Being a writer means that you often spend time alone. Wondering. Daydreaming. Battling fictional monsters on a plated unicorn with a magical broad sword. In other words. Being a writer is a job between the job… and most cases, between a real physical job. It’s exhausting. With today’s technology, writing can feel less like a burden.
Before I actually thought that writing is a path I wanted to travel, I used to have piles and piles of written notebooks. Scribbled. Drawn. With horrific stories and grammatical issues. I didn’t mind though. I was happy just creating. Telling a story. Any story at all. But same as Magic: The Gathering Cards, video games, and other actual fun things I did back then, I must choose a career. Or so I was thought.
I derailed to work on different jobs over the years, still writing as an amateur. Helped from time to time others fulfill their dreams. After the movie, Extra Terrestres was released. I became anxious about getting my stories to the world. It was hard at first changing from scriptwriting to actual novel writing. You might think it is the same, but there are differences. In one, you contract the information (scripts) and the other (novels) you have to expand.
I watch hours and hours of YOUTUBE channels about novel writers, read countless blogs, books looking for all the things that might help me not to have errors in the manuscript. So besides telling you about YOUTUBE, books, and blogs, I’ll tell you about other tools to help you writing.
READ: You need to educate yourself. Reading is the fastest way to getting better. You will see that your vocabulary will improve. Rhythm. Style. Variety of words.
WRITE: I mean you got to start doing it. If you don’t try it you won’t know when and where you need to improve.
WRITING PLATFORM: Word, CELTX. Choose an application that suits you. Today with all the updates it can make your writing cleaner. Suggestion grammatical errors. Formatting.
WORD CORRECTOR: Nowadays you don’t need to wait to get a professional editor to “clean” your novel. You still need an editor. But today you have things like GRAMMARLY that can help you fix your manuscript. They have things like word variety. Check formality. Grammar errors. Punctuation. This will come in handy when getting your story to agents, editors, beta-readers.
AMBIANCE: I don’t know about you, but I can’t write in utter silence. Some people do. I do one of two things. One put Netflix on an I DON’T CARE series or movie. Two, use an ambiance app like Ambient Mixer. This keeps me hearing something and on my toes to write. I tried putting music. But sometimes I see myself singing or more into the music than writing.
EDUCATION: You got to keep learning. You got schools, teachers, and seminars. YOUTUBE and blogs. Besides you have online education. There are apps like edX and Skillshare. You can choose what you need to learn. On what part of the publishing part you are at.
Besides some of those tools, there are others. You can get help with writing communities. Other writers. Getting brutally honest people besides you and people who want and will make you better. No “yes” men, please.
Once you have the necessary tools you need and feel good about what you have by your side. Write! What else you need? Having a plan on what you need to do with your book. Marketing. Editing. Query Letter. Art for the cover. Somebody to format. We will go on some of those later. For now, if you have questions, feel free to leave a comment below. Awesome writing guys.