Antioch College. It had one of the nation's first work-study proggrams where you study for three months. work for three months, RETURN AND STUDY FOR 6MONTHS.
My shift for most of the time was from 8pm til 4am.
I knew no one in Washington dc. I was a copy "boy" for the Washington Post in the spring and summer of 1964. I wanted to see iif I wanted to be a journalist and found out ally" b;d;;s'''''''very quickly thatI I didnt.
In the course of those six months three civil rights workers were murdered by racists in Mississipi. The Vietnam War "offcially: started although we'd had "operatves" there two decades/
It was a time of growing protest and growing cultural changes . But I I wantedd to simply read some of the MasterpeicesoftheCanon and
and add writers I was readng .
So for six months I read almost maniaclly and STUDIED THE WRITERS WITH MY OWN YOUNG MAN]s practice. I read the main novels of Virgina Wolfe, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthoouse, and Jacob's Room. I circled favorite sentences, dialogues, and the switches in the streams consciousness, a form I Love because it is so difficult. I did the same with Faulkner's big four: The Sound And The lk
this is a continuation of the above. I studied Faulkner's "big four" - The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light In August, and Absalom, Absalom. I particularly dove into The Sound And The Fury. And I think Ilearned more about writing than any ten writing workshops, poetry readng, lecture; than anything connnected with writing nowadays where you can spend one year going to workshops doing prompts and "collaborations , it is almost nothing. I should add that it was one of the most exhilratng times of my lilfe. I also read Ulysses and all of Finnegans Wake ( every word - my only "mistake" was not reading it aloud!
\
Hey whatever works
I admire those who are able to write in a disciplined way, but alas I've tried and failed. Today I'm calling my routine 'bubble writing' (did I just coin a term?). Ideas bubble up and I write them down. The big bubbles turn out to be the best. They are full of passion, creativity and are self-motivating. Sure, they pop big when they hit the surface and some smell funky at first, but I'm onto my third book with my bubble writing non-routine.
My 'win' is being halfway through (24 chapters) posting the entirety of my first book on Substack. Please check it out!
https://substack.com/@finlaybeach
Bubble writing. Nice. Maybe the term will catch on. 👍
I rarely check in, but wish you well on your projects. This is a book promotion year for me. My goals, increase sales & make money to publish the next novel.
👏👏
Hey, my first comment. I hope you'll indulge me with the following question: how do you tackle the first big review and edit for a longer writing project. Here's the context: almost five years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo. I have an idea for a SF novel (possibly a trilogy) where I developed some back story, characters and some general plot ideas before the start, so I had some (not a lot) but some world building in place. I powered through, focusing on hitting the word count and probably generated a lot of filler/stuff to be cut. I also used the technical that Frederik Pohl used in Gateway: interspersing other bits of color and backstory in between chapters or sections of the novel in progress. I purposely wrote a bunch of crappy stuff at times in order to keep the flow going. In the end, I feel like I've written maybe one third of a novel, so a decent start.
Now the problem: I'm faced with a huge amount of material to sort through, review, edit, cull and possible rework. A really zero level draft or shitty first draft hides in a binder, taunting me.
So my question: is there a recommended or often useful way to take a jumbled up manuscript in progress and try to turn it into something readable?
It's almost been five years and I'd like to get back onto this novel and finish it some day but I kind of feel paralyzed.
Thanks.
That's a tough one, Mark, but thanks for bringing the question to the Fictionistas community! I'm sure there's a number of ways to tackle it, but one idea I had was to finish the novel's story, making sure you have both a solid start (1-2 chapters) and solid finish (1-2 chapters), even if it still falls short of a complete novel. You didn't mention what third of the novel has been drafted, but at that point you could say the first pass is done. After that (or as an alternative) it might make more sense to start from the beginning at chapter one, copy/paste little snippets you want to keep and start writing.
I recognize it's more of a mental thing, but I wouldn't look at it as writing your second draft or writing a novel. For me personally it's less overwhelming to say I'm going to finish a scene, or write a couple pages a day. That at least kickstarts the process and gets you back into the story you're crafting. Hope that helps!
Hi Brian, thanks for the suggestions!
If you set a goal for writing a page a day, that 365 pages. If you write 1000 words a day, five days a week, before you do anything else, at the end of a week you'll have twenty pages-a chapter. If you do it first thing in the morning, then you won't get distracted by all the things that tempt you not to write. If you can type (I use three fingers and a thumb!) 1000 words is doable.
