Writing Series Part 1: How to start writing and How to finish writing

I have battled with doing something like this for a long time. Though, I've done workshops and so on, I always ask God, "Why me?" and every time hes responds, "Why not you?" At this point in life I have to be obedient. Sooooooooooo, most of you know I've been writing since I was a little girl. It has always been a way for me to express myself and clear all the tabs and lives I live in my head. Since finally, publishing my first novel almost 8 years ago. I get a lot of questions about writing and publishing. I always get told that I should really start charging people. Honestly, I get it! Charge people for my time and my resources and I have thought about it. Yet, I'm letting God lead me to that point. Right now God, hasn't said charge people. He's saying help and guide people. Therefore, since I blog here and there. I decided to create a series of post from this blog that will answer some of the questions I get asked regularly. I'll try to keep it real simple and short.

I always let people know writing is the easiest part of the process (at least for me).It takes a lot of discipline and a lot of focus. I've spent my life writing simply as a way to heal and express myself. You must have patience which is so surprising because I'm really not patient but when it comes to writing, I'm able to take my time with it. It's a process and you just have to figure out the process that works for you.

Here are some things I do and things that i keep in mind, that may work for you as well. Everyone is different and everyone has their own way of doing things. It's important you figure out what works for you. With that being said, when people asked I give the following responses. Hopefully they are helpful. 

How to Start writing

• Dump your brain. Don't worry about what you're going to write about. Just sit down and dump your brain. Which means write until you can't write anymore. Once you have dumped your brain and you can not write anymore. From there you figure out what the story line is going to be about. 

• Create a outline. After you write until you cant write anymore, create an outline from what you've already written. In the outline, you'll have Chapter 1, 2, 3 or so on and the events that you want to take place in each of those chapters.That way, now that your brain is completely dumped, you can sit down and you can go piece by piece and write everything so that it flows into what you've already written. 

• Set a goal! Maybe write 500 Words a day or a chapter a day. Set goals that allow you to pace yourself on your time. Don't rush it. Setting goals, will allow you to pace yourself. There are going to be days where you don't have a desire at all to write and that's okay as well. 

• Do NOT edit while you write. Make sure that you're not editing as you write. It's imperative that you wait to edit the whole book as one unit. If you're editing as you write you could be deleting or adding things that have nothing to do with the story-line. Or things that could actually help the story line. 

How to Finish writing

• Set a deadline for yourself. With everything there needs to be a goal or a deadline of when you want to be finish. Honestly, it needs to be something that makes you uncomfortable. I say the deadline needs to be uncomfortable because it will push you to keep going and get it done. The biggest thing a lot of people share with me is that they start but never finish. A finishing deadline helps me push through procrastination. 

• Embrace the possibility of failure. Don't be so hard on yourself. Things will happen along the way. It may take you years to complete a book. It took me 10 years to complete my first book. Even after completing it took me another 5 years because my computer crashed twice so I had to keep rewriting the story. Embrace the failures, whatever they may be because like anything it will all be worth it in the end. 

• It's okay to take a break. I say this because some times we get so caught up on what we are doing that we don't realize, we need a break. Don't tire yourself out. You want to enjoy the process in writing. Sometimes you will need to take a break from the story. It's also a part of the process. You will allow your eyes and brain to rest so that when you come back you are able to look at the story with a new set of eyes.

• Allow other eyes to read the story. I always suggest once you finish writing and editing it the first or second round, have somebody else for you.  You will need somebody who enjoys reading, someone who can give you honest critique about the story, somebody who can tell you what is missing and the things they didn't understand. It's important you get another opinion because sometimes our eyes are so used to reading the story that we don't realize how much we over look. Also because we have the story in our heads we can missed details that would be necessary from someone who does not know those details in your head. 

I hope these points are helpful to anyone who has had questions. Again, these are things that work for me.