This is a guest post by Bridget Sandorford of CulinarySchools.org

Banishing writer’s block isn’t just about using writing prompts and timers to get yourself back into the swing of writing. The type of writer’s block that those methods help to solve is more about having the motivation or the ideas necessary to make it work as a writer.

When you need to calm your mind or to focus on a single idea, those methods typically backfire because they just send you into a frenzy of writing without purpose. Instead, using physical movement can help to alleviate this type of writer’s block.

Take Short Walks

When you need to calm your mind, a quick 10-minute walk often does the trick.

Sometimes creative people can become anxious when preparing to do their work. Instead of writing, you may find yourself staring at your screen fretting about the work that you have to do.

Walking will give you the chance to put all of those thoughts in some type of order, determining what work is most important and how you will proceed when you return to your computer.

Do Jumping Jacks

Doing some type of intense cardio for a short burst can help to focus you when there are too many ideas floating around.

Jumping jacks aren’t the only choice. Jogging in place for 30 seconds or even sprinting across the room, as silly as you may feel, can help. The idea is to force your focus to move from the many writing-related ideas in your head to your body.

Once you’re done, the writing ideas should settle, leaving only one or two occupying center stage in your mind.

Stretch Your Body

Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end can makes your backs hurt and muscles get tense.

When you have a muscle twitch in your leg or slight pain in the small of your back, you won’t be focused on your writing because you’ll be thinking about the pain. When you hit this point, your writing suffers because you are only focusing on it for a few seconds at a time.

The best answer is to stretch.

Take 10 minutes and really stretch out all of your muscles. Stand up and touch your toes or do slow lunges. Lift your arms over your head and then stretch them to each side.

Get rid of those niggling physical aches and pains so you can return to your writing feeling refreshed.

About the Author: Bridget Sandorford is a grant researcher and writer for CulinarySchools.org. Along with her passion for whipping up recipes that incorporate “superfoods,” she recently finished research on culinary schools in Illinois and culinary schools in Orlando, Florida.

FOR MORE ARTICLES ON THE TOPIC OF
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE, VISIT INKYBITES

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Just wanted to let you all know that I launched InkyBites.com! I’m still working through some issues, but the site is live and ready for you to dive in. Have fun!

–jennifer

So back in December I announced that Procrastinating Writers would be no more. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but I ended up receiving a ton of emails from readers begging me not to shut the site down.

While my decision to leave Procrastinating Writers in order to pursue a new blog that’s more in line with my interests is final (sorry guys!), I didn’t want to let down the people who’ve had my back since day one.

For that reason, I’ve decided to leave Procrastinating Writers up as an ARCHIVE. That way you can find all the information and writing advice you need to pursue your goals and dreams.

And if you’re looking for new content and a way to expand your creativity, be sure to check out my new blog: InkyBites (launching January 18), where I teach people how to nourish their creativity by improving their health and learning how to live at their creative best.

If you want to get in early, here’s a link to subscribe to the blog. Who knows, you may just find some fun posts coming your way before launch.

Thank you for all that you have given me over the last four years. My life has been enriched by knowing you and having you as a reader.

Good luck with your writing and I hope to see you over at InkyBites next week.

–jen

It’s the end of the year. A time when people begin to reflect on the year gone by and make plans for the year to come. At this time of year, people often get nostalgic and sentimental about things… and they also become hard on themselves for things they didn’t do, but wanted to.

We all have dreams, goals and hopes. We all have something(s) we want to achieve in our lives. For some people it’s publishing a novel. For others it’s just finding the time to sit down and write. And for others it’s something else completely.

When I started this blog almost 4 years ago, my only goal was to finally finish something I started and stick with it. While there was a lot of procrastinating and excuses throughout the years, I think I managed to achieve what I set out to do.

One thing I think is super important for this time of year is to think about the things in our lives that are stagnant—as in, not moving forward, not going anywhere. Being stagnant may seem OK at first. After all, you’re to a point where you feel comfortable… but you’re not growing or changing and that can get BORING, fast!

Plus you can only spin your wheels for so long before you run out of gas. If you feel like you’ve been “stuck in neutral” during the last year, I highly recommend reevaluating your life.

What are you spending the most time on? Where are you wasting the most time? How could you put yourself in a position to be more likely to achieve your goals/dreams in 2012?