Do you use a writing tool beyond Word. If you imported your manuscript into a tool like Scrivener, you could "tag" scenes in various ways and prune and move things around easily. I use Scrivener and love it. BUT, there is a significant learning curve. There is a one time cost of $60 and they have a very good full featured demo version. Here is a link if you are interested. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/
Scrivener is the best writing software I have ever used, hands down.
I agree! I find little nuggets often. I am a retired software developer and I am amazed what the have done. And it costs sixty bucks, and no subscription fees.
Hi Scott, I've heard many recommendations of Scrivener but have never tried it yet, thanks for the link!
Mark, Scrivener would definitely help you out. The demo version is actually quite unique. It is full featured and gives you 30 day OF USE, not clock time. For example if you activate the demo om 6/1 and use it for two days and stop using it for two weeks. when you come back, you still have 28 days of demo left.
Good luck.
i've written many NaNoWriMo novels. The best advice I have is to sit back and think about what your novel is about, what the main storyline is, what your protagonist's goals and needs are, etc. and try to build some scaffolding. A loose story structure, as it were. Then take when you have and figure out where it fits on the scaffolding (if at all - you have to be willing to be ruthless). From there, you should have at least an idea of where to go from there. If you have a general idea of an ending, that's helpful but not necessary. In other words, build yourself a roadmap for what the novel might look like when it's done, and start filling in the spaces with what you already have and start writing what you don't.
routine? mornings
win? getting to work with Anton Bogaty on this, which is not exactly fiction but highly troperiffic
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/at-what-moment-are-you-dead-randall-hayes
👍
My writing routine is pretty straightforward—write when I feel like :P
I have a day job, so I usually get up at 4am to write, or weekends. I’ve made significant progress on my fantasy novel this way. But I don’t write daily at all.
4am!!!??
Michael....that's sleeping in!
My writing week begins on Sunday continuing through Friday. I've found that after 3pm each day is best. I get maybe half of my story down on paper, then as I type it up, the rest of it comes together. Editing is an ongoing process up to publishing by Friday midday. I have two ongoing serialized fiction stories alternating with other fiction and non-fiction pieces.. A big win for me - my Stack is growing and I'm almost 50 stories in. I suspect the bigger win is that on Substack, I've come across authors of stories who inspire me and make me sit back and say - "Wow, that's good! How do they do that?".
Awesome James!! 👍👍
Two serialized stories? Whoa! Well done!!
Thank you, Ben! One of the stories was already completed and one is ongoing.
I also write in the morning, between 7 and 8 roughly. But I also keep one day a week, usu Sundays, writing-free. I just recently started writing regularly, feeling inspired, and seeing a horizon to my writing passion. What I don’t want to happen is to get this creativity burned out under the (unnecessary) pressure of setting deadlines and target metrics. On Substack I‘m still pretty new, but I guess getting closer to an idea of what my blog could offer. I write lit fiction, mind you, and based in Europe. A bit of an outsider if I look around here. Thanks for setting up this discussion threads!
As a writer living in Israel, I often find myself outside North American discussions. But Ive also found plenty in common with the writers in this space.
Welcome 🙏
I have a question:
What software/app do you guys write on?
Scrivener for me.
How do you like it? I’ve heard a lot about it, but never used it before.
I love it for the writing process. I find it intuitive. I can color code each scene based on POV character, easily move scenes around, etc. But I haven't tried to format a book for publication and I understand that is the big learning curve for Scrivener. I've heard that Vellum is easier for formatting so I'll likely invest in it when I am ready.
There is a long learning curve but once you figure it out it is not that bad. I used Scrivener for my book and published both an EBook and a Paperback using only Scrivener.
Oh, Vellum is pretty expensive, right?
I'm not sure of the current price. I just suspect it will be cheaper than bashing my head on the desk for days on end. Hah. We'll see.
Me too.
I love Scrivener, but I feel it should come with a warning label. It is so different from things like Word and Google Docs that it can be intimidating. There is absolutely a learning curve. It's not hard to use - it's just a paradigm shift that takes some time to understand. If you get it, prepare to go through the tutorial, watch a YouTube video, or buy a book to work through how the "binder" works and so forth. Once it "clicks" it is so easy, but it takes a little time to get it.
And trust me, it's totally worth the investment of time to figure it out because it is so much easier to use for long writing than anything else.
I use Pages. It's just a blank sheet of paper--oaky, screen. I don't need much more than that. It might seem archaic to some, but it seems to work for me. I always have a piece of paper, or a notebook in case I come up with an idea I want to add. But usually I'll just add a note at the end of whatever page I'm working on so I know where the story's going. I'm really an old dinosaur when it comes to writing. I used to do it all by hand, and then I got a typewriter. I thought getting a computer with a word processing program was the cat's meow. I mean, I can back-space and delete, use "italics", or "Bold", move huge blocks of words around, and not get too distracted with all the bells and whistles. I guess you could say I'm a man of simple needs.
