Catégorie : Writing Productivity

Writing Productivity : What Does It Takes To Be As Productive As Agatha Christie

How to be a productive writer is a question I ask myself nearly everyday. I read about it (when I should write), I listen to AuthorTuber about it (when I should be writing) and read craft books about it (when I should be writing). In this blog post, I attempt to find out what it takes to be a productive writer like Agatha Christie, one my favourite writer of all time, was.

I’ve always, always, always dreamed of being able to be as productive a writer as Agatha Christie was.

Note that I didn’t write « as brilliant a writer » nor « as successful a writer ».

First, being a successful writer is highly out of my (our) control. When I worked at a publishing house, I quickly learned that the success of a book was impossible to predict, no matter the time-energy-money one would invest in it.

Don’t get me wrong, it certainly helps a great deal. But it does not guarantee success.

Second, being a brilliant writer is also highly out of my control. I can only do my best to better my writing craft. I can only keep writing and never give up my dream/goal: earning a living publishing novels.

That being saiiiiid… What does it take to write like Agatha Christie !!!

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Creative Writing February!

New month, new creative writing challenge?

Why the heck not ! I have quite literally no where to go. No day-job, no grocery shopping, no nothin’.

Here’s my challenge for February: write one full hour everyday and have fun while doing so.

Now, how to do that without being completely burned out ? Let’s see !

Roaming the Many Roads of Creative Writing Land

I really, really don’t want this challenge to become a NaNoWriMo kinda of thing. The challenge is to write consistently, not to produce as many words as one writer can muster in a short period of time.

(I understand it can help to stay motivated, but the torture and stress and competitive side of it all, oh so not for me!)

It’s a no stress just fun challenge.

On the other end, I do want this creative writing challenge to be productive and help me move forward with my 2021 writing project goals.

Which road should I choose then?

February Work in Progress

I picked three very different writing projects to work with in February.

  • The YA paranormal second draft – only 40 000 words to go, hooray!
  • The rom-com Xmas novel first draft – very existed by this one, houlàlà, writing for adults.
  • A fantasy short story

I purposely picked three very different genre, and two different reader target, which might sounds like a bad idea since the most common writing tips both from agents and author marketing is: pick a genre, know your readers and focus on that!

I’ve been writing for a young audience since I first starting writing (I was 9 years old, and it was a fantasy story about a farm boy falling for a princess who’s then made prisoner or something like that, hee hee).

I read a variety of genre, but I would always go back to the stories I loved as a kid and a teenager.

A lot of those stories where stories for adults, but let’s not digress and get into a whole discussion on target readers, age and the publishers hegemony, or we’ll never get to write our novels.

Dear fellow writers, thanks for reading ! May all the good words be with you !

Sunday Ramblings: Writing Fairytales

57 times.

I re-write the intro of my first short story 57 times.

Only to end up with a fairytale.

Does it count?

Once Upon a Time… Not Happening

Writing short stories is a real challenge for me.

My brain is wired on novels. Character development, plot twist, world-building all happen in due time in a novel and I work hard to nail those crucial elements of a good story.

For the first short story I challenge myself to write, I worked waaayyy harder than I taught. And it was bad. Flat. Mundane.

Bad.

Only one solution : back to the basics. Tell what you know.

It might sound like the weirdest thing to say when one writes fantasy, but when you think about it, not so weird after all.

We write about characters after all and our own writer’s imagination is shaped in various ways by the characters we meet in real-life. Our family, friends, neighbors, community.

I went back to the basics, and took the time to read short stories, fairytales and folktales. Out of the comfort zone is a great place to hang out sometimes.

Writing Goal: Step Away from My Writing Comfort Zone

That challenge is for me only. It’s to help me shake things up and write something out of my comfort zone.

Writing a fairytale ? Good enough for this month Ray Bradbury challenge!

Especially since I got back to the basics, and wrote about my immediate surroundings. I ended up with an unconventional fairytale. A classic fairytale with a twist, something fun to read for adults, and fun to hear for kids (or so I humbly hope).

The rocky start of that writing project really took me by surprise.

Where was my imagination? Why was I so hesitant? Writing a mere 250 words over and over, 57 times !? What’s up, mama writer?

I struggle all week-end, questioned everything a whole lot until.

Am I worthy to call myself a writer ? Only if I keep writing will I find the answer I guess.

Thank you so so much, dear fellow writers, for reading my Sunday ramblings. May all the good words be with you!