Author Ryan Schneider's Blog

Days 26 & 27 This will be a quick blog post. We should all be putting the majority of our time, thought, focus, strength, courage, belief, and love for what we do into our story, for we have THREE more days, including today. The past two days have been good days of writing; 5000 words both days. My word count is now 56,195, so once I've uploaded the manuscript it will qualify for "winning". Yay! But my goal was to not only write (at least) 60,000 words but to also FINISH my novel during NaNoWriMo. That remains a possibility. Hence the brevity of this post.  Three days... Less than 4000 words to reach 60,000... But the story definitely won't be complete in 4000 words. Maybe 14,000. Maybe. Probably more like 24,000, which would require 8000 words each day for the next three days.500-1000 words per hour means that would require 8 to 16 hours of writing per day. That's a lot. How many words do you have remaining? Do the math; divide it by three...

THAT is when you absolutely positively MUST remember that you write for yourself first. That's why first drafts are so much fun. One time at UCLA one of my screenwriting professors said, When you write yourself into a corner, change corners. So when you're struggling to find inspiration, and it happens to all of us, try to find a way back.  Try thinking about all of us fellow writers out there... banging away at our keyboards. Try reading the first few pages of one of your favorite books. Try watching a beloved movie, perhaps one about writers. Try this writing exercise: set the timer on your phone for 10 minutes. Grab any book at random. Close your eyes. Open the book to any page and put your finger down. Open your eyes. Read the sentence your finger is on. That is your opening sentence. Open a new document. Type that sentence. Start your timer and WRITE AS FAST AS YOU CAN WITHOUT STOPPING. Whatever comes through is what was supposed to come through. Because you're ...