NaNoWriMo approaches, so here are some quick tips to get you started on those 50,000 words.

• Stretch your writing muscles: if you’re short of ideas, find one of those writing prompt websites (or my Twitter account) and start with some short bursts and flash fiction
• Write down your observations: carry a notebook with you everywhere, and write down everything you observe. You’ll soon find an idea!
• Find a time: figure out when you’re most creative, and try to write during that time.
• Write every day: that works out to 1,667 words per day. Not even a short story. You can do it!
• Don’t agonize over “getting it right”: just get the words down. Edit later.
• Remember that writing is fun: just play around with words, without worrying so much about writing the “Great American Novel.”

How many of you are going to participate this year?

Lots of writers enjoy exercise – not the sort where you jog around the block, but where you have a writing prompt and spend a few minutes working out your creativity muscles.

 

Of course, you know that my Twitter account @jes_hays publishes one writing prompt every day! That’s 365 work-outs a year.

Here are a few more places where you can find writing prompts:

• Writer’s Digest
• Creative Writing Prompts
• The Teacher’s Corner
• Poets and Writers
• Writing Prompts That Don’t Suck

 

Scribbler’s Ink is a nice little blog that provides one writing prompt every day, the same as I do on my Twitter @jes_hays!