Today’s guest post is by Mandy Kilinskis, who writes content for Quality Logo Products and their promo blog. By night, she continues working on her YA fantasy novel and spends way too much time on Twitter. 

Many people have “write a novel” on their bucket list. But most of us don’t write fiction for our full-time jobs. Last time I was here, I shared how while writing full-time for my company, I brainstormed characters, location, and plot for my novel.

But brainstorming is just the beginning. As any writer will tell you, the real magic happens when you do the work and start writing.

Of course, this is easier said than done. With the plethora of distractions of home, work, and life in general, writing a novel is hard work.

But while it’s hard work, it’s not impossible work. Here’s how I took to the keyboard and pounded out all 85,000 words of the first draft of my novel.

1. Give Yourself a Deadline

I started my novel as part of National Novel Writing Month. For those of you unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I knew that I would need to write more than that for a complete novel, but as I am a horrible procrastinator, I needed a deadline and a sense of urgency.

Whether you NaNo or not, I still firmly believe in a deadline; and I like the aggressiveness of the 50,000 words/30 days ratio. So I researched the average word counts of my genre and retooled the timeframe. I decided to shoot for about 90,000 words for my fantasy novel, which came out to 54 days to write a draft.

I fell off the wagon around the holidays, but once I picked back up, a total time of 54 days was spot-on.

2. Tell Friends/Family to Hold You Accountable

Writing a book isn’t a casual undertaking. So I made sure that everyone I was close to knew about it. I told my parents, brother, friends, and immediate colleagues that I was planning to write a book and I would appreciate their support.

I did this A) to make sure that people understood why I was about to become a social recluse and B) to build a network of supporters that would keep me on track.

If I texted my friends about plans for the weekend, they would ask me how many words I had written today. If I wandered away from my computer for a snack, my mother was quick to ask me if I was finished for the day.

Was it a little grating after a while? Sure, but it inspired me to reach my word count for the day.

3. Reward Yourself

Fun fact: I’m a total TV junkie. I knew that if I attempted to write around my TV schedule, I would never finish. So instead, I made sure that my DVR was set up to record everything I watch, and I wouldn’t allow myself to watch anything until I reached my word count.

No matter how you pass time at home, you have to put it all on the backburner. Family commitments are important, of course, but Facebook games, TV, and your evening Reddit visits all have to wait. Watching that episode of Castle will feel even sweeter with 2,000 words under your belt.

(Beej’s Note: I concur! Castle is fantastic palette-cleansing reward TV. I use it for just this, myself!)

4. Keep Your Progress Visual

As gratifying as it is to see your word count go up, you’re going to need something extra to keep track of your long-term progress and motivate you to continue. This could be a percentage bar, a countdown, or even a calendar with Xs through the days you sit down and write. And if at all possible, put up this progress indicator at work.

For me, I had a ton of visual progress trackers. I set up a small white board where I would record how many words I wrote the night before. I placed a countdown on my cubicle with my word count goal on a sticky note and every day I would change it to reflect the new lower total. I used a progress bar at home.

Having the visual motivators at work got me pumped to get home and write. They also prompted my coworkers to ask me about my progress and shame me into reporting in.

5. Write Everyday…

This is one of the tricks to becoming a great writer, and it’s never more important than when you’re trying to finish a long narrative.

There will be many days when you get home and you just want to space out. But don’t. Spacing out feels great at the time, but makes it even harder to jump back in the next day. Even if you can only squeeze in half an hour before work, or hand-write during your lunch, that’s still a dent in your word count.

6. …But Don’t Beat Yourself Up If You Don’t

It’s inevitable: you will have a day when you just don’t have time to write. You know, the day when work, volunteering, your daughter’s recital, and a party for your brother’s birthday all seem to fall on the same day.

If you’re out all day without a chance to write and then come home exhausted, do not try and crank out a cool thousand words before bed. Just go to bed.

Even with your deadline looming, it’s worth taking the break. One night I came home after being out from 6 am to midnight and wrote a little before bed. As I’ve been editing now, I’ve had to rewrite the majority of these passages. You’ll have rewrites and edits no matter what, but don’t waste your time or energy by writing down things that will be scrapped entirely.

7. Transfer Devices

My personal desktop at home is distracting. I can go wherever I want on the internet and open whatever files I please. So while sometimes I needed to close my browsers and just focus on my Word document, I found it easier to work at a different computer in the house.

When I use a device that’s communal or not specifically mine, I treat it differently. I stick to my email and the word processor. I feel weird checking Facebook or Twitter on my mother’s desktop. Getting out of my comfort zone and eliminating these distractions helps me write more than I ever do in my room.

8. Get the Hell Out of the House

But what worked even better than moving to another device in my house was getting out of my house entirely. My local library hosted NaNo writing “parties,” so two Saturdays during November I packed up a laptop and headed there to write for three hours.

The quiet atmosphere eased me, the slow internet deterred me, and the lack of distractions focused me into writing about five thousand words on each visit.

If the dead quiet of the library isn’t for you, then head to your local coffee shop or park. Live in an apartment complex? Try the lobby. If for some reason you just can’t leave the house, at least change your location. Moving from my bedroom to the kitchen table does wonders for my productivity.

