We’re winding down to the last two Ways I get Myself to Write. You may be asking: what’s the 10th method? Well, as the title of this article already spells out in all caps, one of the ways I get myself to write is by reading. I know that may sound counterproductive to some of you. If I’m trying to get myself to write, then why am I stopping to read? Well, immersing myself in a good story not only helps my mind recuperate and relax, I find myself learning a lot about technique, characterization, character development, rising action, conflict, and theme as I read. I’m not saying that you should start reading a book and copy down everything, word-for-word from that book, change a few names and pass it off as your own; that would be plagiarizing.

No, I’m saying that you should take your reading seriously. Don’t just think about how much you love the characters or the story, ask yourself: why? What about the way the author describes the characters or reveals parts of their personality effectively contributes to the story. How does the author create suspense? How does the author evoke emotion from you? Is it through the dialogue? What specifically about the dialogue? Enjoy reading the story, but try to pinpoint how the technical aspect of the book effects the story in its ability to engage you. One way you can keep track of your observations is by jotting them down in a notebook. Don’t go all note crazy and stop after each page to write down ten thousand notes (I may or may not have done that at one time…). Maybe stop every couple of chapters or halfway through the book and think about what stuck out to you. Writing, “The part with the dragon was cray”; again, ask yourself why? “The author focused a lot on describing the fight with the dragon as well as what the dragon looked like, which gave me a clear word picture and kept me interested in the rising action.” Or, shorthand it to something like, Dragon scene = descriptive details formed word picture; kept me focused.

I recently got Reading Journal: for Book Lovers by Potter Style that not only has space to write notes, but includes room to write the name of the book I’m reading, the author, the genre, the things I want to learn more about after reading the book, and my star rating. It’s a great way to keep all your thoughts in one place. My only wish is that there was more room for notes. 😛 But there are other great features in the journal like start and finish dates, a recommended list of book titles, room to record your favorite authors, and so much more. (This journal and two others I HIGHLY recommend are in our online store.) In fact, I use my notes from my reading journal as the basis for my book reviews. And the book reviews are basically things that I’ve learned and want to incorporate into my writing or at least try. Therefore, the knowledge gained from reading gives me motivation to write. BAM! Full circle. 😉

So, go ahead; take a load off, shut down your computer, and get to reading. In the words of one of my favorite Christian Romance writers, Irene Hannon, “Read exhaustively in the genres that interest you.”

Oh, writing prompts. How I love thee. Now, writing prompts are helpful for many reasons, the obvious one being: THEY MOTIVATE YOU AND ME TO WRITE! They are a tonic against writer’s block *gagging noise* and a fun way to exercise your imagination. What’s great about prompts is that they give you enough direction to actually have something to write about while also giving you the freedom to take what you’ve been given and go a million different routes.

Some other advantages are that writing prompts can help inspire a scene for a preexisting story, help you finish a scene you might be stuck on, or help you come up with a brand new story idea. This has certainly been the case for me as well as KelseyDragon17. In fact, we often do prompts together when we hang out and then swap what we’ve written when we are done. Other times, if I feel like writing but don’t want to work on anything specific or just want to create something, I’ll pick a random prompt and time myself for let’s say, fifteen minutes. That’s a great way to warm-up your brain and/or keep it in shape so that you’re still writing something on a day to day basis.

Do I write everyday? Heck, no. I wish. 😛 But, I’m trying. And in case you want to give prompt writing a try as well, I’ve included five specific kinds of prompts you can use to gain inspiration. (They also happen to be my favorites, but that’s not as important.)

