Friday, May 22, 2009

Writing Advice

Once a month Harlequin American authors will post a snippet of writing advice. Many of our blog readers are aspiring writers and since all of us authors have experienced the ups and downs along the road to publication we thought we'd share what has helped us in our quest to be the best writers we can be. We hope you'll find these "snippets" helpful and we encourage you to share any "tips" you have with us.

Thanks to Laura Braford...here's May's writing tip-o-the-month!

While sitting with a writing buddy at lunch one day, I found myself making excuses for why I hadn’t written as much as I’d hoped since our previous get together (work, kids, housecleaning, laundry, etc.). She looked at me and said, “thirty minutes. That’s all.”

We batted her idea around for a few minutes and came up with a thirty minutes/thirty days writing plan. We figured that we could always find thirty minutes in any given day. And if that’s all we got…it was better than nothing.

We tried it, and it worked! Sure, there are some days thirty minutes is all I get. But more often than not those thirty minutes have a way of stretching into an hour, two hours, and sometimes even longer.

Of all the tips I’ve tried over the years, this has been—by far—the best thing I’ve done for my writing.

Laura Bradford
www.laurabradford.com

6 comments:

Pamela Stone said...

A similar approach works for me. Life is coming at me fast these days, but I don't want to lose momentum on my latest project. So every morning when my husband leaves for work, I drag myself up and write for an hour before I have to start my day job. Amazing what I can accomplish and if I don't get a chance to write later in the day, at least I had that hour. Great advice.

Gillian Layne said...

Very nice! And yes, if we can't find 30 minutes to call our own--we probably need a bit of a life makeover. :)

Anonymous said...

I've heard of this before and heard how it works. But you don't start your 30 minutes the same time every day though do you? It's when you feel you have the moment to start the clock ticking?

MarcieR

tatt3r said...

I'm in the pre-writing stage of my first novel, and I've been working 30 minutes a day. I felt as though I wasn't making much progress, but I read your writing tip and don't feel so bad now. Thanks! Lenore.

Laura Bradford said...

MarcieR,

I tend to be a morning writer. So I try to take my 30 minutes before anything else. I think it would be harder (for me, anyway) to make it happen later. But is it necessarily always at, say, 9 a.m? No. Just morning.

Lenore, I'll be honest, 30 minutes is more than many writers manage to put in. And if all you get is 30 minutes, at least it's forward progress. Best part is that you stay IN the story. It's hard to stay IN when you're going 2 and 3 and sometimes 4 days without writing. By doing 30 minutes every day, you stay there.

~Laura

Laura Bradford said...

Pam, I agree! I find that I feel less guilt if I know I at least sat down once. Anything else is a bonus!

Gillian, your comment made me laugh. So true! I think that was one of the driving factors for me...I needed a life makeover where my writing was concerned. I needed to accept that it's just as important as laundry and other tasks.