Our Romeo And Juliet Discover Their Balcony…

How to Get Motivated After a Long Break

I haven’t written in a while. I had some life stuff going on and I forgot how difficult it is to get back into writing after a long break. There’s a manuscript waiting for me to edit it and another story idea waiting for me to flesh it out. What’s the best way to approach this?

First, make a list

Start by getting everything in order. Grab your favorite notebook (or designate a new on to 2016) and starting listing what you want to work on this year. Is there anything you need to finish up? What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish by 2017? These plans don’t have to be anything grand, they can be small steps toward your goals. Be realistic and know your limits.

Focus on tying up loose ends

The first thing I’m going to do is finish up the novel I’m in the middle of editing. Do you best to finish projects first before moving on to something else. Engross yourself in that story again and try to continue where you left off. Try to reread what you already edited to familiarize yourself with where you were going. It feels great to finish things. It will get you motivated for your next project.

Get yourself excited again

It’s hard to work on something that doesn’t motivate you. If it’s been a while, try to figure out what excited you about that project in the first place. Reread old notes. Look over your story and focus on characters. Why do you like them? What motivated you to write this story? Try to tap back into your excitement and get back into the same mind frame you were in when you were writing.

Toss stale projects

Sometimes a story just doesn’t work. You lost your passion for it and you’re unable to get a back. The story feels old and it doesn’t speak to you anymore. That’s fine. Not everything is going to stick and you need to know what you should move on from. If you’ve stopped writing because you’re just not excited about your story, maybe it’s time to move on. However, if you’ve stopped writing because life got in the way, there’s a chance you can still motivate yourself to work on that story. The decision is up to you.

-Kris Noel

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: The Mallorca Files (TV 2019) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Miranda Blake/Max Winter Characters: Miranda Blake, Max Winter, Inés Villegas Additional Tags: Wintake, post-series 3, Canon Divergent, Feelings Realization, Series 3 Episode 4 "Water Water" Mention, Undercover as a Couple Summary:

It’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s the first one since Max broke up with Carmen six months ago. Miranda tries to cheer Max up. Also, they go undercover as a couple again.

the suffering never ends

#PitchWars Prep: Day 3 of 23

Written 13/07/16

It started off quite similarly as yesterday. Not a whole lot of work was getting done, but that’s because I was excited! I was turning in my passport application today and I am so freaking happy about getting my passport! I’m going to Europe in middle/late January so I’m super excited about it. The lady was super nice, but I wish passports weren’t so pricey. Oh well, they weren’t too bad in price. As a gift to my mum, I bought it for her since my Aunt’s paying for her ticket. An all paid for trip for her.

Anyways, we got back home around 2:30 so I caught up on some YouTube videos and around 3:30, I started working. I’m cutting and adding things as I go, so right now my word count is almost where the last draft ended which was 96,700. The reason is, there’s a lot of details that I’ve changed and I felt like there’s extra paragraphs that could be added. I am not worrying too much as I’m taking a whole chapter out because I’m changing the storyline mentioned in that particular chapter.

I write on the desktop program called Scrivener (amazing program for all writers) and there’s one annoying thing about it that I can’t stand. When you copy and paste from Word, it formats your chapters weird. So I’m forced to make new chapters for the ones that weren’t written on Scrivener. Also, it’s added an extra indent so it’s really annoying. 

At the end of the day, I didn’t finish a whole chapter, but I don’t really mind. It was a Sci-fi heavy chapter and I was fixing tons of descriptions and changing some of the technology I had. I am almost done with this chapter, but it’s over 4,000 words to begin with so I knew I wouldn’t finish. I told you I would slow down eventually.

like, the most compelling ships for me always stem out of one thing: the characters have a profound, ongoing effect on each other’s senses of selves. when they are apart, the characters’ actions are still affected by each other. the way they approach the world changes because of the other. 

which is this deeply Austenian view of ideal romantic relationships as mechanisms by which we come to know ourselves better and become better versions of ourselves. good romance, for me, is always tied in with a sense of self-actualization, and the way in which a beloved partner allows a person to know themselves better.

don’t let anyone tell you that it’s a bad thing to feel things deeply. a full heart is a strong heart and being soft doesn’t make you weak. being soft and loving makes you radiant. you deserve all of the love in the world and so many good things.

writing is either

or

there is nothing in between.

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: The Mallorca Files (TV 2019) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Miranda Blake/Max Winter Characters: Miranda Blake, Max Winter Additional Tags: Wintake, married Wintake, Established Relationship, Post-Season/Series 03, Not Canon Compliant, Pregnancy, Babyfic, Fluff, Domestic Fluff Summary:

After their honeymoon, Miranda surprises Max by buying them both breakfast.