These are questions I’ve been asking myself and discussing with my business coach over the last couple months. While my original goal/dream was to finally build something from start to finish and stick with it, my goals have evolved over the last 4 years and now I want to build something sustainable that I stick with, that allows me to share my multiple interests and that helps me achieve my big dreams in life.

With that, I will make the huge announcement I’ve been talking about on Twitter for the last couple weeks… I am shutting Procrastinating Writers down as of early 2012.

I’ll give you a second to take that one in…

This decision wasn’t an easy one for me to make. In fact, it was prolly one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life.

The truth is, I was getting bored with PW. It wasn’t inspiring me anymore. It wasn’t allowing me to write about the things I am passionate about and care deeply about because it’s such a niche blog. Plus I’ve finally decided to embrace the fact that I’m a Multipotentialite. And instead of run away from what I am, I want to use it to my advantage.

So while Procrastinating Writers may be going away… there’s still more to the journey I’m on.

To take PW’s place, I’ll be launching a brand new blog. This time the focus will be on teaching writers how to adopt holistic practices in life/writing to help inspire their creativity. My new focus will allow me to write about all the topics that really didn’t fit with PW.

Originally I was going to leave PW up as an archive… but now I’ve decided to redirect the URL to my new blog, and am only bringing a handful of the best blog posts from PW to the new site.

This change-over will likely happen around the end of January—beginning of February. So you have until then to soak up all the PW articles that you can. Soon they will be nothing more than a memory and a redirected URL.

I know I will lose some of you with this change over. And that makes me sad, especially because I’ve worked really hard to build this blog from 0 subscribers to over 1,100 subscribers and 5,000+ visits a month…  but this change over will also allow me the opportunity to attract new readers; ones who will be more engaged with the community I’m creating.

Hopefully you’ve learned enough from this blog to give me the benefit of the doubt and check out my new site when it launches. And if not, that’s OK too.

Either way, I encourage you to take a look at your life and the things that are stagnant. Find the courage to take a risk and push yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s worth it.

More details about the new site are coming soon, so stay tuned!

About The Author: Jennifer Blanchard is the founder of Procrastinating Writers. She is co-founder of the Better Writing Habits Challenge. For more great writing tips, tools and advice, be sure to follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

This is a guest post by Brittany Lyons

Each year novel writers have the opportunity to write a 50,000 word novel for the National November Writer’s Month Competition. Sadly, short story writers usually can’t enter this competition because it requires them to write one long piece rather than an anthology of several short pieces.

However, this year Lulu.com is offering an alternative contest for short story writers so that they can also challenge themselves to finish a project in November.

Lulu.com started the short story competition because many writers fail to write 50,000 words during the course of a month even though they start off with good intentions. Instead of letting all that creativity go to waste, Lulu decided to shorten the length requirement to 600 words and focus on quality rather than quantity.

The end result was a contest that story writers of all backgrounds, from those with PhDs to high school students, could participate in with a better chance of succeeding.

Unlike the traditional NaNoWriMo competition, Lulu’s competition offers prizes to all writers who complete their project. All participants get a coupon for 20 percent off of their next Lulu.com purchase.

In addition, participants who finish a short story and submit it to Lulu end up creating an eBook out of their story that they can sell in the Lulu store and on partner sites such as iBookstore.

Lulu has also assembled a panel of judges who will read all the stories and announce three winners in mid-December. The first prize winner gets $500 in cash, a Nook eReader, a professional review of his or her story and publicity from Lulu. The second prize winner gets a free Nook eReader and the third prize winner gets a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble.

Contest Steps
If you’re interested in submitting a story to Lulu’s contest, here are the steps you should take:

1. Download Lulu’s eBook template and plug your short story into it.
2. Create an account at Lulu if you don’t already have one and upload your completed story to Lulu before Dec. 1.
3.  Create a simple cover that includes the title, author and description of the book and use Lulu’s site to convert the story to an eBook.
4. Submit the link to your eBook to Survey Monkey to get your 20 percent off coupon

That’s it. Four simple steps and you’re done.

Thanks to Lulu’s contest, short story writers are not forced to write longer works than they are used to just to say they accomplished something in November. These writers now have their own contest that provides them with a finished project to sell at the end as well as a shot at some money.

Besides the monetary rewards this contest helps short story writers get in the habit of writing regularly enough to complete a project in a month, which is a skill that will last past the end of the competition.

