{"id":1336,"date":"2024-06-02T17:10:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T16:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2024-06-09T11:52:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T10:52:45","slug":"day-2-monthofblogging-june2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/02\/day-2-monthofblogging-june2024\/","title":{"rendered":"DAY 2 – #MonthOfBlogging #June2024 #MonthOfWriting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HAVE A PLAN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second tip I have for you this month is regarding planning<\/strong>. Some writers don\u2019t want to plan – they want to freestyle their writing, see where it takes them, let the words drive the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is all well and good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the danger is that an inexperienced writer will sit at their desk (or dining table, or rickety old stool from the garage) and wait for the ideas to come. Lady Muse may, or may not, visit the writer when they\u2019re at this stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If she doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s incredibly FRUSTRATING! You\u2019ve found your writing space, you\u2019ve created that magic half hour or more where you can be undisturbed, and then… nothing. \u201cWhat shall I write about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh dear. That isn\u2019t the right way. The right way is to have an idea before you sit down. You have a germ of an idea, a character or two, some way in which at least one character gets into a \u2018situation\u2019 where conflict can happen. Because conflict, undesirable in real life, is ESSENTIAL in a story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A famous author (I don\u2019t know who) was once asked \u201cHow do you create conflict?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI force my character up a tree. And then I throw rocks at him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether you\u2019re writing a novel, a memoir, a short story, or poetry – before you sit down, you must have an idea. If you\u2019re short of ideas, look online for \u201cwriting prompts\u201d or something similar. I have often found the pages of a local newspaper a rich source of ideas for a story, e.g.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLawnmower stolen from shed.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Who stole it? And, more importantly, why did they steal it? Did they steal it from a specific person who they didn\u2019t like, or was it an opportunistic robbery? What\u2019s the history of the owner of the lawnmower. What\u2019s the history of the thief? Is there a bigger story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElsie Baggett celebrates her 100th birthday.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Nice story. Who is she? Where does she live? Why does she live there? Does she have any family? Did she work? As what? Where was she born? And what sort of area was it she lived in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLocal town council elects new mayor.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Why did they elect a new mayor? Did they need to? What happened to the old one? What qualities does the new mayor have which qualifies him for the role? Does he have any dark secrets? Was it an open and fair election, or he he \u2018twist arms\u2019 to get votes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see? Delve into backstories. Don\u2019t just read the headline. Read the article. And ask the questions that the article doesn\u2019t answer – who, what, where, how and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But always… HAVE A PLAN<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAVE A PLAN The second tip I have for you this month is regarding planning. Some writers don\u2019t want to plan – they want to freestyle their writing, see where it takes them, let the words drive the narrative. Which is all well and good. But the danger is that an inexperienced writer will sit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,6,7,15,16,17],"tags":[70,73,46,79,78,54,71,25],"class_list":["post-1336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-inspiration","category-mindful-writing","category-thinking","category-writing","category-writing-on-writing","tag-advice","tag-beginner","tag-creativity","tag-local-news","tag-planning","tag-success","tag-tips","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/plan.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-ly","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}