![]() Nothing was wasted.Ĭhoose the prompt at random – Choosing the prompt should not take hours it shouldn’t even take 10 minutes in itself. And those prompts that didn’t result in full chapters included inside the complete novel, still gave me scenes, sections, or ideas that I used elsewhere within the story. I used thematic prompts, I used circumstantial prompts, I even used a sci-fi prompt when I was writing about World War II, occupied Paris. Use a prompt to get you started – If you don’t already have a novel in progress, or even if you do, a prompt can kickstart you’re writing because it gives you an idea to immediately work with, even if it has nothing to do with your novel initially. A timer will sound when your session is over, and you don’t need to think about it after you hit start. You will waste seconds looking at the clock wondering if you had hit your limit yet. Use a timer – don’t just look at the clock and think you will stop 10 minutes from that time. The six steps you can use to write a novel in 10 minutes include: There were days when I just wrote to see how many words I could get on the page before time ran out, days when I challenged myself to complete an entire chapter in 10 minutes, days when I wrote just about characterization, and times when I explored setting, dug deeper into the tone of the story, and an entire week of 10-minute writing sessions when I just moved chapters around and looked at where they fit best within the larger plot structure. Other times I knew exactly what I would write about. Sometimes I had a prompt I could dive into immediately. Instead of thinking I only had 10 minutes, I now showed up to work, even if only for 10 minutes. Instead of worrying about what I was writing, I was worried about the time: running out of it, wasting it. Then the timeline freed me up to write about anything, to forget my inner critic and just write. At first, I didn’t think I would get much on the page. For six nights a week, I wrote for 10 minutes. ![]() I took Saturday nights for myself, away from writing, away from thinking about my book. I only showed up for our 10-minute sessions. ![]() She showed up for 10 minutes for her writing group and another 10 minutes with me. She asked if I wanted to try the same idea for the first week-a simple premise write every day for 10 minutes a day. The first week they would only write for 10 minutes. We tried for an hour, but that timeline puttered out quickly. She lives in a different city, and we decided that we could pop into a chat at the same time and keep each other accountable for showing up. Then a friend recommended we write together. Then I’d spend about five minutes staring at the blank page until the hour was up and I could return to ignoring my novel all over again. If I only had an hour, I would spend most of the time organizing my thoughts, or my workspace, researching random facts that I didn’t actually need, or trying to figure out the right song for the mood I wanted in the scene. If I didn’t devote at least two hours to writing at a given time, I considered it time wasted, or not enough time to get anything done. Up until that point, I had been a marathon writer, working on the page for hours at a time. By the end of the day, after putting my daughter to bed, I barely had enough energy to eat dinner, let alone write a novel. I wanted to spend time with my wife, with my baby, walk my dog, and see the light of day, even if only in my front yard. During the pandemic, I was working up to five writing jobs at a time. It takes an average of 10 hours to finish reading a novel, so it would make sense that it would take over 10 hours to write a novel, but I wrote a novel in 10 minutes. This was a lovely rabbit hole, with spats, an accordion, and rumour has it, a stuffed cat.A novel is long. Returned after a long break- glad I did- I explored a Japanese Tea Garden. I'm a suspense writer (romance) but most of the things I'm coming up with in these lists are supernatural in nature. I know this might be a bit late but I've just completed day 10. Oof, picked a difficult location! Comment by balloonysaintjohn Or you can support the podcast, Death Of 1000 Cuts, by dropping a few bucks to my Ko-fi page: Genre Learning Comment by Jeremy St.Martin If you'd like to help me create more free content for authors, you can support my career by buying my novels, THE ICE HOUSE and THE HONOURS, via the links below. This course was made possible by the generous support of Arts Council England, and by the support of listeners. Over days and weeks, these build together to help you gain confidence and get match fit for writing whatever you want. ![]() This is Day 10 of the 100 Day Writing Challenge by Tim Clare, a free course via podcast for writers of all levels.Įach episode has a 10 minute writing exercise, including a timer, related to some aspect of the craft.
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