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The other day I set out to type at 55 words a minute, finish 4 chapters, and get 6600 words on the page … all in two hours.

I failed.

Now, before I get into all of my wonderful excuses for why I didn’t type, let me impart some knowledge that I picked up after my failure at typing faster than I have my entire life.

It matters what time you go to bed.

I wanted to spend some fun time with my wife at the movies last Tuesday night, so we went to Regal cinemas and saw a movie. It started at 7:20, so I thought I would be just fine on time.

I checked my watch after I walked into the front door and realized that it was after 10:00, my designated bedtime. It was definitely worth getting home a little after 10. It was a great movie (we saw Wonder) and I had an awesome time with my lovely wife.

When I finally got into my covers, however, the clock read 11:45 …

Nonplussed, I decided to keep my schedule and try to get up at 4:25 a.m. the next morning.

When I woke up at 7:45 I knew I’d been a little too ambitious for my own good.

At lunchtime for work that day I didn’t even want to start typing though and try to at least make up some of the time. It was too daunting. So, here is the first thing that threw me off my rather lofty goal.

#1 – Falling behind early can kill your chances of getting started

You’ve probably read this somewhere, and if that’s the case, you probably should have sent me an email that my goal was too big.

You didn’t, and I blame you for all of my problems.

Especially the ones that don’t have anything to do with getting six books finished up … but I digress.

What killed me this morning was the fact that I had to type for 2 hours, which meant I had to do some serious planning for my chapters, which meant I probably needed like 3 hours of time to do my typing.

Waking up at 4:25 gives me roughly 2 and a half hours. I get the third hour in during my lunchtime at work.

By the time my lunch time came around, I’d already given up the ghost for the day on trying to get some typing done. My brain, body, heart, and desire all told me, in roughly the same way, that typing for the day was a lost cause.

So, guess what I did … I listened to them. (There is a silver lining to this that I’ll bring up at the end.)

All told, since my goals looked impossible, I didn’t even want to start once I’d gotten off to a late beginning.

#2 Your ability to function at a high level could get impacted … and not in a positive way

The second day, this morning, I tried the same goals, but this time I actually got to start typing before the sun was even thinking about coming up.

I put on my headphones, turned on the tunes, got my timer out, pulled up the old word-processor, and took a deep breath. I was ready to go, or so I thought.

I briefly thought about my goal of 55 words per minute, and as I did so, I felt my heart rate pick up. Then I felt a tingling in my fingers, and a small voice in the back of my head started saying things to me.

It took me a moment, but I realized that I was completely stressed out.

I hit the start button on my timer and took off typing. But, just before my typing sprint, I decided to change my tactics. Actually, I decided to stop doing the writing sprints completely.

Instead, I decided to type until my chapter was completed.

The result was a really quick start and a really slow finish. I wasn’t able to keep my momentum up, and I could actually feel myself dragging about halfway through the chapter.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I had actually been typing 55 words per minute at some point, but my stress had caused me to change my tactics (because of a serious amount of self-doubt) and caused me to burn out.

So, does that mean you should never set out unachievable goals?

Probably not.

If I hadn’t set out to type those words so fast, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am in my story right now. It’s probable I wouldn’t have even started writing yet.

If you’re going to shoot for the moon, then I say go for it.

Just understand that getting discouraged stressed, and feeling some anxiety are going to happen. But guess what?

It’s normal. So acknowledge those facts, and then move on with shooting for the moon!

The post 2 reasons why setting ridiculous goals might hurt your ability to get stuff done appeared first on Randall Floyd.

For eons, there have been two sides of a debate. This debate centers on how someone should take on a creative endeavor. The sides of this debate have gone by various names throughout the years, and I’m not going to go into the names. For this article, I’ll just call the two sides of this debate the plotters and the pansters.

It has been said that plotters will meticulously plot out every intricate detail of their creative endeavor, sometimes having every single word plotted out before they even begin … if that’s even possible. The thought of writing, drawing, or even speaking makes plotters short of breath, gives them clammy hands, and makes doing even the most benign and routine tasks nearly impossible.

Pantsers, on the other hand, loathe the idea of plotting out their creative endeavor. In fact, the very mention of the word “plotter” causes a series of involuntary reactions that range from small convulsive fits to hot flashes, loss of breath, and frequent blackouts.

Both conditions are serious.

Fortunately, there might be a way to overcome the need to declare oneself a pantser or a plotter, and thus suffer the resulting symptoms.

But more on that in a minute.

I made a discovery this morning that just bolstered my belief that doing one simple thing when taking on any creative endeavor, in my case, it was writing a non-action scene that involved two of the main characters speaking on the phone.

This process has probably been hashed out millions of times before I discovered it, and there are probably a million different ways to get what I wanted to do done. However, my method works best for me, since I took what I’d learned from those who went before me and applied it to my life and my circumstances.

