1/ Start your reading journal the day you start at IIML
2/ Keep you journal on your desktop – so it reminds you to use it and is easy to access
3/ Enter each day’s word count against the day’s date in journal – and anything else you like – you can edit it before submission
4/ There will be some material you have prepared for other’s workshops that will have relevance to journal, include it in journal (makes it thicker!)
5/ Ditto reading packets
And more generally
6/ You are not your work, enjoy feedback; I found time spent critiquing other’s work almost as helpful as feedback on my own
7/ Any advice you get is for ‘most of the people most of the time’. Writing everyday works best for most people. Starting by editing previous day’s work, works best for many people; setting daily and weekly goals works for many people; not writing every day works for a few people (ok, a very few); forgetting about punctuation, grammar etc., in first draft works well for many people; calling your characters by their primary trait or reading your material out loud or reading in the same genre or not reading in the same genre or writing by hand or playing particular music or . . .
8/ Start thinking about the subject of your reading packet from early on – it’s surprising what you may come across that would be relevant if you knew what you your subject is to be. So much easier to have it when you need it.
11/ Condensing characters: when I started writing I didn’t appreciate that a good novel has the same constraints as a play. There is a finite number of characters that the reader can manage in thier head just as there is a finite cast of characters that Downstage can pay or will fit on the stage. If we bother to introduce a character the reader expects them to stay with the story. Nobody gets left behind! (Unless you kill them off or send them off). After my first draft was workshopped I realised there were chracters doing walk on jobs that the rest of the cast could handle.
12/ Writing every day whether you want to or not is good for building the writing habit. Often I didn’t want to writ my Damn Novel. I wrote down my other story ideas on post its and grew a pile of ideas like leaves by the desk.
13/ Facebook is NOT your writing friend. The egg timer IS your writing friend. Often I set it for half an hour and when it pinged I kept going.
14/ It is a full time course. Many of us had jobs and kids. Try and cut your hours back and neglect the kids. You won’t get the time back. The kids will likely learn valuable skills.
15/ You might find writing a collection of short stories to be a more valuable experience than writing a novel in the short time you have. Some of us had an ambition to write a novel but later regretted not trying lots of different style and voices and stories and getting feedback on all that.
16/ Write about what interests you and not what you think you ought to write.