Miniminimermaid - The Mermaid Motel On Neptune Avenue

oh, i wish i could stay with you

true angel cr. @jung-koook

his existence is a gift 🥺

he is the blueprint (for @livelocks ♡)

Okay writers listen up

I'm gonna tell you about how I wrangled my shitbird brain into being a terrifying word-churning engine and have written over 170K words in under a year.

I wanna be clear that before unlocking this Secret Technique I was a victim of my unmedicated ADHD, able to start but never finish, able to ideate but not commit and I truly and firmly believed that I'd never write a novel and such a thing was simply outside of my reach.

Now I write (and read!!) every day. Every. Single. Day. Like some kind of scriptorial One Punch Man.

Step the First

Remove friction between yourself and writing.

I personally figured out how to comfortably write on my phone which meant I didn't have to struggle with the insurmountable task of opening my laptop.

I don't care if this means you write in a Discord server you set up for yourself, but fucking do it. Literally whatever makes you write!

(if you do write somewhere that isn't a word processor PLEASE back your work up regularly!)

Step the Second

Make that shit a habit. Write every day.

For me, I allow myself the grace that ANY progress on writing counts. One sentence? Legal. Five thousand furious hyperfixated words? Also legal.

Every day, make progress. Any progress.

I deleted Twitter from my phone and did my best to replace doomscrolling with writing. If I caught myself idly scrolling I'd close whatever I was looking at and open my draft and write one (1) sentence until I made THAT a habit, too.

Step Two-point-Five

DO NOT REWRITE. If you are creating a first draft, don't back up or restart. Continous forward motion. Second drafts and editors exist. Firsts are for ripping the fucking thing out of your brain.

If you're working on revisions after an editor or beta readers or whoever has given you feedback, then you can rewrite that's OK (and it counts as your writing for the day!)

Step the Third

Now that you've found a comfortable way to write and are doing it every day, don't stop. Keep doing it. Remember, just one sentence is all you need. You can always do more, but if one lousy sentence is all you can manage then you're still successfully writing.

Remember: this is what worked for me. Try things until you find what works for you.

You can do it. I believe in you.