Writing is a habit. As with anything else in life that you want to make a part of your routine, it can be really hard to get started. Many seasoned writers have gotten used to setting a daily word count for themselves. They just sit at the keyboard and type away. But getting there takes time.

What if you're brand new to writing and want to find ways to write on a regular basis, and produce work that you feel good about? Don't be afraid -- all writers start somewhere!

So what do you do to make writing a habit -- how do *you* generate material?

Nevena

Book Country coordinator

--edited by Nevena Georgieva on 2/10/2014, 1:37 PM--

While I'm not new to writing, I suppose I can say I'm fairly new to the *commitment* to writing.  I've written with intent to finish a novel on and off since I was a tween, and started many -- got pretty far with several but never actually finished.  It took watching a friend who also couldn't seem to finish a novel buckle down and write a NaNoWriMo novel in ELEVEN DAYS and then turn around and sell that book to a small digital publisher.  And then it took being recruited by her as a beta-reader, watching her and talking with her constantly about writing as she went through the editing process, and then subsequently repeat the process with a couple more books in a series spawned by that NaNoWriMo novel to finally get to the point a few years ago where I decided to pull out a novel I'd started in 2001, worked on intensely at points on and off over the years, and then ultimately put away when I had amassed 250 pages of mostly disconnected scenes because I just didn't know where to go with it.

And then it took me another year or so after that to start working on it again....and another to decide to rewrite it.  The first thing I resolved to do was bull through and write chronologically, even though I didn't believe I could.  I'm a perfectionist, and I also needed to feel "inspired" to write.  I made myself sit down and stick with it, even when sometimes it would take me an hour to come up with a sentence...or even the right word....and then I systematically started tackling other stumbling blocks over the years, and I have something like 230K...close to 500 pages so far, but I'm still not done.  But that's okay because I know if I chip away long enough, I can finish it through attrition if I have to!

When I started the rewrite, I used to just sit down whenever at least once a day and work on it.  After a while it became an obsession that took over my life.  Back in November of 2013 I experienced a sea change when I decided to make myself get up an hour early every day and write before anyone else in the household gets up, and I can pretty much rely on getting 500 - 1000 words down in just that hour alone...anything else I pick up during the day is gravy.  It's a nice way to start the day -- sets a good tone to be doing something I want to do, exercising my own creative juices, that influences my mood in a positive way for the next 24 hours.

I also started writing Flash Fiction, and started a tradition of participating every Tuesday night in a 5 Minute Fiction contest over at writeonwendy.com that has really helped me be able to just sit down and right.  It's kind of terrifying at first, but I would highly recommend participating at least once.  At 7:30 p.m Central Time. a writing prompt goes up on the site.  Ideally you write on something that includes the criteria of that prompt for five minutes, although you get until 7:45 when time is called to hit send and submit it.  I started only able to get out about 150 words or so, but now I can usually manage a teeny drabblish story of about 250 words on average.  I'm also going to try to participate more regularly in Friday Flash over at fridayflash.org.  I uploaded a debut flash piece to my blog and entered it into their Collector form.

I would say the most important thing you can do is to just make the commitment to writing -- and to spending what is sometimes difficult and painful time overcoming whatever inertial difficulties you have in your process.  That in itself creates a center of gravity that puts YOU more in control of your own creativity that will pay out more and more dividends over time each time you sit down to write...and helps you learn a lot more about the craft of writing along the way.

~Kimberly

--edited by K. Murphy Wilbanks on 2/14/2014, 8:27 AM--

Lately, it's my blog, The INCspotlight, that's been providing a sense of discipline and routine when it comes to writing.  I'm working on half a dozen different partially-written novels, not including The Brotherhood of the Black Flag, and my ideas for those don't come regularly (nothing comes out if I try to force it).  So the blog's weekly schedule keeps me writing on a regular basis.  While it's mostly a movie review blog, I'll be reviewing other stuff (including books) just to keep it fresh and prevent me from getting stale. 

I even make sure to backlog, so that if I'm short on time or ideas, I have an already-written review all set to go at a moment's notice.  (My review of Alatriste, based on the novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte, was written at least a month and a half before I published it.)  That's another way I motivate myself to keep writing.