These steps might sound a little daunting, and yes, you will disappear from society for a while; and yes, you will be sacrificing a lot of personal time at night and on the weekends; but after a month or two of solid hard work, you’ll have a finished draft of your novel.

And trust me, that feeling of triumph is more than worth the journey.

Have you used any of these techniques before? What other practices do you use in your writing process?

Today’s guest post is by Mandy Kilinskis, who writes content for Quality Logo Products and their promo blog. By night, she continues working on her YA fantasy novel and spends way too much time on Twitter. 

I’m lucky to have a job doing what I love: spending my 45 hour work week writing blogs, product descriptions, and other content for Quality Logo Products.

After majoring in Creative Writing in college, I’m elated that I actually get to use my degree. But as a creative writer, there was a part of me that still wanted to write a novel.

About ten years ago, as a high school sophomore, I set about writing a novel. I jumped in with only my enthusiasm and banged out about eighty pages before I fizzled out. And then college admissions came. And college. And graduation. And a job search. And the next thing I knew, it had been seven years since I touched my novel.

Call it a quarter life crisis, but I was determined to finish that book before my 25th birthday.

I decided to completely scrap what I had written previously and start over. The only problem left was that after writing for nine hours at work, the last thing in the world I wanted to do when I got home was write.

To make the process far more manageable, and hopefully not give up after eighty pages, I decided that I should sit down and plan some things beforehand.

So for the rest of us working full-time and part-time jobs, here’s how I ponied up and brainstormed for my novel.

1. Idea

Even though I scraped my old draft, I still liked the general plot and characters that I had half-formed in high school.

My idea came to me after seeing the first Lord of the Rings movie, reading tons more fantasy literature, and generally bemoaning the lack of strong female characters in popular fiction at the time.

I’m going to guess that many of you have already found your idea. It serendipitously came to you in the shower or after a “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…” conversation with your friends.

If you don’t have an idea, think about what genres you like to read. Good writers are good readers, so picking a genre that you enjoy will already give you a leg up. Talk about it with your friends and family – what’s a book that they’d enjoy reading?

If you’re totally stuck, hop on over to Start Your Novel. My online buddy JM Bell offers multiple story prompts per week.

2. Characters

But now, the time-intensive brainstorming.

First, I decided to focus on my characters.

I was told by multiple writers that I should read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. After plowing through it, I also recommend it.

There’s a lot to pull from the text, but the strongest takeaway is this: analyze your characters separate from their environment. I know that environment can (and should) shape characters, but boil them down to their essence. Are they kind? Outgoing? Generally an asshole?

I made a list of all of the characters I knew would be at least semi-important and went through and wrote down three traits for each of them.

Then I singled out the five characters that were most important to the plot and fleshed them out. I wrote about a page of hand-written notes for each, which probably translated to about four hundred words per character.

I did this in one night at home, but it could easily split up in smaller sections over two or more time periods.

3. Location

Next, I wanted to have a basic idea of the world my characters live in.

My novel takes place in a fantasy world, and as the plotline is quest-based, there’s a good amount of traveling. So I pulled out a piece of paper and drew a crude map of the locations my heroes would visit, and their approximate distance from each other.

If you’re going to create your own world, definitely draw a map of it, but make sure you leave room on the paper for additions. You never know what random side trip will be necessary or how the addition of a ravine could solve a later conflict.

Is your story based in a real location? Then make sure that you do some heavy research about the area. If at all possible, try and take a trip to your location. If a trip is out of your price range, then buy yourself a good, old-fashioned map so you can highlight landmarks and quickly plan out routes. Use Google maps and their street view to get a hands-on feel for the places you’re describing. Not even the best maps can tell you about the intricate pattern of ivy on church walls.

4. Outline

And last, I wrote an outline.

I used to be a total pantser. Who needs planning when sheer enthusiasm will carry you? Well, for me, enthusiasm only carried me about eighty pages.

That’s why I decided to give myself an “outline” this time. I drew an actual line down a piece of paper, and started putting events in a timeline. I didn’t write down every single event for every single chapter, but I did plot about twenty-five events that I wanted to hit over the course of the novel.

By forcing myself to create a visual roadmap, I knew where I was going, but I could certainly stop off for unplanned adventures.

My secret to brainstorming success? You have more decision-making power in the morning, so I did most of my brainstorming on my commute to the office. That was thirty-five minutes each day of solid thinking. And to make sure that my thoughts stuck, I talked out-loud during the entire trip.

Then when I got to the office, I’d take a moment to jot down some ideas in a notebook (you could just as easily use Evernote or shoot yourself an email). And once I got home from work, a whole bunch of brainstorming work was already done. I just had to transcribe my notes and thoughts into a readable document.

Just for a quick recap:

• Lasso the idea that’s been stewing in your head
• Flesh out your main characters independent of their environment
• Do research on your location and then draw or buy a map
• Make yourself an outline or a visual, hand-drawn timeline

I won’t lie to you: all of these steps take time; and depending on how long you’ve had your idea bouncing around your head, they could take even longer. But the time that you invest into making decisions now means you won’t have to make decisions while writing. You can just write.

The brainstorming I did during the two weeks before I wrote the first draft of my novel was essential to completing it. And next time, I’ll share with you how I took this foundation, beat back distractions, and wrote that novel.

Have any of you tried these or similar techniques? Do you prefer brainstorming before starting a major writing project?