Today I’m thrilled to have a guest post by Anna Staniszewski, author of My Very Unfairy Tale Life and its sequels, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail and the latest, My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending (check out the trailer below). Anna’s got another series starting in January, The Dirt Diary. With all those words in print, she knows a thing or two about keeping up writing momentum — actually, she knows eight things — and I’m excited that she’s sharing her secrets here.
Welcome Anna!
Anna Staniszewski
In my experience, momentum is one of the hardest thing to maintain when you’re working on a novel. If you’re like me, you start a project with a million ideas buzzing around in your brain…and then you get fifty pages in and those ideas feel as flat as pancakes.
How do you keep the momentum going? Here are a few things that have helped me.
Write a synopsis. I’m not an outliner, but it helps me to have a 1-2 page synopsis of the story. Then I can refer back to it when I get stuck and (hopefully) get excited about the idea again.
Have a deadline. It’s unbelievably motivating if someone is expecting the manuscript by a certain date. So if you need a push to keep going, try promising the book to a friend, for example.
Just write. This advice might sound obvious, but sometimes I get so caught up in how a novel isn’t working that I forget to just sit down and write through it. You’d be surprised how many ideas work themselves out while you keep forging ahead.
Set a timer. Don’t put pressure on yourself to write for hours. Set a timer for twenty minutes and really commit to your novel for that amount of time. You may just find a spark that will help you keep going.
Celebrate small victories. You finished that tricky scene? Yay! You finished a whole chapter? Double yay! Sometimes the only way you’ll get through the big stuff is to celebrate the small stuff.
Have a carrot. By “a carrot,” I mean a reward that keeps you going. For me, the carrot is the promise of working on a shiny new project once I finish the one I’m writing. Find whatever will motivate you (a fun outing, a chocolate cake, etc.) and use it to keep yourself on track.
The most important thing: Don’t get discouraged. You won’t love your book every day. Sometimes you might even hate it. Do whatever you can to keep writing because there is seriously no better feeling than typing “The End.”
The End. (See? Small victories.)
Thank you, Anna!
Click to check out the awesome trailer for My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending.
Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Stanszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. She was named the 2006-2007 Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library and a winner of the 2009 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award. Currently, Anna lives outside of Boston with her husband and their black Labrador, Emma.
When she’s not writing, Anna spends her time teaching, reading, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. She is the author of My Very UnFairy Tale Life and its sequels, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail and My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending, all published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky. Look for the first book in Anna’s next tween series, The Dirt Diary, in January 2014, and visit her at www.annastan.com.
3 Responses
Thanks so much for having me!
Great advice, Anna. Setting attainable daily, weekly, and monthly goals helps me maintain momentum.
Happy reading and writing! from Laura Marcella @ Wavy Lines
These are great tips – especially that reminder to keep forging ahead!