--edited by Ian Nathaniel Cohen on 2/11/2014, 12:55 PM--

I'm hardly new at writing. I've been creating stories since I was able to talk in full sentence (at about 1 or 1 1/2, my dad can't remember), and I was writing them down since I learned the alphabet in kindergarten. But when I was younger, and until my sophomore year of high school, writing was just a thing I did sometimes. I'd write in class, or I'd plan stories that went nowhere, yet nothing ever got finished.

Then I wrote, in seven months, a 210,000 word story. Now, four years later, that isn't that big of a deal. I can bang out a full length novel in ten days, but back when I was sixteen? It was huge. I finally finished a story, and I did it because I had a friend who every day would beg me for a new chapter. And instead of just saying, "I can't find motivation today, sorry," I'd go home, or sit in chem, and force myself to write. Were some of the chapters horrible? Yes. She didn't care, and neither did I. I didn't give her the story for her critical eye and she just wanted more. It helped, so much. 

Now I write daily. I try to write 5,000 words, but it usually doesn't happen. Still, having that goal helps. At the moment I have a list of four books that I'm working on. I write one chapter in one, then in another, then in another, and then 3,000 words in the last (no chapters), then start over. It's proving to really help me. I like to story jump, and forcing myself to story jump every chapter keeps me from getting too distracted. 

It takes a lot of motivation and determination. I fail some days. There are days, sometimes weeks, when I don't write a single word because I've lost all motivation, and that's when I read. I read bad works, good works, mediocre things. My friends give me stuff to edit, because it gives me a goal to get through. I want to be published. It's been my dream since I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when I was seven. I might be young, but twelve, almost thirteen years, is a long time for anyone. It's been almost my entire life and I want it. So I make myself get there. 

~Linnea

We created this thread for writers new to writing, who may sometimes be intimidated to chime in other discussions are just looking for tips to get started.

What I'm finding here is a treasure trove of good ideas for beginner writers! Thanks, guys. My takeaway so far is that commitment is key, and finding specific strategies to keep yourself on task: whether it's through NaNoWriMo & flash fiction contests (Kimberly), writing a blog (Ian), or turning to reading when the muse doesn't come (Linnea). Very cool.

Nevena

Hi Kerry! It's too bad you don't live closer . . . I actually have a bunch of gold stars in my office . . .

Lucy

Considering I have been doing it for a bit longer than a year, I would define myself as fairly new at writing .

I got started when I finally decided that this story that I had written bits and pieces of over the last ten years or so was long overdue to be properly worked on.  When I started I had no real goals aside from getting the thing done.  Because I'm a scatter brain and often get inspiration at the strangest of times I start writing by plotting out the book in an outline.  I know that's taboo for some people but I need the constraints: think chapter long run ons.  Then writing I just try and get as much done as I have the time too.  I use tools like NaNoWriMo as massive bursts during the year and the momentum is often enough to carry me through to the end of the year or manuscript.  Right now I'm concentrating on getting some revisions done with is far more tedious and less fun than just writing the words down.  My goal is two chapters a day but I've been woefully shy of that.

When writing my content just, comes?  I have the outline which tells me where the story is going and keeps things on a general march forward.  All the little things that happen between point A, B and C just happen almost on their own.  When I'm writing more than 1,500 words a day the part of the story almost seems to play out in my mind and spills out in words.  This often makes for some confusing and incomplete thought patters in the first rough draft but that's what revisions and proofing is for, right?

Everyone's comments have been so helpful to me! I consider myself a "new writer" and it has been so nice to read about fellow writers who have experienced the dreaded "hanging novel" as well. For quite some time I have been struggling with finishing my novels. In fact, a lot of them I find difficult to even get past the basic production stages. I love the characters, the story, but every one seems to always be left hanging. Glad to know that this can be overcome and isn't a sign that I just, well...dare I say it, suck at being a writer

Calico

I don't know, maybe it's just me. But as I read through this thread I couldn't hope but notice that no one, not one person, mentioned taking steps to increase their knowledge of how to write—to learn about structure, form, and craft. It was "this is what I do..." and "I decided to force myself to be more organized."

