Education

How To Stop Procrastinating And Start Writing Your Novel

Does this sound like you? You have always wanted to write a novel, you have all of these ideas in your head and stories that need to come out, but for some reason you just keep saying you will “start tomorrow.” But tomorrow never comes does it? How can you stop procrastinating and start writing your novel?
Does this sound familiar? You have so many ideas for stories, you spend many of your waking hours just daydreaming about characters and plots of your stories, what might happen to them, and then when you actually sit down to write it feels like pulling teeth.
Don’t worry, this happens to far more people than you would imagine. You are definitely not alone. Many people find the easy part is the “thinking of ideas” part, but the hardest part is saying today is the day and now is the time, I’m going to sit here and write.
Once you get started writing, you’ve probably noticed it’s a lot easier to go ahead with it. Of course then when you come to a difficult part you will always be tempted to stop for the day.
Okay so what can be done here? For people who have a problem with procrastination (and that is many of us), you need to have a set time every day to write, and a certain time that you will spend writing. You don’t even have to spend the time writing on your novel, you can write about anything.
For example, let’s say you will decide that every day at 11 a.m. you will sit down at your desk, start a timer, and write for 10 minutes nonstop. Make a rule that it doesn’t matter what in the world you write about. If you just want to write “I don’t know what to write” over and over then go ahead. The point is to just keep on writing for 10 minutes.
An interesting thing will happen. You might start out writing nonsensical stuff but after a while the part of you that is fighting will give in and allow the creativity to flow. You’ll be surprised how much good writing and how many great ideas stem from this little daily exercise. If you stick to your schedule and keep on writing every single day you will find that many times you will not want to stop writing at the end of 10 minutes. At that point you might have thought of something to write in your novel and can start working on it.
The key is to be very strict and force yourself to sit down every day at the same time and not stop until your time limit has passed. If you want, make the time longer, but don’t try anything shorter.

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