To be honest, I'm on holiday right now, so what I've got for you this week is just a summary of what we have covered so far, with links to all the old blogs. There is however one more writing resource thrown in, in the writing resources section. Other than that, it's just helping you find things in the blog posts that I've already made. Don't say that I didn't warn you!
Writing Resources:
There are lots of websites out there to be of help, and here is a summary of some of the best ones that I have found so far: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/writing-wednesdays-websites-and-programs.html, alongside a special feature on my personal favourite, Nanowrimo: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/writing-wednesdays-nanowrimo.html
Another program that I foolishly forgot to mention in the above summaries is the wonderful Q10 http://www.baara.com/q10/. It's a full screen text editor, which gives you live word and page counts, with you able to specify for yourself what formula you want to use to calculate page count. It is customisable, and in a single file so that you can easily move it around. It also has a timer, which tells you when your time is up, and how many words you wrote in the time - this is particularly useful for word wars (for those unfamiliar with word wars, they are when you write competing with another person to see who can write most within a (often brief) period of time - fifteen or twenty minutes is common. My absolute favourite feature though, is the fact that you can set a target, in terms of words, lines, pages, or whatever else you would want, and it tells you how close you are to achieving it. There are also typing sounds, and it's fast to use, it autosaves, and most important of all? It's free. I find it useful in certain situations - especially when I have a deadline approaching. Give it a go, and see if it helps you.
Beginning to write:
I have covered various ways to get ideas: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/writing-wednesdays-getting-ideas.html, and how to start to develop them into a full story: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/writing-wednesdays-planning-story.html. Once that has been done, you need to develop your characters: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/writing-wednesdays-character-design.html. Only when you have a plot, and developed characters, can you start to write: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/writing-wednesdays-starting-to-write.html.
Writing Process:
When it gets to writing, a routine is important to develop. In an ideal world, you might be writing for several hours every day, but real life doesn't work like that, so I try and look at some more realistic ways of making it work http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/writing-wednesdays-writing-routines.html.
No matter how hard you try to stick to your routines though, you might find yourself ambushed by the dreaded Writer's Block. Try not to panic: there are lots of tricks that you can use to get over it: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/writing-wednesdays-writers-block.html.
Keep fighting through the block, and you'll manage to be ready in time for any deadlines you have approaching. In http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/writing-wednesdays-deadlines.html, I set out a few tricks for getting to the deadlines with the minimum of stress (some stress is sadly unavoidable when deadlines are looming).
Editing:
Once you've got this far, and you have your complete first draft, it's time to do some reworking. It's good, but you can make it far better. Here I set out how to edit http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/writing-wednesday-editing-1.html, and how to rewrite http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/writing-wednesdays-rewriting.html in order to make your finished piece as good as you can possibly make it. This is one of the steps you either love or hate, but it needs to be done - just push through it, and you'll get a far better story at the end of it.
Submission:
When your work has been edited, and you are as happy as you are going to get with it, it's time to submit, and in http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/writing-wednesdays-submitting.html I try and set out some advice for getting your work published. Sadly, you might not always get your writing accepted, and http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/writing-wednesdays-rejection.html tries to show you where to go from now, without losing your ambition. If you have got to this stage, you've written an entire story, and that is something that you can be truly proud of.
I hope that this has been of some help - if you can see any gaping holes in my writing tips, please do let me know. If not, well, I'll be racking my brains to see what I can bring you next week. I have a couple of ideas, but if you have any ideas, please let me know. See you next time, and best of luck with your writing.
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