For this exercise set yourself a time limit. Make it short. Pick something that will give you enough time to write a piece, but not enough to think about it. You hear me? No thinking allowed.

After you’ve chosen your time limit, set a timer.

As soon as you are ready to write, click on the cut below — no peeking before. None. Seriously, don’t even think about it or your Inner Editor will win. You will see two pictures, each one of a different character. Pick one to write about.

Give yourself a couple seconds. Seriously, seconds, not minutes. Give yourself a couple seconds to look at it and think about the story you want to tell with that character in it, then turn your timer on and go.

Start writing and don’t stop until you reach the end of the story or your timer goes off.

Did you tell a whole story?

Did you make it to the end before the buzzer?

If not, don’t worry, you will do better next time. These are a great way to warm up for NaNoWriMo because if you set yourself a time limit you won’t have time to listen to your editor if you want to get the story done, which is what NaNo is all about, isn’t it?

Don’t revise your story. Put it away for a few weeks then, when you’ve put some distance between it and yourself you can go back to it and polish it up. For now though, it’s all about beating your Inner Editor — and quantity over quality.

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Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to use today’s word of the week as the inspiration for a poem or piece of flash fiction.

Word of the Week: Distraction

Write your best superhero or supervillian speech.

Then, if you feel up to it, you can use it to enter the Show Us Your Super contest.

For this exercise set yourself a time limit. Make it short. Make it 20 minutes if you write flash, maybe an hour if you write short stories. Pick something that will give you enough time to write a piece, but not enough to think about it. You hear me? No thinking allowed.

After you’ve set your time, set a timer.

As soon as you are ready to write, click on the cut below — no peeking before. None. Seriously, don’t even think about it or your Inner Editor will win. You will see two pictures. Pick one to write about. Give yourself a couple seconds. Seriously, seconds, not minutes. Give yourself a couple seconds to look at it and think about the story you want to tell inspired by it, then turn your timer on and go.

Start writing and don’t stop until you reach the end of the story or your timer goes off. Did you tell a whole story? Did you make it to the end before the buzzer? If not, don’t worry, we’ll do a few more of these before November to get better at the speed-writing thing. The thing is, if you set yourself a time limit you won’t have time to listen to your editor if you want to get the story done, which is what NaNo is all about, isn’t it?

Don’t revise your story. Put it away for a few weeks then, when you’ve put some distance between it and yourself you can go back to it and polish it up. For now though, it’s all about beating your Inner Editor — and quantity over quality.
(more…)

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to use the word of the week as inspiration for a poem or piece of flash fiction.

Word of the week: Haircut

One way to make our characters more believable is if they have some bad habits or traits.  Think of different habits you or other people may look down upon.

Make a list of all the habits.  Pick one or two  habits for the next character you create.

I stole this idea from an exercise Conrad Williams used as a contest on Kari Wolfe’s blog

Write a short story (no more than 1,000 words) in which each sentence is no more than six words long.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to take the word of the week and use it as inspiration for a poem or piece of flash fiction.

Word of the Week: Forgetful

Get your timer out and set it for 15 or 20 minutes and begin writing about “transformation”.

Transformation can have a lot of good things and bad things that come with it.  It can be physical or a state of mind.  Write and see where it takes you.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to use this week’s word of the week as inspiration for a piece of flash fiction or a poem.

Today’s Word of the Week: Camp