But here's my point: how can anyone generate professional quality writing if all they know about how to write are the general skills we all learn in first through twelfth grade? Nowhere in our primary education did they mention tags and their usage. None of our teachers explained what POV is. So most new writers believe that POV refers to which personal pronoun you opt to use—which it is not. Our teachers never tell us that a scene on the page is a unit of tension, so we leave school believing that a scene has the same meaning on the page that it has in a play or film. Scene goals are never mentioned, nor are the three things a reader needs to know, quickly, on entering a scene. It make sense that none of that is mentioned in school because they're preparing us to become productive and self supporting adults, not professional fiction writers—or professional anything. Pro skills are learned after we graduate high school as part of our preparation to become a member of a profession or trade.And just writing does not, magically, teach us our craft. We just get better and better at writing badly.

The reading we do helps us appreciate writing. But no more gives us professional writing knowledge than watching TV teaches us to be a director, or screenwriter. Observing the product tells the observer nothing about the process of creating it and the decisions that must be made as it is created.

We're all dedicated readers. We all sincerely desire to please our readers, and to help each other. That's a given. But you do not learn mechanical design by talking with others who like the field but know no more than you do about what it takes to be one. You can't write a scene until you know what a scene is, the elements to it, and how scenes start, build, and end. Guaranteed, if you aren't aware that most scenes end in disaster for the protagonist, why, and how they segway to the next scene, you are not going to write one that works.

Write, of course. But while you do, take steps to learn why 97% of submissions are viewed by publishers as less than professional, so yours won't be. Dig into the nuance of POV, and learn how to stop informing and start entertaining.

After all, if your goal is to write at a professional level, and be thought of as a serious writer, should you not be investing at least a bit of time and a few pennies in learning the craft that's been under development for centuries?

One can always choose not to use a given tool. But if the only tool you own is a hammer, everything is going to look like a nail.

The good news is that some of the best teachers in the history of the field have written on what it takes to impress a publisher. Some of the best writers have done the same. Doesn't it make sense to build on that knowledge, as against trying to reinvent the wheel without having the concept "round...or axle...or roll?" As Mark Twain so wisely said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

My personal recommendation is to start with Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer ( I'd post a link but the site's link feature still doesn't work and the raw link is too long. But you can find it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble). The man has the knack of getting to the heart of the matter and expressing it so simply that you'll find yourself saying, "Now why didn't I think of that?"

A book that's almost as good is Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure, which can often be found in the local library system, and free is alweys good.

Another is Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation and Conflict. It doesn't go as deeply into the material, but it's easy to understand and a warm read, like sitting down with Deb for a conversation on writing. New writers might be advised to start there.

Okay, that's my rant. I'll go crawl back under my bridge now and wait for some billy-goats tp come by.

Honestly, Jay, I didn't talk about that because that didn't seem to be what the thread was about.  "How do you hone your craft" and "how do you get yourself to actually write after honing said craft" are different questions.

Sounds like it would make for an interesting discussion (and still might, if you want to start it off).

I agree with Ian. On top of that, I didn't talk about it because writing is not a science. Not everything is about the rules and about what might sound good. Especially not in a first draft or at the beginning which is where you generate the material. 

A lot of people turn writing into a science, but it's not one. It's an art, and art is about who you are inside of you, not what other people see. Yes, you can revise it, follow the rules, cut out every possible unnecessary word, but what you get is a boring, emotionless, blueprint. Not writing. When I write, I don't pay attention to what does and doesn't sound good. When I generate material, it's not about the craft, it's about the art. The craft is what revising and editing is for, but not what this thread is about. 

~Linnea

--edited by Linnea Ren on 2/26/2014, 9:31 AM--

     To return to the topic at hand: I am fairly new to writing (I have been actively pursuing it for a few years now, but have not yet finished a novel, so take my advice for what it is worth) but I have found that I personally need to be inspired in order to work on a given story. I have tried just forcing writing out regularly, even using such programs as NaNoWriMo and 750words, but I have found that, if I am not feeling inspired to write, all I will get is words. They may technically qualify as fiction, may even meet all of the rules that Jay so advocated, but I feel, both when writing them, and then reading them back later, that they are more rambling than writing. All in all, I can churn out the words (won 5 for 5 Nanos now) but it does not really get me anywhere. A schedule alone is not enough.

     Fortunately, a forced march does not seem to be the only way to go after inspiration, as it were. For the longer works which I have been able to continue working on for any length of time (I currently have two stories in the works, one started March of last year, the other October of 2011- I know, I work at a Martinian pace), I have built little inspiration kits, with varying degrees of deliberation.

