3 Clever Ways to Help You Write Daily

3 Clever Ways to Help You Write Daily

By Matthew Hart

Keeping to a daily writing routine will create the greatest impact on your writing skills and productivity throughout your writing career. 

Here are 3 Clever Ways to Help You Write Daily

1. Keep a Daily Journal or Diary

By keeping a daily journal or diary entry, you will gain two important benefits: 

First, you will be showing up at the page to write every day which will develop the groundwork for your daily writing habit. 

Second, you will be capturing your real to life events and your emotional responses towards those events and the people involved with them. 

As your writing skills get better, your personal, daily, journal entries will become an invaluable resource for enhancing your writing. 

Your daily journals will give you the foundation for your daily writing habit and will help you create fictional characters and worlds with three-dimensionality that will "ring true." 

2. Start a Blog

You will gain two more benefits from starting your own blog:

First, by meeting a consistent publishing schedule you will be developing the self discipline required to write daily to meet your writing project deadlines. 

Keep in mind, you are not required to publish daily. Once or twice a week is acceptable. Just keep to it.

Second, you will start to develop your writer's platform, as well as your fan base of excited readers who will want to get to know you better. 

Your writer's platform allows you to engage with your readers.

Once you get to know who is reading your writing, you can begin to write with your readers in mind. 

By engaging with your readers through your blog, you will build excitement around your next published work. You can also ask them for their opinions on story ideas and even recruit beta readers to give you notes. 

Get involved. Get excited. These are your fans!

3. Write Short Stories

You will gain two great benefits from writing short stories.

First, you will gain more confidence as a writer as you begin meeting your production goals. By finishing one polished short story a week, you will find that it becomes easier to sit down and write every day because each day will represent a small step towards finishing a weekly goal. 

Second, you'll be ready to publish your book of short stories as all those short stories have added up over time. 

What started out as a simple daily writing practice has now become a viable commercial product!

Hopefully, you've been blogging about your writing experience and asking for your reader's opinions of your writing projects throughout the year because, guess what? You will now have an audience of readers waiting to buy your latest published book of short stories! 

For example, here is my own book of short stories: 

Uncle Matty's Halloween: Jokes, Bits & Anecdotes

I hope you can start using these 3 clever ways to help you write daily.

What are your daily writing habits?

SHARE YOUR DAILY WRITING ROUTINE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

Continue your journey:

This Wireless Keyboard Just Topped My Wish List (Blog Post)

LET'S WRITE! 7 Day Writing Challenge (Blog Posts)

Learn To Write Funny (Blog Posts)

Or, hop over to my YouTube Coin Channel:

Matthew The Great Coin Roll Hunter

*I am an Amazon Affiliate
and this blog uses Amazon Affiliate links.

LET'S WRITE: Day 3 - There's Always a Way

Building a writing habit requires you to sit down and write everyday. What should you write? Use writing prompts to find out!

LET'S WRITE: Day 3 - There's Always a Way

By Matthew L. Hart

Writer & Humorist

Author of:

Uncle Matty's Halloween: Jokes, Bits & Anecdotes

MatthewHartComedy.blogspot.com

FIRST SENTENCE STICK: 

"The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating."

      The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. From that moment on, his career was cattle branded. Of course, he would have no problem passing the obstacle course or the physical exams. He played football in high school but, just wasn't good enough to get a scholarship. Nor was he bright enough to attend college without one.
      One particular officer conducted a non-lethal weapons training class. She recognized some subtle, apprehensive quality in John. A base level insecurity. She approached him privately after class with a solution.
      During the day of the written exam, John visited the men's room. He used the third stall marked, "Out of Order." Inside, he checked under the porcelain. The answer sheet. Just as promised. Her voice echoed in his ear, "There's always a way for those willing to take it." John took the bait and attached to himself, the first apathetic string.
      Three weeks later, he became a boiling furnace, stoked by a rejection letter from the Police Academy. It took fifty thousand volts of electricity from this particular officer, now his handler, before John understood. He had failed the exam but had passed the test. "Congratulations." His handler said, while John convulsed on the floor in a puddle of his warm piss. "You'll be running for Sheriff of Wendover, Nevada."

I'll primarily be using The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan to prompt my 7 day writing challenge but feel free to do yours however you'd like.

Writing everyday is a great step towards becoming a Master Storyteller.

Do you want to share your own writing during this 7 day writing challenge?

ADD YOUR BLOG ADDRESS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

Continue your journey:

This Wireless Keyboard Just Topped My Wish List (blog post)

Learn To Write Funny (Blog Posts)

Or, hop over to my YouTube Coin Channel:

Matthew The Great Coin Roll Hunter

*I am an Amazon Affiliate
and this blog uses Amazon Affiliate links.

How To Use Story Sticks To Break Through Writer's Block

This writing exercise was discovered from
The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan

How To Use Story Sticks To Break Through Writer's Block

By Matthew L. Hart

Writer & Humorist

Author of:

Uncle Matty's Halloween: Jokes, Bits & Anecdotes

Someone once said, 

"Writer's Block is when your imaginary friends stop talking to you."