What will you enter into Lulu.com’s contest?

About the Author: Brittany Lyons aspires to be a psychology professor, but decided to take some time off from grad school to help people learn to navigate the academic lifestyle. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, where she spends her time reading science fiction and walking her dog.

This is a guest post by David Lazar of CometDocs.com

Everyone knows the old saying that “reality is sometimes stranger than fiction,” and this is why there are a lot of successful writers out there that base their stories on real life events that they have either personally experienced or have been informed of by others.

Looking to real life is one of the best ways to get an idea for a new story. Whether it is an event that has occurred in your personal life, a story you heard from a friend or even something that you might have seen on the news, real life events can inspire you to write and provide you with a good foundation for your next story.

However, it is important to know that, unless it’s an absolutely spectacular story on its own –– which is usually not the case –– there is a lot that you as a writer need to do in order to turn your recollection of a real life event into a fantastic work of fiction.

You’ll find that most stories based on real-life events are embellished and changed not because the writer felt uncomfortable with telling the story as it really occurred, but because, usually, the story just isn’t that interesting in its original form.

Here are some things to think about if you are looking to write quality fiction inspired by real-life events.

1.    Decide Whether Your Topic Is Worthy
First of all, you need to decide whether something is interesting enough to turn into a compelling work of fiction to begin with. More importantly, you need to see whether this real life event is a good enough basis for a good story – whether it has the potential to be turned into something interesting. Sometimes writers tend to be way too faithful to the original story when trying to write fiction stemming from real-life events.

Just because something really happened does not mean that you cannot embellish. In fact, embellishments are recommended. Sometimes the hardest part of taking a real story and turning it into fiction is being able to let go of the truth.

2.    Turn Everyday Events Into A Narrative
Even if you are telling the story of a person who has had a very interesting life, you need to be able to turn this story into a flowing and exciting narrative, because no matter how interesting someone’s life is, a day-to-day account of what they do is not really going to result in a real page-turner.

One of the hardest things about telling a real story is to try and fit the most interesting and dramatic events into the form of a narrative, making it a true story, with a beginning, climax and resolution, not just a journal of an interesting person’s everyday habits.

3.    Create the Details
No matter how great the story, it will not write itself. Even if the basis of the story is very exciting, you still need to work very hard on getting the details just right in order to keep the story interesting and to keep it moving along as a strong and entertaining narrative.

The problem with real-life stories — especially if you heard them on the news or from a friend –– is that they are all told in short. Fiction needs to be a detailed account, because you need to assume that the reader has no background or prior involvement with the story.

The trick is to write while being fully aware of the fact that you are writing for someone completely detached from the situation, with no prior references to the story. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and make sure that you build the story in detail and as thoroughly as possible.

4.    Develop A Real Plot
A fun or interesting story that you heard someone tell is essentially an event –– not a plot. The hardest part is determining whether or not this event has enough potential to become a good work of fiction. No matter how cute or funny you think the story is, it might not be able to carry a story.

Look at the event and identify everything around that event –– what led to it, what resulted from it, who was involved, how they were affected –– and then decided whether or not this has the potential to be turned into an interesting plot.

Can you imagine seeing a movie being made based on this event or does it seem like more of a sketch in a comedy show? If you see the potential to turn it into a feature film, then it might be a good candidate for becoming a strong work of fiction.

5.    Make Your Narrator Compelling
The point-of-view can make or break the story. The most important thing you need to decide on is who you want to have narrate the story. A lot of times, people tell a story as themselves, but remove their character from the plot, which tends to disconnect the reader from the story.

If you cannot develop the characters fully and are not able to tell the story whole-heartedly without including yourself as a major actor in the story, then don’t write in first-person. Writing in the third-person might give you a fresh perspective and more freedom to explore the characters, their relationships and the plot in general.

Remember, real life is interesting, but there is always room to make it a bit more exciting when trying to write a good work of fiction.

What tips do you have for turning real life into fiction?

About the Author: David Lazar is a regular blogger at CometDocs.com. With a background in journalism, he enjoys writing about and following a variety of topics, including creative writing, news writing, careers, technology and new media.

This is a guest post from Rochelle Melander of WriteNowCoach

It happens to nearly every NaNoWriMo participant. After a string of days when we amass an embarrassingly wonderful amount of words, laying down scenes and adding dialogue, we get stuck. We do not know what our characters want (heck, we don’t even know what we want).