You’re right—sometimes you just need a tool that let’s you put words on a page. Nothing more, nothing less!
I reserve the first few hours after breakfast and COFFEEE for writing. The important thing is to write when my energy is high, resolutely resisting all other demands on my time. I schedule everything I can for the afternoons. (Question: why does doing laundry seem so seductive when I should be working on my fiction? Is it Nefarious Procrastination? Nah...cant be.)
Another thing is writing down my thoughts as soon as I can, after an incident or experience. I try to grab the impressions while they're still fresh.
Finally, It's important to remind myself that what I'm writing matters.
P.S. The Pomodoro method helps, a lot.
I recently bought one of those flip-able Pomodoro timers. I love it so much I'm buying a third. One for Day Job desk, one for the writing desk and one to roam. LOL! My diminished attention span makes a game of beating that clock.
Same here. Morning writing is ideal for me. Tea. Food. Walk dog. Write.
My routine is every morning for an hour and then edit at night after work. My big win is finally getting my first book formatted and ready to publish on Amazon and IngramSpark! Small win is meeting so many awesome folks here on Substack :)
Congrats Winston 🎊
Thank you, Michael!
I want to pick your brain about IngramSpark. I'm curious about how the relationship works getting those books over to Amazon.
Of course! I'll write up a thing for it soon. It's fairly easy, but the main step is purchasing ISBNs. During the set up phase on both IngramSpark and Amazon, instead of using their free ones, you input the ones you've designated for your physical and eBook versions. That way it's not registering as two different books on Amazon. But the cover process is so much better on KDP. I was kind of frustrated with the IngramSpark UI. So I recommend setting everything up on KDP first and then going back to set up on Ingram, or simultaneously so you can copy paste things into each one.
Thanks! So Amazon is not stocking their inventory with books they get from IngramSpark? It's two different productions, but they happen to use the same ISBNs you got from Bowker?
Exactly!
It's interesting how many different ways there are to do it. One of the authors at the author fair mentioned paying to be in some sort of program for IngramSpark, and Amazon then ordered books from them at a discounted rate. He also said at one point he sent them to Amazon to stock, but then he had to foot the cost basically to ship them twice.
That sounds horrifying. Hmmm. Let me get it completely finalized over the next week before I spread false info. They did ask if I wanted to accept returns. Which costs money since they ship them back to you. But I don’t expect bookstores to buy this book in bulk. I’m not too worried about that.
Way to go Winston!
Thanks, Ben!
I write almost every day. I use Scrivener to write my stuff and "compile" into Word quite often. I am part of a critique group at the Pearl Buck Foundation. We meet monthly on Zoom. This forces me to have someting of reasonable quality as I do not want to have a bunch of people reading complete junk and wasting their valuable time.
My small win was to write my first story for the Fictionistas prompt. Here it is if anyone is interested: https://scottocamb.substack.com/p/where-am-i
👍👍
I’ve been posting two books of mine for paying subscribers, a thriller prison novel, and my NYC Covid 2020 ‘fictional memoir.’ A few recent posts are free to hook readers in. But I confess I haven’t been writing any new fiction lately; it’s all been nonfiction diary entries on my other stack about my dad’s final days with his cancer battle.
Here’s the fictional memoir:
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/two-years-in-new-york-michael-mohrs-87d
It helps me to have a rigid routine. I’m at my desk by 9 am and write until lunch, take a break, then either write or do adjacent work (emails, etc) until dinner time. I like to walk in the mornings before I write to clear my head.
One of the biggest, most influential wins of my writing career was when I was in 7th grade. I submitted a Dave Barry-inspired humor column to the school newspaper. Usually, only upperclassmen (9th grade and up) were given regular columns, but Mr. LaChiusa took a chance on me, because he liked my writing so much. It was a confirmation I was on the right track and I’ll always be grateful to him. The column was well received, though I bet it’d make me cringe hard looking at it today!
I'm taking care of a newborn and two little guys, plus working so my writing routine lately is on my phone in google docs when i'm out and about and then in a furious flash in the two hours after their bedtime before i then have to go to bed haha
That's some fantastic commitment, Meaghan! You're taking advantage of the time when you have it. ⭐⭐⭐
Thank you, Brian! Trying my best :)
I wish I could say I have a writing routine. But with all the things I have to do, it's hard for any day to have a routine of any sort (plus I am easily distractable). What I do like to do is try to get some writing done in the evenings, usually after midnight. Right now I am in revision hell so it's sometimes hard to get motivated, plus I have to write a lot for work so that also can get in the way. I do like to participate in writing prompt parties (both here on Fictionistas and through Stop Writing Alone (https://stopwritingalone.substack.com/) because that ensures I keep writing new fiction at least a couple times a month.