So, let's get your friends talking to you again!

I found The Writer's Toolbox in 2007 and, I must say, writer's block has been a thing of the past for me.

That's because the concepts and tools make writing fun.

Remember when writing used to be fun?

Long before thoughts of becoming a well known author or famous screenwriter or whatever dream, goal or ambition you started to cultivate once someone first complimented your work, we used to write just for the hell of it.

That's what The Writer's Toolbox hopes to accomplish for you.

A few days ago, we discovered the Sixth-Sense Cards in The Writer's Toolbox and I showed you how they would improve your descriptive writing. 

You can find that post here:

This single writing practice improved my work forever!

Today, I'm going to show you how The Story Sticks will help you defeat the blank page and sprout some story structure through conflict.

How do the Story Sticks work?

There are three different types of story sticks. Each story stick is used in it's turn with the aid of a three minute sand timer (Included in The Writer's Toolbox) to get you writing about something right away.

The three types of Story Sticks are:

1. First Sentence
2. Non Sequitur
3. Last Straw

The First Sentence Stick destroys the blank page because you don't have to come up with something to write.

Simply choose a First Sentence Stick at random, write it at the top of the page, flip the three minute sand timer and start writing about what happens next.

You'll also notice how fun the experience is to actually retrieve the wooden popsicle sticks from the box and shuffle them in your hands. You get to feel the texture of the wood and the weight of the thing.

In a world where there's an app for just about everything,
this simple act of getting your hands on something tangible just might be the thing that sparks your creativity.

Now say "Goodbye" to writer's block!

I'll show you.

My First Sentence Story Sick reads:

"There I was, just standing there, when what I wanted to do was forbidden."

Before I start thinking about this sentence too much, I'm going to flip the three minute sand timer and write from my stream of consciousness.

Feel free to write with me. Now,

GO!

"There I was, just standing there, when what I wanted to do was forbidden. It was Friday! I just wanted hang out with my friends. It wasn't even like it was a school night or anything. I mean, sure, mom wasn't happy that I forged her signature on my mid-term grade report but, she shouldn't have been going through my bag in the first place! I can't wait to get out of here. This is so unfair!"

Pens down, you're done!

Now that the First Sentence has been written, we've got some characters interacting and a situation developing, we're going to draw the next story stick.

The Non Sequitur creates a twist in the plot to surprise our reader.

It's easier to explain by just showing you. 

Let's draw a Non Sequitur Story Stick now.

My Non Sequitur Story Stick reads:

"Tom lost 25 bucks at the races."

Now, picking up from where we left off, we're going to drop this Non Sequitur somewhere in the next paragraph.

Just flip the timer and

GO!

"I stormed to my room and slammed the door shut. No sooner had I done that when the front door opened and slammed shut as well. I could hear the conversation through the thin walls of our trailer. Mom started yelling. Tom lost 25 bucks at the races. "She sure knows how to pick'em." I thought. They would be up all night fighting and I couldn't stand to hear my mom cry. The window screen popped out easily with the screwdriver. The notch on the window sill was well-worn. They won't even notice I'm gone."

Time's up!

I think that the hardest part at this point is not to go back and read what you've written. It's so important not to be the editor right now. We just want to generate the raw material as fast as possible.

Let's keep going and draw The Last Straw Story Stick.

The Last Straw Story Stick expresses a small, mundane moment that suggests a greater underlining conflict. 

We use The Last Straw to add deeper conflict between the characters that will push them forward towards some satisfying resolution.

Follow along if you'd like.

My Last Straw Story Stick reads:

"the last time they saw a movie"

Now, don't think, just write. We'll flip the timer and

GO!

"I met Angela at the park near my house. It was a typical Friday night for us but, Rob was going to be there, too. We'd only been seeing each other for a week and I was already mad at him, and Angela, that skank! She knew I liked him. Why is she even here? "How about a movie tonight?" Angela, asked. "Ew! No way." I said, hopping off the picnic table. That was it! I wasn't going to put myself through that again. The last time they saw a movie together I was surprised she didn't end up pregnant. It should have been me! "Why don't you and Rob just go together since you like each other so much!"

AND...WE'RE DONE!

Now, we can take a moment to go back and read what we just wrote.

If you want, make changes and edit how you see fit.

But, really take the time to see what you were able to write in about 15 minutes.

Not bad, huh?

Mastering writer's block is the first step to mastering a daily writing routine.

Do you think that the Story Sticks will be an effective way for you to break through your writer's block?

SHARE YOUR STORY 

IN THE  COMMENTS BELOW

Continue your journey:

This Wireless Keyboard Just Topped My Wish List (blog post)

This single writing practice improved my work forever!

Or, hop over to my YouTube Coin Channel:

Matthew The Great Coin Roll Hunter

*I am an Amazon Affiliate
and this blog uses Amazon Affiliate links.