How To Stop Procrastinating While Writing

So today I thought I would talk about how I'm learning to manage my time better so that I'm able to put more time into my writing. This is a skill which you can learn how to be better at. For me, I've always written lists to get all my tasks done so that I don't procrastinate. Since starting to write though I'm finding it a bit of a struggle. I did my usual and made my list but it doesn't seem to be working.

Like every new writer, I work as well as doing my writing plus I have a family so being able to fit everything in is a struggle. This week I'm thinking that the days I don't work I will spend doing my writing and then the days I do work I'm thinking I will spend doing my promoting. I also have to learn more about promoting and how to go about it. So I will let you know if this new way will work for me.

This weeks calendar

I'm also planning to write the tasks down on a calendar and keep track to make sure I stay on track this week. So far I've only planned this week and I've only put in book writing work, nothing else. So I'm hoping this will work.

Next week I will update this post with how I went. How do you keep yourself from procrastinating and getting all your writing and tasks that are involved with writing?

Have a good weekend
Sharyn

How To Come Up With New Ideas

So when you start writing books how do you come up with story lines? Well for me hubby helped me with the first one and then I decided to write a second book in the series with Sam.

Once I started thinking about what I could write about I actually found it quite easy to come up with more stories. I would be writing away on my Sam story and then an idea would pop in my head so on the list it went.

I pop all my ideas in a notebook and sometimes I will add some detail to the idea if I find I want to include something in the story. Also I just add any idea that I get, I don't edit them. Some of the ideas wont work out as a book but I will take a look when I'm ready to write a new story.

So where do the ideas come from? Well for me I just started thinking about anything that interested me and whether it would be a good story for a child. I also thought about nature, went online in book stores to look at other children's books. Could I get an idea from someone else's story, did I have something more to say. Or did I want to take the idea and say it in another way, give my view point on the idea.

Could I come up with a story about Charlie our cat?

This is how I come up with other ideas. So how do you come up with your ideas for other books?

Once I'm ready to write a  new story I will then be asking my self questions about the idea that I have to come up with the story.