My solution is simple: Outline your endeavor.

Outlining is not plotting, at least not in the literal sense …

Well, okay, maybe it is plotting. But that’s okay. Honestly, for you pantsers out there, while I respect your creative journey, I also am of the opinion that you are also on the grief spectrum.

You might have heard of these stages before:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I’d wager that every one of you is somewhere along this spectrum when it comes to your views on plotting your work. I won’t go into details … you know who you are.

However, what I call outlining, is probably going to sound insufficient to many of you plotters out there. In fact, what I am about to describe will probably put you in one of the same camps as those mean, nasty panters out there.

Fortunately, there is a way for every one of you to come to terms with your condition and to finally get to the fifth stage of grief.

The power of the number 7

There is a reason the number 7 is ubiquitously awesome. There are seven days in the week, seven deadly sins, seven virtues, seven ancient wonders, seven colors in the spectrum … the list goes on. For more useless “seven” facts, read this article.

In my attempts to try and outline my novels, lessons, speeches, nonfiction works, and lectures to my kids (yes … I outline those as well … but hey, during the day I’m an attorney …) I’ve tried tons of different methods. But every single one of them ends up using some iteration of the number seven.

So, to simplify things for myself, my outlines only ever contain seven bullet points. And my bullet points are never more than 7 words. (I understand you may think I’m taking this to the extreme, and who am I to deny it. However, I more or less only use three or four words to describe my bullet points and rarely get up to the mythical number seven … for reasons I’ll go over later.)

So when I outline my novel, I have seven bullets. When I outline my three acts, I have seven bullets. When I outline my sequences I have seven bullets. This seven goes all the way down to my chapters, scenes, and sometimes even the beats within my scenes.

Additionally, I always use my bullets in a specific order. Every. Single. Time.

The bullets look something like this:

• Inciting Incident
• Snag 1
• Snag 2
• Snag 3
• Crisis
• Climax
• Resolution

Count it if you like. There are seven bullets. No more. No less. And that is perfection.

When in doubt make a quick outline

Using this outline at every single juncture of my writing, but only as much as I need to. My outline serves three purposes.

First, it provides me with a roadmap. For my writing, it shows me the major cities I’m going to need to go through before I get to the end.

Second, it makes me feel good about myself. When I bust out an outline in less than a minute, I feel like I accomplished a whole lot, even though I only filled in seven lines.

Finally, it helps me get rid of writer’s block. Immediately. From my experience, writer’s block happens in two instances: (1) when I get lost and forget where I’m heading in my story and (2) when I need to write a scene in my story but I don’t know what to put into the scene.

To get over the first part, all I do is go back to my initial outline and figure out where I need to get to. Then I go back to the scene I’m struggling with and figure out if it helps me get there or not.

To get over the second part, I just make seven quick bullet points on the side of the page and fill them in real quick. Then I get back to writing. It’s beautiful. If anything, having my outline makes the creative process even more creative it.

Putting it together

If this outline formula is going to work for you, you’re going to need to know what those different parts of the outline mean. You’re going to need to know what the inciting incident, the climax, the crisis, the snags, and the resolutions are.

But once you nail them, outlining becomes easy. You know what you need, you just have to put your characters in a position to go through them.

So, the next time you think you’re lost, or you can’t figure out what to write, try bulleting the seven things you need to cover in your scene. Your work will look better, and you’ll be more productive …

I promise.

The post 3 reasons why outlining actually helps you be more creative in your writing appeared first on Randall Floyd.

I slogged through the entire novel, and it was tough. The action didn’t build like a well-written book is supposed to, the ending didn’t hit me as right.

When I finished reading the thing, I found that nearly every single thing I liked about novels was missing.

The book would have been a huge disappointment if I were reading for entertainment purposes. But, I wasn’t.

When I picked up the book to read it, I had committed myself to a single rule: read this book until you find a grammatical mistake.

At the end of the book, I sat back in my chair and let out a breath of air. The author had done it. I couldn’t find a grammatical mistake anywhere. It was a thing of beauty – something that would make my 10th grade English teacher beam with pride.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book was garbage, but I say that in the nicest way possible.

You see, my reading exercise had two purposes. The first thing I wanted to do was see if it was possible to write a story with no grammatical errors.

Check.

The second thing I was looking for was whether or not the book, through free of typos and other mistakes, followed the rules of storytelling.

That was a resounding “No.”

The author of this novel, while well-intentioned, had fallen into one of the most common traps I see when editing novels.

Time after time, writers fail to write a book that words before they start fixing minor errors.

It’s a completely natural thing to want to do.

The problem is that this is the wrong way to to do things.

I read another story recently, this time I read it because I wanted to have a good read. The book had mistakes in almost every chapter, but I kept reading.

The story was well plotted, and the action built the way it was supposed to. When I got to the end, I once again sat back in my chair and let out another breath of air.

