If you're here to see an impressive storyboard, you've come to the wrong place.
My "outlines" are just paragraphs describing scenes and dialogue that looks like this:
Me: (eating yellow orange spread) What is this?
S: Cheese.
Me: (squinting) ...Are you sure it's cheese?
S: (pause/sniffs spread) N/M it's almond butter.
Me: Where's my Benadryl?
And then summarizing scenes:
I feel itchy. Bumps start to appear. Look for Benadryl. Asking if anyone has any and no one does. Not good. They go to Urgent Care.
What happens if you get stuck on a scene? SKIP IT.
Write ahead to the next scene or to a more interesting part of the current scene. You can always go back and bridge the two parts together once you know where the scene is supposed to go.
Sitting there and trying to force yourself to come up with filler for that scene will just slow you down, make you frustrated, and bore you with the story, making you lose interest. Losing interest in a story is the last thing you need.
How do you focus on writing without getting distracted?
I do timed sprints, usually 30-45 minutes, but I suggest starting at a lower time and building up.
Timed sprints are basically you versus the clock to see how much you can write in that period of time. You can set up a timer on your phone or your laptop. The goal is to write as much actual story in that period of time.
It helps to have your outline or jumbled mess of scenes right below the text you are writing. I find that this guide tells me what to write and I just have to fill in the details as I go.
I'd start at 10-15 minute sprints, just to get used to it, and if you find yourself being able to sit down longer to write, increase the sprint time.
This doesn't work for everyone and sometimes, just racing the clock isn't enough. You can try to record your words per sprint and try to beat it each time. Or you can sprint with others. Someone is watching, so it sort of adds pressure to sit there and focus.
DO NOT use this sprint time to edit. You can go back an do that later; sprinting time is writing time.
After the sprint, take a few minutes to unwind. Stretch out, drink some water, roll your shoulders, and fix your posture. I find 5-10 minutes is a good break before you resume.
What if you're doing a sprint and need to look something up?
Highlight it and move on. When you take a break to research something, it usually leads to something else and then you find yourself 20 articles deep and the sprint is long over.
I will go back to the highlighted portion afterwards and do any additional research that I may have missed in planning or need to reconfirm. Revisiting the highlighted portions to collect and confirm information is a separate time from writing.
How do you write 15K words per week?
I have a strict schedule of when to write. Also, it was kind of an accident that the chapters were ~5K+ for Tori. Here was my writing schedule with I wrote it:
M-F
*Writing: 5PM - 8/9PM
Editing/Rewriting: 9PM - 10PM
Preparing Chapter Upload: +1 HR night before
*I do stuff in between, like eat and relax, but at least half that period of time is writing. Writing is a hobby for me, so I kind of unwind doing it.
Saturday or Sunday:
Editing Posted Chapters with Edit Suggestions: +1-2 HRs
Since I only posted every other day, I write more than I post per week by one or two chapters, and that adds up. While it usually takes me a few hours to write a chapter, the fastest I've finished one 5k-ish chapter is about 2.5 hours and sometimes, I end up writing one and a half or two chapters.
And there are days when I don't write. I'm not feeling it or I just want to be lazy. Sometimes, I'm out of the house and hanging out or visiting people.
The importance of a backlog is to let you have those days when you don't feel or can't write.
