BIAW North and South

By the time I reach the fourth or fifth day of a BIAW, the energy and the power that comes from the muse can go one of two ways...

North, bringing lots of new ideas, excitement and words...

or South, like the well had totally dried up. There ain't no more words.

If you're heading north right now-woo hoo! You go! Drive those words to your goal destination. And further if you can.

Falling behind? The words just are not there for you? Try this. Just write nonsense Write something like 'I am the best, most prolific writer in the world.' Write it over and over and over. Eventually, your brain will kick in and your story should begin to flow again. Yep, this is positive affirmation time. Avoid any negative statements, even in your rambling. Writing, 'I can't write today.' is only reinforcing your not writing! So that's what your brain, characters, computer, even your soul comes to believe.

Belief is a huge, essential componant to being a successful author.

And in meeting your BIAW goal!

Today's photos are compliments of John Shaver.

BIAW--Writing Without Editing

Writing without editing?

Yep, that can be a tough one sometimes. Just rememeber that your next step will be editing, so it's not like you'll never get the chance.

Some tricks...

*Imagine locking your internal editor in a closet. Whop her up side the head with a two by four and stuff her mouth with a thick gag. Whatever it takes to shut her up.

*turn your font color to white. It'll look like you're not doing anything, but you'll have words when you change the color back. Now, I've never tried this--and with my tendency to have my fingers on the wrong keys...well, not so sure how that would work. There are those who swear by this technique.

*rearrange your screen so you can only see a few lines of what your working on. (use the double-headed arrow thingie to increase the size of the task tray on the bottom of your screen (if you're in windows). I have an alpha smart word processor I use sometimes--it shows only four lines of type at a time. Makes it difficult to go back and 'fix'.

*If you get stuck on something--a word, something you need to research, anything like that--make some notation like ### or **** or (word) and go on. Something else to work on--LATER.

*Be strong! Set your mind to writing fast, knowing next week you can edit!