Top 5 Wednesday- Favorite Writing Tips

Hello readers!

Today's top 5 topic is going to be my favorite writing tips.

I chose this topic to celebrate another NaNoWriMo that I more than likely will not be participating in. The end of the calendar year is always the busiest time of the year for me. 

First and foremost, I am a chaotic creative person. When I paint/ draw/ write I get messy and things are all over the place and then I spend some time piecing things back together. So, these may seem insane to you, but they are how I organize my chaos.

1. Microsoft One Note: I recently started using One Note for referencing things about a character while writing out scenes. Like if there are key points about a character, like limiting abilities or any previously mentioned issues that may affect their character I put bullet points around that person. It helps me keep the chaos to one character because I will also color code things relating to a specific character. So for instance, one of my characters may have all traits as red and another will be all blue and anything that may fall between them I will put closer in black and draw arrows to both of them.

 Prior to One Note, I would do a similar thing but with notebooks. This is a more environmentally conscious and easier for me to reference method of the same thing. 

2. Playlists: I love when songs reference a person or tell a specific story and you can picture what kind of person that is. Playlists actually help motivate me and help me when I need some more creative juice to really put in the details.

3. Word count goals: Having goals that you can achieve I think is always an easy confidence booster. So although 400 words in a day is not a lot... it's 400 more than you had yesterday, or that morning, and pushes you closer to your goal. Setting parameters for myself like meeting this goals keeps the chaos from getting too far out of hand, because I could spend hours and hours researching medusa to the point that me writing about her is precise but at some point I just need to allow myself some creative liberty with this character to get her on a page.

4. Pinterest Boards: I am a very visual person in general. When I am organizing I utilize different colors, imagery, you name it. I really focus on the details of something when it comes to work because I feel like, in a nutshell, the more information I have the better I can make an educated decision. To relate this back to writing, by corralling these images relating to one specific thing, it allows me to see the story in my head or to flesh out these characters a little more. 

5. Index Cards: This is a method I have not used yet, but I originally heard from Susan Dennard as a tip for writing that fits my style really well. If I write out smaller scenes on note/index cards I can stream along a time line for my story to start adding structure. Right now I'm very much in the writing the scenes I see in my head and then sort out later phase of writing, but when it comes to actually piecing things together I plan to use this method. I have applied it before to essays in High School, so I've used a version of it, but never for actually writing. 

Let me know your goals in the comments. Do you guys plan on participating in NaNoWriMo?