When I see books with errors, I tend to get distracted. I think that’s natural for most people out there. But what I found with this second book, was that because it followed the essential elements of storytelling, I was actually able to forgive the author for the mistakes, because the story was compelling, and it worked wonderfully.

What I learned with this second book was that grammar mistakes are second to following the principles of storytelling.

This is the case every time.

You might have the cleanest, most grammatical book ever written. But if it doesn’t flow the way stories are meant to flow, the book will stink, and nobody, except your high school English teacher, is going to like it.

So, the next time you think you want to start proofreading your book, take a step back and look at your global story. If it doesn’t work, ignore the typos. Figure out why your story isn’t working.

Once you do that, then you can work on the grammar.

The post Nobody Cares about your Comma Splices appeared first on Randall Floyd.

I used to think I suffered from writer’s block. That was before I understood what writer’s block actually was.

Now, I know for sure that I suffer from it. It plagues me at least once a week.

Fortunately, I found the cure for it.

I’m not going to tell you that I go and stand in front of the mirror, look myself in the eyes, and have a conversation with my reflection that sounds something like this:

“You’re amazing … you can do it! I believe in you.”

I tried that, and it didn’t work.

I’m also not going to tell you to write more until something good comes out. While that may eventually work, I think it’s a waste of time, a waste of words, and a waste of motivation to get things done.

What I’ve discovered is a four-step process that works every single time.

But more on that later.

First, just to understand why these four

steps actually work, I think it’s important to actually look at why writer’s block happens in the first place.

WRITER’S BLOCK IS REALLY JUST A SYMPTOM OF SOMETHING BIGGER, SOMETHING MORE NEFARIOUS.

First I’m actually not 100% sure the something bigger is actually the least bit nefarious. It’s just that nefarious is one of my all-time favorite words, and I haven’t been able to put it into a blog article for a while.

Its time had come.

Every single writer, at some point, has experienced writer’s block in some way, shape, or manner. You may have heard from a writer that they don’t believe writer’s block exists. Well, that person is lying … probably.

The fact is, they just call writer’s block something else.

The other fact is that writer’s block ALWAYS comes from one of two things.

The first thing is easy to deal with, so I knock that off my list first: distractions.

Distractions come in lots of ways, and from lots of sources. These distractions by themselves are not bad. But when they all decide, at exactly the same time, that they want to try and get your attention, writing becomes amazingly difficult.

It can get overwhelming … but don’t despair, you can overcome these things. You just need to do two things.

1. Pick a time where you can write without having to talk to anyone. For me, this means getting up at 5 in the morning.
2. Pop in your earbuds and turn on some good, old-fashioned music. It can’t be any music – no lyrics, and nothing that makes you sleepy. If you’re curious what I listen to, go here. This is my Spotify playlist – it’s movie and video game soundtracks.

The second reason for writer’s block is much bigger, and it’s usually more difficult to deal with. I call it getting lost.

That’s it. There’s nothing else to it. Writer’s block happens when you lose track of where your story is going.

Perhaps you went down a plot rabbit hole, and now you can’t figure out how to get your story back on track. Maybe you just finished an anecdote, but don’t know how to transition it back to your main point. Maybe you forgot why you put the anecdote in your story in the first place.

I don’t know. There’s any number of reasons you get lost.

Fortunately for you, all you need is a map.

YOU CAN SYSTEMATICALLY REMOVE WRITER’S BLOCK FROM THE EQUATION.

Now we’re back to that four-step process I mentioned at the beginning, but then conveniently pushed off to the end of this post.

Now I must warn you, once you know these steps, you’re never going to have to deal with writer’s block again. Well, that’s not true. But here are the steps anyway.

1. Take the day off from writing. Don’t think about writing. Spend time with your family, your dog, the sauna … whatever. Just get yourself out of the situation.
2. The next day, map out your story, fiction or nonfiction. Figure out where you’re going. If you’re writing fiction, figure out the big scenes that excited you in the first place. If you’re writing nonfiction, remember what your big idea was in the first place.
3. Make your map – plan your destinations. Once you figure out where you’re going, now you can plan out how to get there. Jot down some notes about how your character is going to go from point A to point B.
4. Start writing. I’d recommend that you write the big scenes first. Then you can write out the less-important scenes you mapped out. Feel free to do it the other way around. It doesn’t matter to me – just start writing again.

IT’S TIME TO PUNCH WRITER’S BLOCK IN THE FACE.

I can’t tell you how long it will take to map things out. I can tell you, however, that once you get it done, your bout with writer’s block will be over … for the time being.

Writer’s block likes to feed on authors who don’t have a direction in their writing. It’s not all that different from those distractions I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

Fortunately, you can systematically eliminate your writer’s block at any given time if you follow these four steps.

Now go out there and start writing again.

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