I'm mostly an evening writer as well, but primarily through necessity. However, once my kids are out of school and I don't have to drive my son in the morning, I'm going to wake up early and write. I don't know what happened, but lately I've been feeling very morning motivated. Definitely not like me!
Modern Problem when it comes to writing:
I got addicted to chess.com during covid. Now, when I sit down to write it's a struggle to not click on the chess.com icon and play chess instead of what I intended to sit down at the computer for. I can't tell you how much writing time has been translated to online chess. It makes me wonder if I should go old school and write longhand so that there is no viable way I can feed the temptation of play instead of work. But then again, I grew up composing on a keyboard and longhand is so slow I can't keep up with my thoughts as I write. Or maybe that's just a cop out too. Thoughts? Others have a similar story?
Distraction is real, I definitely understand that one. I've broken my writing time into blocks, essentially telling myself to write for "x" minutes, then take a break, and then write for another "x" amount of minutes. The trick has been always go with a smaller increment of time than before, so 50 minutes, then 40 minutes, then 30, for example, with a break in-between - maybe a game of chess would fit in well as a break? I've found coming back from the break to do more writing is easier because I can tell myself it's a shorter period of time than what I've already finished doing.
Right. Sounds like a system that could work. The only weakness is that chess is like a lays potato chip for me, I can't play just one! But that's on me. I should be able to will that one into being.
I’m going to weigh in on the question of routine. In recent weeks I’ve been waking at 5am and, if I’m bursting with ideas, I grab some cereal and write - either pouring these ideas into an app I use (Story plotter) or if it moves on my novel I put them into Word. If I’m not ready, I’ll pick up a writing prompt and get my brain and fingers writing a stream of consciousness for 100-300 words. These early mornings are my most productive tbh.
I then find one or two hour slots in the day to be disciplined. These normally add up to three or four hours.
My biggest "win" is the fact that I've actually put out 133 posts since I've started. I write long fiction, so I break the stories into sections that I put out once a week. And I'm also writing a new serial novel. I have 7 short stories that make up 37 posts. I have my first serial novel that has 37 posts as well. My Scribbles, a sort of journal I write once in a while, has 28 posts. I would've never thought, going into this, that I'd have that many posts, or that I'd have 170 followers after a year, so I think I'm doing okay. I could use a few more readers. I mean, it looks like I'm not going to get my 200 readers goal by June 2, but hey, don't sweat the small stuff.
My writing routine involves writing down random thoughts into a semi-organized Notes file. I will go through the file to see what relates or what are just one-liners. The ones that relate turn into an essay or a series or a short-form post. The one-liners are just that. They turn into Notes or Instagram posts I compile into a monthly Miscellaneous Nonsense post.
This helps me avoid writers block and keeps me posting 3-4 times a week.
Kinda late to the party here.
But, my writing routine is "Write in between everything else." Which means I write in-between work, I write scenes, outlines or dialogue on my phone, I write on the...uh...throne. Basically it's kinda random and thus is not a routine at all lol.
My biggest writing win? The fact that I'm still writing my novel and loving it. When I was younger, I always got bored, lost interest and just never finished any creative endeavour I started. With this one, I'm well on my way to finishing it which is a major win for me.
A contrarian approach for me to answer What does your writing routine look like? I do write everyday, but I recently found out, when at my girlfriends house, was that as she did things around the house I brought my laptop to the kitchen table and started writing. I'm not sure if it was because she was keeping herself busy, but somehow it motivated me to continue to write. I was waiting for her to ask me to help with something or start talking to me, so in a way I was under a little pressure. I was surprised because I wrote fast and got more than I would've thought done.
Current win: I just finished writing a novel.
That's always a cool feeling ;)
Hi, everyone
I don’t have a routine, I don’t know if I’m a writer, even, as I miss the urge, so many writers talk about.
I gathered a few poems and two short tales and published a tine book 3 years ago. It was a vanity book but I’m proud I had the initiative.
Now here, surrounded by brilliant people, I’m in heaven! Just want to read the good stuff and maybe timidly start to write again.
Absolute techno-phobic, I have no clue how to make the most of this magazine App. I’m a subscriber and that’s all I know.
Would love to show you one of my short tales, if I’m entitled to do so.