Tricks to Keep Writing - Aubrie Dionne

Aubrie Dionne joins us today, to offer some writing advice, celebrate her new release, Haven 6, and give you a chance to win a wonderful piece of jewelry.

Please welcome Aubrie.

 #7 Tricks to keep writing on those hard, slow writing days.

In honor of my blog tour for Haven 6, I’ve decided to write a post about what got me through writing an entire series, or 300,000 words. There were times when I wasn’t sure I could finish, times when my writer’s block kept me from touching the keyboard, times when I wanted to throw my whole series out in space. But, I got through it making my deadlines. (Sometimes just barely) Here are the helpful habits I developed:

1. Keep your goals in mind. I already had my contract with Entangled Publishing, and I had deadlines 6 months apart for book 2 and book 3, so I just kept thinking about how my books would look on their website, and having the three covers: red, blue, and green, on my shelf.

2. Take a break. Whenever I got blocked, I had to remind myself to get away from the computer and move around. I folded laundry, practiced my flute, took my dog for a walk- anything to get my mind going again. If I sat at the computer and did social network stuff, it didn’t get better, it just wasted time.

3. Know what you are going to write before you sit down to that empty page I have a long commute on Fridays when I drive to the university where I teach, so during that drive, I would plan out my next chapter in my head. I’d think about certain lines I wanted to include and certain actions that would make sense with each character. That way, when I finally did sit down, I could type away with a direction in mind.

4. Keep reading other books. My writing gets stale if I stop reading. I also get less inspired. Even though it takes time out of my writing schedule, it’s worth it for me to keep reading other people’s books- books I loved growing up, or even new ones.

5. When you’re not writing, someone else is. I got this one from flute. There’s a saying: when you’re not practicing, someone else is. And that saying would always get me off my butt and get me practicing, because I wanted that first chair, that seat in orchestra, that scholarship, and I knew I couldn’t get it if someone else was more prepared and worked harder.

6. Remember what you love about writing. This is easy to forget when you’re sitting at the keyboard facing a deadline, and everything that’s coming out is crap. I have to remind myself of why I chose writing in the first place, maybe watch some old movies I loved as a kid that inspired me. When you take something you love and make it into a job to make money, you can lose that spark unless you are careful to keep it reinvigorated.

7. Make time to write every day. It’s a sacrifice. You have to get rid of something else to have time to write. For me, sometimes it was watching The Bachelor on ABC, or not going out with my family, or staying up a little later. But, I made time each day to write. Sometimes I’d schedule it in like an appointment. That way, the day wouldn’t go by without me writing something.

Author Bio: Aubrie Dionne is an author and flutist in New England. Her writings have appeared in Mindflights, Niteblade, Silver Blade, Emerald Tales, Hazard Cat, Moon Drenched Fables, A Fly in Amber, and Aurora Wolf. Her books are published by Entangled Publishing, Lyrical Press, and Gypsy Shadow Publishing. She recently signed her YA sci fi novel with Inkspell Publishing titled: Colonization: Paradise Reclaimed, which will release in November 2012. When she's not writing, Aubrie teaches flute and plays in orchestras. She's a big Star Trek TNG fan, as well as Star Wars and Serenity. Learn more about Aubrie: @authoraubrie,  www.authoraubrie.com, http://authoraubrie.blogspot.com

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