WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT WRITING - ENTRY #10

CAPTILALS, COLORS, AND TRICKS TO MAKE YOUR WRITING PROCESS SMOOTHER.

I’m finding that my writing journey is a long and never ending learning processes. As I look back on my earlier years, I’m amazed at how far I’ve come…and how far I have yet to go.

In the beginning I had no concept of how to write a novel. Now, several years later, I’ve picked up many writing tips. Some to be used temporarily and others to be continually used.

At one stage in my writing, when I was just learning the art of point of view, I had a dreadful time keeping on track/getting the concept. The first thing I had to learn was what words were the right ones to use, and which weren’t. Once I mastered that the next obstacle I encountered was making sure I was in the proper characters POV. Another thing I found challenging was knowing whose POV I was currently in at any given moment.

One of the tricks I discovered, and or created…I really don’t’ recall how it came about, was to place at the beginning of each new point of view, the letters POV, along with the characters initials, or first name. I even went as far as to highlight it in a different color. Then I went one step further and highlighted one character's POV a the begining in one color, and another character in another color. I found this very helpful when starting to write for the day. When I’d bring up my document, find where I was, I would scroll up a bit and could easily discover whose point of view I was in.

Which brings me to another trick I still use. When editing/rewriting, I place a “HERE” in a different color to indicate where I last left off. This helps greatly in saving time. As soon as I bring up my document to edit or rewrite it for the day, I can go directly to that spot where I’d left off the last time.

As every writer knows we never seem to have enough hours in the day to accomplish all the writing we’d like to, and these simple little steps have proven to save time and frustration.