     The greater part of these kits tend to be made up of images. They might be pictures I found on the internet, sketches I drew, photos I took myself when I found a perfect location or a cool prop (that I did not want to shell out money for to have collecting dust in my apartment) or even videos, and can show character faces, outfits, props, settings, food, images the characters would see around, or even just images that evoke the mood I am going for. For one project, I even made a a little scrap book out of construction and printer paper to house dozens of pictures I found for that project. Every time I thumb through it, I feel inspired to work on that project.

     There is another kind of sketch that I have found for when I am really feeling uninspired or even bored with a project. I have a rather lengthy outlining process (probably the biggest reason behind the slow pacing) so there is a lot of time and work put into a project before I get to the real writing. But, early in the project, when the original idea is still fresh in my mind, or when I can see a particular scene really clearly, I like to write up a little scene sketch, just a quick, unpolished write-through of a scene or, usually, a piece of a scene, without context or even, necessarily, a place in the final work (the first sketch of the one year project won't fit in the final story at all). I mainly write these to help me learn the characters early in the outlining process, but I have found that if things are really starting to drag for me, rereading these can get me excited about the story again, remind me what I loved about the idea in the first place (it's already saved the one year project once).

     Soundtracks are also particularly useful. A good song, that fits the story just right, can drop me straight into the story. The trouble is, I have a lot of trouble finding appropriate music for my stories (for the over two years story I have found two, for the one year old, I have not yet found any) and if I listen to the same one too many times, I get burned out on it and it stops working until I've taken a break from listening to it for at least a few months. So, I like to hold those in reserve for when I really need them. In the place of music though, I've had a lot of success with appropriate ambient sound tracks, either ones I've found online (try ambient-mixer to start, if you are interested) or ones I made (free-sounds.org can be useful there). These can really get me into the story, if they fit the setting and mood. For example, I pieced together one track of distant artillery and machine gun fire for a dieselpunk story, and another of crows cawing, a lonely church bell chiming, and wind rustling leaves for a dark fantasy.

      Finally, a few of my project's inspiration kits have grown to include items that stimulate the other senses and get me in the mood for my story. For example, the now more than two-years-old dieselpunk's get-in-the-mood kit includes: a big (big) wool coat just like the main character wears, fake cigarettes from the Halloween store (pretty much all the characters smoke too much), some actual, hundred-year-old photographs of people who look just like a few of the characters (lucky antique store finds), scented candles that actually smell a great deal like wood smoke, and even a couple of foods that I tried out trying to figure out what the characters would be able to make for themselves with the supplies on hand.

    Now, this may all sound a little over the top, but these "kits," which are not really assembled kits in the traditional sense, kind of develop organically as I continue working on a project, and things jump out at me while I am shopping or browsing the internet, and the majority of their contents get infrequent use. I don't, for example, need to put on the big wool coat, hold a fake cigarette between my fingers, and light a scented candle every time I sit down to work on the dieselpunk. However, having them on hand for when my inspiration tank is running a little low, or I am distracted by another story, or am just having trouble getting back into a character's head, has proven invaluable for making the most of the time I have tried to set aside for regular writing. When I can jump start my inspiration almost on cue, I spend a lot less of my allotted writing time staring at a blank screen, making notes on yet another new story, or *ahem* browsing the internet *cough*.

    I highly recommend putting together even just a little kit to help keep you going.

--edited by Whitedove on 3/2/2014, 9:14 AM--

• I agree with Ian. On top of that, I didn't talk about it because writing is not a science.

The hell it’s not. Writing is a profession, not something that comes to us for being pure of heart. And all the style in the world will read like glitter glued to crap unless you learn your craft so there’s something there to decorate. The fact that more than 999 submissions are rejected before one is accepted should tell you that there’s a lot that must be learned before you can successfully practice that profession.

The craft of fiction has been under development for centuries. You either take the time to learn and perfect it or you self publish, a unique snowflake indistinguishable from a million other unique snowflakes.

