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What Not To Write And Writing Tips

~ All of my early, horrible writing, and what works for me!

What Not To Write And Writing Tips

Monthly Archives: February 2016

The Trouble With Writing

22 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Courtney Killian (@SCourtney94) in Writing Problems

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editing, Facebook, motivation, The Trouble With Writing, trouble, writing, Writing Accountability Group

Hey all, I’m back to a regular schedule with this series. I’m hoping to get back to prompts this Friday. I haven’t done them in several months and I miss them!

This week, we’re talking about getting motivated to write.

Recently, I started talking to someone that hasn’t written since high school. They found their passion in eighth grade, but due to certain circumstances, hasn’t written since graduation.

This saddens me.

If you find a passion, you should chase after it. It’s what you love. It’s what you need to feel alive. It’s something that just might turn into an actual career with you.

Now, I understand that writing may or may not turn into an actual career, but you never know if you don’t take a chance. You miss one hundred percent of the chances you don’t take.

Now, on to the actual subject: How do we get motivated to write?  We all go through a time when we don’t feel motivated to write, and we don’t know what to write, or anything. I would know, I’ve gone through a month at a time of that. It’s not easy.

So how do we find that motivation? One thing that helped me was to join a writing accountability group on Facebook. In that group, the first post I saw was that someone had written about 2000 words, and saying that it wasn’t a lot. I kind of got the impression that if you don’t write and post up often, I would be kicked out of the group, so I made sure to do so every day. I soon realized that it wasn’t true, but by then I was in the habit of doing so. I don’t do near as much anymore, but I still try to do so every so often so I know I’m writing and editing.

That has worked for me, but what has worked for you? Let me know in the comments!

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Lesson 69

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Courtney Killian (@SCourtney94) in Writing Tips

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don't give up, lesson, Lesson 69, lessons, Oprah, writing

I apologize for not getting a post up on Monday. I was hoping to, but things happened. Oh, well. I’m back to it today.

This week, we’re talking about not giving up.

As writers, a lot of us think about giving up at some point. I know I sure did. Well, we can’t. Things can start happening.

Personally, I was saving up for months for an editor that I wanted, and even after those several months, I was still nowhere close to having the amount of money that I needed.

I was so discouraged. I wanted to give up.

I thought about giving up for a long time. Then, things started changing. My publisher reached out to me, I gave her a call, and she directed me toward an editor that was actually in my price range.

I’m so glad I didn’t give up before then, because I never would have met them. I never would have been able to afford an editor and achieve my dream.

Never give up on this dream you have. If I had given up, I never would have been able to achieve this crazy dream of being a published author. Mind you, I’m not there yet, but now my final draft is done, and I will be there very soon.

I heard about one author who was published for ten years and didn’t do very well at all. She really thought about giving up, and was planning on it. Well, she did an interview that caught Oprah’s attention. So what happened? This author was invited to be on Oprah’s show. She never would have done that if she had actually given up.

Never give up. Things can always change for the better.

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Lesson 68

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Courtney Killian (@SCourtney94) in Uncategorized

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Hey all, I’m finally getting back to a normal schedule on blogging. This week, we’re talking about promotion.

I’m new at this whole promotion thing, so I’ll be walking through this with you. I’ve had some help, though. 🙂

Promoting your book is beyond important. How else are you going to let people know about it? It won’t magically appear in the hands of people…trust me.

I used to think, “Oh, I’ll promote it when it’s out. I don’t have to do anything before that. I’ll be rich and famous after saying something about it after it’s out.”

Yeah, no. Promotion doesn’t work like that.

You want to promote your book way before it’s out, and way before I started (well, unless you count bringing it up in blogs countless times…then I’ve been promoting it since the month after I started writing it). Schedule posts for your Facebook page. Schedule Twitter posts. Make connections and they’re more likely to promote your work.

Oh, and word about Facebook author pages… Guys, don’t wait until the book is out to make your author page. I used to think that I would wait. If that were the case, I still wouldn’t have made it, and I wouldn’t have 5,000+ likes. You don’t want to wait. Trust me.

Different strategies for promotion work for different people. Some things that work for me might not work for others. If you have any tips, please let others know.

So, what do you do for promotion? Let me know in the comments!

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The Trouble With Writing

08 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Courtney Killian (@SCourtney94) in Uncategorized

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Hey all, I am so sorry for not posting for so long! Life happened, and well, there’s nothing we can do about that. I hope all of you have been fairing better than I have at this whole life thing.

Even though there is big news to share, I am going to stick to the usual Monday thing and talk about what the trouble with writing is. I’ll probably blurt out the big news while I’m writing this, anyway.

Today, we’re talking about how to balance promotion of your book that’s about to come out, (which is the stage I’m at right now!) and writing your other book. Oh, and it’s probably the busiest month of your life, too.

Yeah. It happens.

I’ve found this to be a problem. I meant to schedule a post on Friday to have set for the next day. I got to Saturday night, and…dang. I totally forgot that I was going to schedule that promotion post. And I was gone for the majority of Saturday. Whoops.

Don’t forget, guys. You can’t just forget about promoting your book. Schedule your promotion  excerpts, (it only takes a few minutes, if you think about it…) and then write. And as for it being the busiest month of your life, well, try to take a few minutes out of your day to write. You have time to read this, so you have time to write. Personally, I usually take just a few minutes out every evening to write or edit, whichever I feel like doing. It’s not long – only 15-20 minutes – but at least I’m writing.

So, are you ready to commit more to writing? You must be, otherwise you wouldn’t have stopped by this site. So let’s go, guys. Let’s get to this crazy balancing act of promoting and writing.

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