Helpful Hints

Take times throughout the day to takes breaks. Trust me, I know you will feel like you have to get the book out, or that you have to keep working because of some other reasoning, but it’s not true. You can’t write if you are burnt out. You will only make yourself more frustrated and then look back at your work and think to yourself “AHH THIS SUCKS”! Believe me, I’ve been there. When I type I make sure to take 5-10 minute breaks to simply walk around my house, socialize, go to the bathroom, play with the dog, whatever it may be. Normally, that will calm me down enough to come back and try again with fresh eyes.

It is OK for you to ask for help! Being a self published author I felt like I had no one to turn to. None of my friends did the same thing as me and I felt like there were many times I was completely on my own. Let me say this, “How To…” videos on YouTube became my best friend. If I didn’t know what to do or how to fix something, 98% of the time there was a video of someone just like me teaching others how to fix it. I also joined Facebook groups of authors and compared ideas. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very frustrating profession but there are people out there going through similar stuff. You just need to ask around and you will find your way.

Having people you love around you read your book and having multiple beta readers read your book is a great way to get new thoughts! Especially if all these people are different ages, genders, and overall not people that would read your genre. I think I had about eight different people read my book before it came out.

Watching YouTube videos on how to correctly write something is another fun and intriguing way to boost your creative brain power! Plenty of youtubers out there will have videos on “steps to making great villains” or “steps on how to have a great plot twists”. These are very enjoyable to listen to and help you know what not to do and what you could do.

I know she’s an Adult fantasy writer but Jenna Moreci on YouTube has a great channel on really fun things to implement into your books. This is all her opinions so she’s not always right but it is fun to compare and contrast her thoughts and yours. I will post a link to one of hers as an example below and you can check out her channel.

Example below of good villain’s:

No matter what time it is or what you have around you, write it down. I wrote notes on paper, computers, iPad, phones, Facebook messengered myself, sticky notes, and more, because I knew that I would forget this idea. Another thing I did and it works for some authors but not all is I love to listen to classical music that sets the scene. If I’m writing a sad part I want sad music and if I’m writing an action part then I have epic battle music. If you go to the tab at the top and click on the “Music” section, you will be linked to a whole random assortment of music in really no order at all that I listen to while typing.

For those of you that are self published like me, these videos on this playlist have saved my life.

Click below. :)