Over and over, in forums like this I read people saying, “This is what I do,” as though that information can be useful to someone who wants to write work that will excite a reader. Damn near never do I hear, “You should read Sol Stein (or Don Maass, Jack Bickham, or a dozen others) because they know what works.” I see links to articles predicting the death of publishing, but almost never see links to articles on craft, or anything that will make a writer more prepared to negotiate the mine-field of new writer traps. How in the hell can you generate material if you have no clue of the form of fiction for the printed word? How can you plan a scene if you think a scene on the page has anything in common with one in film, or on stage? How can you make writing a part of your day if you still think you learned to write in school? All you’ll do is generate work that reads like the result of a high school fiction writing assignment. Fully 75% of what publishers receive is unreadable because it’s written using the general nonfiction writing skills we’re taught in school. All but 3% of the rest are rejected because they’re still not written with professional level skills. So before you begin writing that great novel it makes sense to devote a few dollars and a bit of time to learn what it is you’re trying to do.

• A lot of people turn writing into a science, but it's not one. It's an art, and art is about who you are inside of you.

I’m certain you believe that. But has it resulted in a publishing contract? Because if it hasn’t, it’s only a belief. And belief has nothing at all to do with that belief being accurate, or not being accurate. Haven’t you noticed that universities offer four-year majors in commercial fiction writing? You don’t think they teach anything useful, or necessary?

Every artist needs tools, and the craft of the writer make up your tools. How you use them is your art. But if the only tool you own is high school English—a hammer—everything is going to look like a nail.

--edited by Jay Greenstein on 3/3/2014, 1:18 AM--

If I may be so bold as to attempt to re-steer this thread back towards its original intent, this recent blog post by Howard Andrew Jones might be interesting, if not useful.

Self-sabotage is Easier Than Writing.

I keep a notebook with story ideas. Sometimes I get ideas while traveling, in a dream, from overhearing a conversation, or from a news item. A lot of times the ideas come in the form of "what if..." The novel I'm workshopping here, The Outlands, came to me while I was traveling in a rather desolate part of Spain last summer and started with a question "Would this landscape look any different if the rest of the world came to an end?" I imagined a small group of villagers, and among them a boy who has to figure out how to survive.

With that idea in hand, I did quite a bit of research. Often the research sends my story in new directions. I knew I wanted wind turbines to play a part in the story--because windmills spinning on a hillside sparked the initial idea in the first place--and I came across an article about how wind turbines are damaged by lightning. Boom. That went right into my story and provided a disaster for my MC to overcome.

I also incorporate small things that happen during my day into the story, especially if I get stuck. One day, I needed a sibling conflict for the story, and that same afternoon a friend's little boy filled his brother's shoe with sand on the playground. Perfect! That ended up being a very, very minor part in a larger story, but it was enough to get me over the hump on that particular day. 

I agree that making writing a habit is key. For me, personally, if I wait to be inspired, I end up going long periods of time without writing. But if I sit down every day to write something, inspiration often comes 5 or 25 or 55 minutes into the process. I just keep going until I lose myself in it, and that's when I know it's working. I love NaNoWriMo, because there's nothing like writing those 1600 words a day for a solid month to form a new habit (or rekindle an old one). 

Right now, I'm revising, revising, revising, and although part of that revising is writing new scenes, I'm anxious to work on a new idea I have. So I'm buckling down on the revision while the new story percolates in the back of my mind. Forcing myself to finish the revision before I start on the new story not only keeps The Outlands on track, but it gives me motivation to get it across the finish line so that I can do something that I consider to be more fun--writing the first draft of something new!

This day simply isn't done if I haven't written at least a page.

Leaving it off is not an option because what I am is a writer.

I seem to be going through a particular phase just now. In the past I would get inspired by some idea (usually sci-fi) then write furiously every day until finished. (or the idea plays out) I accumulated a few novels, novellas, short stories, but now it seems the flaming ideas have slowed down and I find myself just trying to refine what I have written. 

     I ran my own business  back then and was pretty much stuck in the office all day.  Since there was no one around to tell me no, I spent my dead time writing every day. Now retired, and could write all day every day, I seem to want to go back and edit, edit, edit. Publication used to be my great goal. Now that is not so important as writing well.

     I suppose that is why I am here on book country. The only way a writer ever knows if they are doing well is to be told by fellow writers. 

That's why I'm here too. I used to post on a site with a bunch of friends and they made comments for each chapter I posted. I miss that regular input even if it wasn't editing, it was just friends reading and telling me what they thought as readers.