We poke around in our useless outline, wishing we’d have planned a bit better in October when we had all the time in the world. Now we need to write something fast before we get behind on our daily word count.

Never fear, weary writers! When all else fails, borrow some handy techniques from popular novelists and watch the words pile up. Here are five ways to add words and move your story forward.

1. Explain Stuff—When you get stuck, give a character the opportunity to explain how something works to another character. In Scarlett Thomas’s novel, Popco, Alice Butler is a creative genius who designs toys for one of top toy companies in the world. While she and her colleagues are away at Thought Camp, Alice begins receiving coded messages. This gives Alice the opportunity to explain to the reader all about lateral-thinking puzzles, mono-alphabetic ciphers and poly-alphabetic ciphers.

2. Borrow Stuff-–In Lev Grossman’s novel, The Magicians, half the fun of reading the book is figuring out what pieces he borrowed from other famous fantasy novels, like C.D. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Though Grossman changes the name, most readers recognize Fillory as our lovely Narnia. When you get stuck, borrow a character, setting or event from one of your favorite novels.

3. Do Something Different—Sometimes our writing brains need to stretch their creative muscles. Giving our brains a different creative writing task can help us overcome writer’s block. In Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Visit From the Good Squad, she wrote an entire chapter as a PowerPoint presentation. Other novelists have used letters, poems and other narrative forms to add variety. What will you try?

4. Send Your Characters On A Journey—In the imaginative novel, Swamplandia, by Karen Russell, the youngest sister Ava must travel to the darkest part of the swamp to save her sister. This is probably the most exciting and harrowing part of the book. When you’re not sure what to do next, send your characters on an adventure. It helps them build character and provides plenty of conflict and interest for your readers!

5. Look Back!—When a novelist needs to let the reader know about some crucial information, a flashback can be a helpful addition to the story. In Popco, much of the current story line depends on the reader understanding Alice’s past. Instead of using the traditional flashback, where the character thinks back over a past event, Thomas has woven chapters about Alice’s youth in with her chapters about the present. However you do it, adding in back story can add richness to your story and help you reach that word-count goal.

What do you do when you get stuck? What plot techniques have you borrowed from other writers?

About the Author: Rochelle Melander is a certified professional coach and the author of 10 books, including a new book to help fiction and nonfiction writers write fast: Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About It) (October 2011). Melander teaches professionals how to get published, establish credibility, and navigate the new world of social media. In 2006, Rochelle founded Dream Keepers Writing Group, a program that teaches writing to at-risk tweens and teens. Visit her online at www.writenowcoach.com.

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This is a guest post by AmyYoung of HowDoesRentToOwnWork.org

If you want to excel at writing and in life, self-motivation is crucial. Staying motivated while working can be hard no matter what you may do in your job. So you may wonder how you can achieve a more consistent level of motivation.

I have come up with a few tips that have helped me stay motivated at work. Maybe, with a little effort, they can help you stay motivated as well.

Wake up Motivated
If you want to stay motivated throughout your day, it is important that you start every day with motivational thoughts. To make yourself feel good about getting out of bed, give yourself something to look forward to during your day and think of it as soon as you wake up.

This simple action can help you start your day in a positive mood and give you the energy you will need throughout the day. If you’re having a hard time thinking of something to look forward to, write them down the night before and look them over in the morning.

Sometimes, it can be hard to find anything to look forward to in your workday, but remember that your negative feelings don’t have to affect your whole day.

Not every day will be bright and sunny, but you will need to give yourself the right messages so that you don’t become discouraged.

Tomorrow is a new day. The past is gone, and now you have a chance to be better. Today, all you need to do is start.

Making these mental statements will help you improve you moon, and then you will find it easier to stay motivated.

Set Your Goals
Make a list of realistic goals. It may be helpful to limit your goals to three lists of three: three things you need to get done today, three things you would like to do today, but that can wait, and three things you’d like to get done eventually.

You could also make a master list of short-, medium-, and long-term goals.

Setting these goals every day and setting a deadline to complete each goal will give you the opportunity to physically see what you need to accomplish, and you will feel much better every time you can cross off a task on your list.

Also, tell someone about your goals. Actually saying them out loud will make them feel more real and achievable.

