prev thatsbeautifulhazza

i can give some generic advice but if you need anything more specific to YOU, feel free to come back and explain what you’re struggling with, okay?

1. not everything has to be published! i think this is something i’ve learned over the years. if you write for your audience and with only the goal of publishing it on some fic platform, you get stressed out. it happens. write for yourself first and foremost and it keeps everything fun and light! not everything you write down has to be posted anywhere.

2. outline! again, something i’ve picked up over time. outlining, even in the vaguest skeleton of a novel concept, will help motivate you to finish. i know i’m guilty of skipping large portions and writing in a weird timeline but an outline will help keep all of that on track (i could even show you an outline of mine if you wanted!)

3. set yourself a word count goal! this point is somewhat nano inspired. the past two years, i’ve written 50k words of fanfic for nano and just the nagging motivation of the looming word count motivated me to actually get off my ass and write, even when i didn’t want to!

4. make a writing playlist! mine tends to differ depending on the type of fic i’m writing but even just putting on certain songs now motivates me to write. for example, in the ‘fic’ i worked on this last november, i had kodaline’s all i want at the top of the playlist and now whenever i hear it, i want to add to that verse. it’s a nice, subtle motivation (but don’t let it ruin songs for you!) for balance, it was clint mansell’s perfection from black swan.

5. write daily! this kind of relates to point 3 but writing every day, even if it’s just nonsensical drabbles, will definitely help you in fic writing. i’m part of the tumblr roleplay community and do my ‘daily’ writing that way while working on fics on the side (and in class) for my own enjoyment. any and all writing is practice.