Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today is the day. It is our third day of NaNo and it's now time to announce the winner of our NaNoWriMo Giveaway. And the winner, who receives a brand new copy of Karin Harlow's paranormal romance, Enemy Lover, is........*drumroll*..........*drumroll*.....................Steph over at Fangs, Wands, and Fairydust!!! Congratulations! If you could please email your mailing address to berryblue100@yahoo.com, I can send you your prize. You'll receive a winning notification in your inbox as well.Now onto the rest of the post!
I'd like to give a little advice to all my fellow writers out there, especially all the other WriMos. I was sitting in one of my creative writing classes today when my professor said something that struck me as particularly interesting and definitely appropriate considering we're in the midst of NaNo. Now, I don't know about all of you, but I thought I'd have a real struggle by writing without editing myself. But here is a paraphrase of what my professor and published author, Mark Powell, said:
What's tough about being a writer is that you need to learn when to shut off different sides of your brain. Often, we try to use the right side (the creative side) and the left side (the logical side) simultaneously. In writing, that doesn't work. The first draft you shouldn't edit yourself. For that initial draft, everything should be purely creative--just switch off the left side of your brain. When you finish, and it's time to edit, switch off your right side and turn on that nit-picky, analytical left side. Those first few drafts are all for you and your creativity. It's only the final draft that's for the reader.
Great words of advice, don't you think? I will leave you with that for today. Make sure to check back on Friday for another post. Til then ;-)
Great advice! :D
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats to the winner! :)
Britt- I thought it was really good advice too. It makes me feel a lot better about writing with the wild, NaNo abandon lol.
ReplyDeleteSounds great - if only I could get that analytical side to internalize the advice. Easier said than done, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteI bought this book a couple months ago, "Book in a Month," which has some good advice and exercises. I'm hoping I can give the analytical side some exercises to appease it then let my creative side get the draft out. We'll see how that works.
Best of luck to you!