A Rouge Butterfly Forced Naomi Osaka To Pause In Her Second Set Match With Ons Jabeur At Australian Open

A rouge butterfly forced Naomi Osaka to pause in her second set match with Ons Jabeur at Australian Open (2021) photog. Paul Crock

So, I take part in Get Your Words Out most years although I've never managed to hit my target.

This year I'm doing pretty well. According to the tracker, I've actually written 34,641 words so far this year. I'm still almost 20k words behind pace to reach my goal so I'm not expecting I'm going to win this year either.

But that's not that point.

Then I look at my project list. I started writing Sincaraz on August 30th. 21 days ago. I have written on 14 of those 21 days. I have written 3478 words of Sincaraz.

Literally TEN PERCENT of all the words I've written THIS YEAR, have been written in 2 of the last three weeks. And that's while moving half-way across the country AND starting a new job

NGL. I am here for it!

carlos aegyo!

writing tip: getting started!

ahh! blank page! spooky shit right there. getting started is really hard, and it kinda feels like grasping at straws to figure out where to start. here's some pointers!

pick your favorite place. what part have you been dreaming about? what line of dialogue has you kicking your feet and screaming with laughter? what was the scene that made you want to write? start there. you've thought about it the most, you're motivated, and you can build from there. building backwards isn't bad.

find the right mindset. pick an ambience, light a candle, watch some writertok motivations on youtube (i do that all the time) read something that inspires you. don't wait until you're motivated to write, but take initiative to get yourself there.

write it stupid. start with the stupidest most basic disgusting sentences ever. don't try to add mistakes, I mean like this:

"the sky was light and it was warm outside her window. she got up and walked downstairs. then she made breakfast."

to:

"It was a warm morning. She woke up slowly, pulled on a sweater and went downstairs to make breakfast."

to:

"Morning sun peeked through her window. She had been awake for a while, groggily breaking through the haze of a good night's sleep. After lounging for a couple minutes, the thought of eggs was too good to resist. grabbing her sweater, she went downstairs to prepare breakfast."

this is really helpful with deep/difficult or action packed scenes. if you're really struggling, write in a cliff note version and move on. I hate the whole [put the scene dec in a bracket], I feel like it looks weird and it bothers me more than avoiding it. just slip in a couple sentences and mark it for later.

4. this is a personal opinion, but don't do the '500 words a day' or '2 pages a day'. productivity is productivity. I find myself trying to subscribe to a numerical scale and inevitably resorting to 'i wrote 400 today, i'll just do 600 tomorrow to make up for it' and then it turns into 'i did nothing today, i'll double it tomorrow' but we know that won't happen. as long as you are writing, that is progress! don't kill the will to write in your attempt to write more.

maybe will post a part 2, xox bye bye!

Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz (2024 Laver Cup - September 21, 2024) 📷 Clive Brunskill

you can't be this cute on international television🥹🤍