• PINTEREST PROMPTS – If you simply go on Pinterest and type in “writing prompts” you will get a whole lot of pins with a lot of different prompts on them. Some have one sentence scene descriptions that give you various situations to go off of, while others give you a snippet of dialogue. Still others give you a character or setting description to use. I love these. I love these so much I have a whole board dedicated to writing prompts on my account. In addition to the word-poster prompts you might see, if you search “writing inspiration pictures” you can find a lot of really interesting pictures to use as prompts. Again, I have a board dedicated to these bad boys. A little disclaimer: KD17 and I had this discussion, and apparently, a prompt is not a Pinterest prompt unless it was inspired by a picture or prompt from there. What I mean is, you can’t write a scene and then find a picture the next day and say that that scene is a Pinterest prompt. I know, I tried.
• PROMPT GENERATORS – There are a TON of random generators online that you can use for writing inspo. I’ve found plot, dialogue, backstory, setting, character description, character profile, and even character costume generators just by searching “writing prompt generator” on Google. I always laugh when I use these; they can be so random but that helps sometimes. And for on the go, search for the same thing on your smartphone’s app store. They have just as many for mobile devices as they do online.
• PROMPT BOOKS – Oh geez. Now, I’m getting hyped. Writing prompt books are the bomb.com. They just are. Especially the 642 Things to Write About book by 826 Valencia. They have a whole line of prompt books to either write or draw something and they come in regular and travel size. They also have a “Young Writer’s” edition, which HELLO WE ARE ALL YOUNG WRITERS so I thought that was pretty lit. What’s nice about the YW edition is that the prompts are totally kid-friendly and I’d even say slightly more whimsical. The layout varies from page to page, so some prompts have more space for writing than others while others have blank space for drawing if you wanted to. I’d suggest if a prompt really inspires you, keep a notebook handy in case you need more room. The other book I have is “Complete the Story” by Piccadilly. I actually just got this one for my birthday. 😉 The book gives you a prompt that literally cuts off and it’s up to you to finish it. I personally like to change the POVs and names of the characters if they are included in a prompt, but that’s just me.

• FOUND OBJECTS – When I’m out, I sometimes get inspiration by looking at things (especially when shopping). I see pictures, pieces of jewelry, books, even something as random as a candlestick and I automatically have a scene idea swirling around in my head. Going to thrift stores like Goodwill or garage sales are great ways to find inspo because everything has a history, a significance and though you may not know the real story, you can make up one, and thus, create a story. Paper documents (old or new) like postcards can be sources of inspiration too. Ask yourself: What’s happening in the photo on the postcard? Who is the person writing the postcard? Who is the person receiving the postcard? Where are they? The questions are endless.
• FRIENDS & FAMILY – You heard me! Ask your friends/family for something to write about. It can be anything. Have them read a piece of your work and ask them what else should happen in that scene. Tell them to shout the first word or phrase that comes to their mind and use that. Or, simply use the interactions you have with them as dialogue in your story. Nothing makes dialogue more believable than using things that people actually said. Of course, you might want to tell them that you are using your conversation with them as inspiration before you type it up. 😛

And there you have it. Five types of prompts that will hopefully motivate you to write. Let us know which kinds you try out and how they work for you! (Btw: both prompt books mentioned can be found on our Amazon Store site.)

This is a very simple method I like to use when I’m on the go. I’m one of those writers who is constantly hearing her characters talking to each other. I live for dialogue, I hear it everywhere I go. Sometimes, a random phrase will pop into my head that inspires an entire scene. For me, out of all the pieces that make up a story, dialogue pieces are the easiest to place. More often that not, I get inspiration for dialogue when I’m out running errands, visiting a new place (like I am this week! #vacay), or hanging with friends. In those situations I like to be able to just write out the dialogue without having to worry about being descriptive, using dialogue tags, or talking about the physical actions of my characters. I’d started jotting down some dialogue in my notebook a couple weeks ago while waiting for my mom as she ran an errand but became slightly confused when going back to read over what I had written. It’s hard to distinguish between which of my characters is talking, especially when another character comes into the scene halfway through. For this reason, I assigned a colored pen (but you can use pencils, markers, crayons, etc.) to each of my characters so that every time they spoke, their dialogue was in a specific color. This actually helped me out a lot. It’s not a very ground-breaking or super motivational method, just something quick and fun to make writing easier (and therefore more frequent) for you as you go about your summer. 😉

Here’s a tiny snippet of the scene I was talking about above between two of my main characters: Rowena (“Ro” for short) and Demetry (but here at YWD, we like to call him “Demy” 😛 )…

This entry is technically for August, but I haven’t written anything for July so I’m doing a “wombo-combo” sort of thing instead. 😛 Let’s see…what did I do? Ummm…sporadically wrote down bits of dialogue, wrote some articles, went to a magical, super cute bookstore while on vacation and purchased 38 books… No joke, I was hyperventilating when I got to the Christian fiction section. 😛 I started reading a new book on human temperaments that has inspired me to work on further developing my characters (more on that later), got major INSPO for one of my CCR sequels, wrote down some scene ideas, actually wrote about 1,000 words worth of book material, and got to spend a whole week at the beach Bible Journaling which was a much needed blessing. 🙂 Oh! Had my first “Writing Lock-In” with KelseyDragon17 (thoughts on that in later article), typed up some scenes from a few notebooks, started a few scenes, worked on my story outline, and put all my excerpts for my FF series into one document. That was cray, and surprisingly, that whole series isn’t even as long as my one CCR story is by itself. #whateven

–YW