People often ask me about the writing life, what’s my process when writing a new Night Buddies adventure story.
The main thing for me is scheduling and dedication. I make a schedule and stick to it no matter what happens or how rotten I may feel that day. I don’t go for anything like eight hours. I doubt many writers do that. It’s just too exhausting. Three hours does it for me, but I try never to stint on my three hours.
I try to stop writing at a spot that will be easy to start from the next day. And to read everything I’ve got the next day before starting again, so everything will be of a piece, so to speak.
I like to do about five hundred words a day and do it straight through. I get in trouble when I start trying to do a line at a time, that is, getting a line just so before going on to the next one. This hurts my flow (from the reader’s point-of-view) and wastes time. I try to do my five hundred words without looking back, and then take fifteen or twenty minutes to clean it up.
If I get stuck, I take a little notepad or recorder and go for a walk.
I finish the whole business and then rewrite and rewrite. I need to stop this at some point, but I try to err on overdoing it.
So this is what works for me. You’re welcome to try it out. Don’t forget to let me know if you’ve got any great tips on what to do when getting stuck. I’d love to hear!