Step 5: Coagulate from notebooks
Compiled all my fantasy novel notes from handwritten notebooks and a rather geeky online wiki. Lots of transcribing, but after sifting through a few years worth of crap... but never mind all that.
I know I'm an amateur but nonetheless, here are my current five favorite pieces of writing advice.
1. Show don't tell- Everyone sort of knows this. But specifically, I mean the Chuck Palahniuk rule for 6 months:
"From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use. " http://bit.ly/1D2UVL3
2. Vomit draft: if you simply change your goal from "writing well" to "writing badly," you will be a veritable fucking fountain of material (Dan Harmon) http://bit.ly/2gaWLE7
3. Writer's block is bullshit
The vomit draft solves this. My other personal rule for tackling anything resembling writer's block- no distractions, sit in front of a notebook with a pen. Set a timer for an hour. Not a computer, just blank paper. If you get through the hour without coming up with the next sentence then, well, shit
4. The remembering practice
Every day, if you want to write something, take some time to recall one specific event or scene that happened in real life that day. Not journalling your thoughts- but a descriptive, narrative account of something that happened; the kind you would put in a story, book, or article. Write a few paragraphs, leave it at that. Your memory will improve, your ability to draw on real experiences and details will improve, you will start to notice moments worth writing about in the first place- tonnes of benefits.
5. Write everything down
Every single damn idea. Every one of them. Use google keep, a notebook, whatever. An idea isn't an idea if it isn't recorded. I have an Evernote called "writing nebula". I title each idea with some kind of tag (/poem /story idea /scene /character etc.) The note is now 17 000 words long / 5 years old and is my own personal inspiration page, a large source for many of my short stories, poems, and characters.
Also here's a short story I wrote...inebriated almost 8 years ago before I was medicated that I found on behalf of Henrik Redbeard Hoeg I don't know if I can write like this anymore, and whether that's a loss. It's called "THE WRONG ADDRESS" (~500 words...2-3 mins read)