When I first started Brad’s Reader many moons ago, I would fire up my blogging program, pound out a post and click the "publish" button without giving it a second thought. Then as time went on I began to notice typos, embarrassing spelling errors, and sentences that were just plain awkward.

Nowadays, before I even write the first sentence of a post, I set the status to "draft" so when I save the post it won’t go "live" on the blog. When the post is complete, I save it, and then I carefully read through each word. I’m often surprised at how much I end up editing. I usually delete a lot of awkward sentences and phrases, and even a few bad paragraphs.

Hopefully taking the extra time to edit my posts have made them better, easier to read and maybe even more entertaining for you.

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When I am working on a writing project that is going to take more than a few days, I will usually stop writing for the day at some logical place in my work. This means that I will finish up a paragraph or section of writing before calling it quits for the day. However, as often happens, I find it difficult the next day to pick up where I left off. Why? Because I find I have written myself into a box.

Stopping mid-sentence

One method I’m experimenting with is stopping my writing in mid-sentence. Many well known authors use this technique, including Cory Doctorow, who believes in stopping a daily writing session once you reach your goal for the day, even if it is mid-sentence. You can read a quote by Mr. Doctorow on this blog post from Readerville.

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Read it out loud!

After you have finished writing a draft of a story, article, press release or whatever, read it out loud to yourself (or have someone read it out loud to you). This will help you find any problems with illogical sentences, bad choice of words, and will even help determine if your writing has the proper rhythm. Most people hear better than they read.

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One facet of writing I struggle with, especially when dealing with short fiction, is writing an ending to a story that doesn’t cheat the reader. I’m sure many of you have read a story or novel, gotten to the ending, and said, "Hey, that ending really sucks!" So how do you prevent this unfortunate circumstance from infecting your own writing?

Since I still struggle with endings, it’s difficult to write advice that gives a clear remedy to the problem. But I have found a few ways that can help reduce your chances of a bad ending.

Plan ahead

This one is simple: Plan your story out in advance, including the ending. This will prevent you from writing 90% of a story and then getting stumped because you can’t think of a good way to end that sci-fi/romance (for example) you’ve been working on for the last six months.

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What if I told you there’s a place where you can find some great creative writing tips in one, convenient spot? You’d probably want to know where that spot is, right? Check out this post from my good blogging friend over at Writing Forward.

And if you read those tips close enough, you might see a tip from someone you recognize (hint, hint).

Enjoy!

One of my favorite forms of fiction is called the drabble (not to be confused with the author Margaret Drabble). Basically, it’s a very short story that is exactly 100 words long. Not a word more, or a word less. You can write in any genre you like, using any style, and all the other elements of fiction are there – you just have to keep it to 100 words.

Yes, it’s very challenging. Trying to have a beginning, middle, and end of a story, plus character/s in such limited space, really forces you to make every word do as much work as possible. But it can be done, and I’ve written quite a few of them. Here’s the lowdown on the drabble!

History of the drabble

While there is no definitive source on the history of the drabble, I managed to find a few good nuggets of information by poking around the intertubes a little. According to this article, the drabble started out as a game, and got it’s name, of all places, from a Monty Python sketch:

Did you ever hear of the great Drabble craze that swept over (bits of) British sf fandom in the late 1980s? Literary historians have traced the name back to the 1971 Monty Python’s Big Red Book: `Drabble. A word game for 2 to 4 players. The four players sit from left to right and the first person to write a novel wins.’

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With my funky work schedule, it can sometimes be hard to find large chunks of time to sit down and write. But I’ve learned to write like I drink (not necessarily alcoholic beverages either): Sometimes I take little sips, other times I really chug it down!

What does that mean? Let me give you an example. If I twenty minutes before I need to go somewhere, I might sit down at my computer and pound out a few paragraphs on my current writing project. For me, that is very much like taking a sip – a writing session that’s very short and too the point.

Likewise, on my days off, I will get a lot more writing done and write for about an hour (usually), take a break, then get back to work on my project. This is like chugging a drink – I try to write a little faster and I don’t worry about possible problems when it comes to grammar, holes in the plot, etc.

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With National Novel Writing Month over half way finished, I thought it might be a good idea to write a post about a problem that plagues me when I’m writing. It’s also a problem that the core concept of NaNoWriMo attempts to solve – eliminating self-doubt during the writing process. Just write, and worry about problems (grammar, spelling, etc.) later.

Yes, self-doubt is a problem I struggle with each time I sit down to pound out a short story, blog post, essay, or even an email. Usually this problem comes in the form of questions that pop into my head while I’m writing: Is this good enough to be published? Will anyone want to read this? If they do read this, will they even like it? Why does this story/blog post/essay stink so much?

Here are a few ways I have learned to deal with self-doubt:

- Knowing it’s a problem for you is a large chunk of the solution! Just knowing that self-doubt might be holding your writing back is big first step. It’s admitting you have a problem. Once you realize this, you can take further steps to minimize the damage self-doubt can do.

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If you’re like me, then you are probably pretty busy. You have a day job, errands to run, chores at home to complete, family commitments, activities with friends and the list can start to get really long. When do you make time to write?

Sometimes it’s not easy. Fitting writing into your day can be like fitting a square block into a circular pipe (does that make any sense?). And it doesn’t help that for many people, writing is considered a "hobby" or "something on the side" by family and friends. This type of thinking can be real damaging to a writer’s fragile psyche.

While I have yet to find a perfect solution to the problem of fitting writing into a hectic schedule. I have found a way that will at least keep your writing consistant. This only involves one thing: Writing one hour each day. That’s it.

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I was recently engaged in some mundane household chores, and I was thinking about the short fiction project I’m currently working on. As I was working, I had a perfect idea for the story, complete with the exact wording of a descriptive passage and everything.

What did I do next? I continued with my chores. It wasn’t until I had finished and sat down at my computer did I try to recall that great idea. I began to realize that I could vaguely remember the idea itself, and as for the wording of that descriptive passage – gone!

After pounding my head on my desk for an hour, I was able to write something similar to what I thought of while cleaning. But the wording wasn’t right and it didn’t feel as fresh as it did when the original idea came to me. And even though I have moved on in the story, I’m still pulling my hair out over the lost opportunity. So what’s the lesson in all this?

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