Review your goals as often as possible to remind you exactly what you want to achieve. It is easy to lose focus and get sidetracked when you don’t see your goals often. The more attention you give to a goal, the more motivation you will have to complete the task.

Reward Yourself
If you try to work for eight hours straight every day, you will probably go crazy. Rewarding yourself with breaks or a special treat at the end of the day will increase your motivation during the day. Your reward may be a night off with a movie or a play day with your kids at the park.

Use whatever will keep you going through the day and keep you motivated.

Put up a picture to remind you of the reward coming when you finish all of your tasks for the day. This could be the best way for you to find the self-motivation necessary to get through the day, but rewards can also be distracting.

A reward strategy has been proven to be a very effective way to increase motivation, but if you reward yourself no matter how you perform or give yourself a reward before you finish a task, it may just become another distraction. Don’t reward yourself for something you have not earned.

Without hard work and dedication, you will not be successful with a reward strategy.

Above all else, just have fun with whatever you’re doing.

If you truly enjoy your writing, you will be more likely to be able to motivate you.

Have a sense of humor, and don’t take yourself too seriously. A happy and healthy mind is the best tool for self-motivation.

About the Author: Amy Young is the author of articles related to business, working from home, and personal finance. The company she works for focuses on education for those looking for information on personal finance.

Note:If you’re attempting NaNoWriMo this year, be sure to sign up for my free 30 Days of NaNoWriMo Tips for Procrastinating Writers.

NaNoWriMo is around the corner, and that means if you’re writing 50,000 words this November, you better be planning your story starting now. Yes, that’s right, I said plan.

Having a plan will ensure you don’t waste 50,000 words and 30 days of your life.

Sure, you could do NaNoWriMo for fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun to actually have a draft that you can use?

Instead of 50,000 words that will probably sit in a drawer for the rest of your life, you can have the shitty first draft of your novel.

To get you started down the planning road, here are 5 Procrastinating Writers posts you don’t want to miss:

1. Prep Yourself and YourSchedule for NaNoWriMo
2. Character Planning: A Little About Backstories and Inner Demons
3. 5 Resources to Help You Plan Your NaNoWriMo Novel
4. How To Create Believable Characters
5. 5 Things You Absolutely Must Know Before You Start Writing

You could just sit down and start writing on November 1, but you’d be doing yourself a huge favor by planning your story ahead of time. It’s up to you…

What would you rather have—50,000 words or the draft of a novel?

About The Author: Jennifer Blanchard is the founder of Procrastinating Writers. She is co-founder of the Better Writing Habits Challenge. For more great writing tips, tools and advice, be sure to follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

And remember, Larry Brooks from StoryFix.com is giving you 31 tips to help you Nail Your NaNoWriMo Novel. Don’t miss your chance to learn from the master.

Note:If you’re attempting NaNoWriMo this year, be sure to sign up for my free 30 Days of NaNoWriMo Tips for Procrastinating Writers. 

As you know, NaNoWriMo 2011 starts on November 1. In honor of that, I am bringing you probably the best series of blog posts you will ever read with regards to novel writing.

So get ready… You are in for a treat.

The brilliant Larry Brooks of StoryFix.com is helping you Nail Your NaNoWriMo Novel by offering up 31 of the best writing tips you’re likely to see during the month leading up to NaNoWriMo.

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that he is doing this. Brooks knows exactly what a novel needs to be successful.

And now he’s sharing his tips to help you get your story ready before NaNoWriMo so you can write a killer first draft that’s worth a second look post-NaNoWriMo.

Here are the first 5 posts in Brooks’ series:

1. Know What You’re Planning
2. Keep Your Character Close to Home
3. Vet and Fertilize Your Story “Idea”
4. Tell Your Story In Context to… Something
5. Don’t Forget to Fall In Love

Be sure to keep up and read Brooks’ entire series. If you don’t, you’ll be missing out on some very valuable information that can help make your NaNoWriMo draft worth the effort.

What are your tips for writing a better draft during NaNoWriMo?

About The Author: Jennifer Blanchard is the founder of Procrastinating Writers. She is co-founder of the Better Writing Habits Challenge. For more great writing tips, tools and advice, be sure to follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Note:If you’re attempting NaNoWriMo this year, be sure to sign up for my free 30 Days of NaNoWriMo Tips for Procrastinating Writers.