Joanna Harmonosky

Five Tips for Making Time to Write

I will do anything to get out of writing, which is ironic (or idiotic, depending on how you look at it) because it is literally all I think about. The act of starting has always been tough for me.

If you think about it, creating new work makes you incredibly vulnerable. Your thoughts, feelings, and motivations are memorialized on the page for anyone to read — and potentially pick apart. (We live in the age of the glorious Comments Section, after all).

Telling a story is, in some ways, taking a risk, and it’s all too easy to erect obstacles (or excuses) between you and the next page. Personally, it has taken some trial and error to give myself the appropriate mental kick in the pants to write regularly. I thought I might take the opportunity to share my best tips with you!

Every Sunday, take a look at the week ahead. Open your planner, Google Calendar, or other device, and set aside blocks of time to write. Treat these like any other meetings or appointments you might have in order to keep yourself accountable. If possible, set specific goals for the week, such as “I’ll finish writing Chapter 5” or “I need to line edit the epilogue section.” This allows you to most effectively focus your limited time and eliminates the likelihood you’ll zone out in front of the computer screen — or skip the session entirely.
Time yourself. Set a timer on your phone for a specific period — even ten minutes will do — and write until the buzzer goes off. If you’re pressed for time, you’ll often be surprised by how much you are able to complete without distractions. If you are able to keep writing beyond the bell, the positive momentum you’ve started will often carry through the remainder of your writing session. I use a hexagon timer I purchased on Amazon, which allows for five different durations and keeps me away from the temptation of my phone.
Find a “buddy” who will help to keep you on track. Plan scheduled check-in times with your buddy to report on your progress. Be cautious in selecting this person — ensure that whomever you pick motivates you to reach your goals instead of allowing you to entertain excuses. Conversely, prioritize these meetings or conversations once you’ve set them and be prepared to listen actively to your buddy’s struggles and achievements.

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How do you make time to write? Share your tips in the comments — I’d love to hear from you!

Lessons Learned in 2019

Welcome to the JoannaHarmonosky.com blog, where we are talking about TIME in the month of January! Keep checking back for new posts on this topic and feel free to drop suggestions to the author at joanna@joannaharmonosky.com.

2019 was rough for me, writing-wise.

In 2018, I decided that I would set out to accomplish my lifelong dream of becoming a published author. I had a half-formed book idea I was thrilled to tackle, a working knowledge of the indie publishing scene (I wanted control of all aspects of my book’s birth into the world, from marketing to its layout to the content itself), and the wherewithal to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I didn’t think it would be easy, but I also didn’t think it would be quite so hard.

My processes worked — for awhile. Each day the alarm would go off at 5:00 a.m. and I would somehow find the fortitude to drag myself, bleary-eyed, to the keyboard. I would crank out x number of pages, schedule enough social media to be “present,” then start my day. Until one day, the alarm wasn’t enough to coax me out of bed. My manuscript stalled. My followers began to wonder where I’d gone to (or at least, I like to hope so).

As authors, there are an innumerable number of distractions, obligations, doubters, and self-sabotaging behaviors that get in the way of our ability to get words on the page, which is why our theme for January is TIME — how to find it as a writer and make it work for you. I’m starting 2020 with a new writing “business plan,” which you’ll see reflected in all aspects of my life online (and in my book, which — will — come out — this year!)

Without further ado, and because this is what you came here to see — these are the writing-related mistakes I made in 2019, so you don’t have to make them:

Not having a unified strategy and intention behind my online “author” life, centered on my readers and the community I want to build.

If you are marketing a book — and if you are a writer or want to be one, then yes, you are — you need to get the word out about your work without being overbearing, and communicate with like-minded people while finding the time to add to your daily word count. It’s hard! So, do the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t. Your audience and followers WANT you to check in and provide them with meaningful updates and material. As long as your communication strategies center on that key component, it’s okay if your Instagram photos seem less than curated or you haven’t tweeted in two days. People crave authentic interaction and ignore behavior that seems false or misleading. Don’t forget, you are competing with millions of other voices for attention. Be the one that stands out.

Obsessively tracking my follower count.

Many people fall into this trap and I was one of them. Why is your follower count not a valid assessment of your popularity and reach? See above.

Not giving myself permission to be a “real writer.”

See also, “nobody in this world is going to give you permission to do anything.” This, too, is a trap. Silencing yourself because you haven’t yet hit publish on a manuscript, or you aren’t part of the traditional publishing world, or you feel that you’ll receive negative comments on a post? These are simply excuses to sell yourself short. The only way to keep moving forward is to give yourself this gift — you are a real writer, whatever that means to you, today. As far as I’m concerned, anyone is a real writer who shows up and does the work.

Not following a routine.

This may not work for everybody, but it’s my list — I get to make the rules, and I thrive on a good routine. If I don’t write first thing in the morning, it’s not going to happen. Even if this isn’t possible or doesn’t work for you, set yourself up for success by looking at the week ahead on Sunday and carving out set periods to write.

Not being kind to myself when my writerly plans went awry.

This may be the most important lesson on this list. How quickly you accept and manage the inevitable mishaps, missteps and obstacles in your writing life will directly correlate to the speed with which you get back to the work that matters. Don’t cheat yourself by centering in negativity or fear.

What lessons did you learn in 2019? Drop a comment below — I can’t wait to hear from you!

An Introduction to Narrative Conflict

In the midst of recent Instagram scrolling, I came across a featured quote that made me pause. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist of the notion was this — any problem that a character can walk away from leads to a book that a reader can put down. (Editor’s Note: this appears to have been a screencap of a tweet shared by author Eric Smith).

This quote gave me pause 1) because it’s true and 2) it made appreciate, yet again, the value of conflict in storytelling. As someone who is incredibly conflict-averse in real life, Author Me (who is real me, but better) puts her characters through the wringer on a regular basis. For sport!

Why? Narrative tension is the gas in the car that is your story. The tales we tell are incredibly condensed “life-snippets” — if you’re a fiction writer like me, snippets of the lives of people you’ve made up to get at the larger universal truths you want to illustrate — and as such, become instantly boring without a means to up the drama. Periods of intentional conflict, and our characters’ reactions to them, keep the tempo of the story underneath the plot. In reality, people like to be happy. In stories, we like to see characters overcoming obstacles in ways that change them (and maybe us), through the limited window we’re provided to witness a significant series of events in their lives.

As I round the bend on wrapping up Ariavide, Ever Onward, I’ve been thinking recently about Feria Albrecht, one of its main characters. By the end of the book, that girl has seen and done some things that, if I’ve done my job properly, you would both never expect at the beginning of the story yet find justifiable based on the arc of character growth I’ve presented over several hundred pages. Conflict is wholly meshed with this development; without it, there is nothing to force Feria (or whoever your character might be) to take the next step, and the next, and the next, in the direction you want the narrative as a whole to go.

Some questions about conflict to ask yourself as you’re plotting:

I’ll borrow this from Mr. Smith’s friend, as it’s now a tool I’ll add to my own repertoire: Can your character walk away from this problem?
For those of us who write fantasy, especially — how does this issue pull them further into the world you are building? The tried and true “show, don’t tell” applies here.
How will dealing with this conflict change your character? Does it develop them toward making decisions that will move your story forward? How might it further deepen relationships between your characters in meaningful ways?

And to wrap up, you do you, but most readers invest time in a story with the expectation of some kind of payoff at its conclusion, following The Biggest Obstacle of All (i.e., your climax). If there’s not a “happy ending,” there is at least some sort of satisfying resolution to the problems that hooked them in the first place. My best advice is to know what this is ahead of time and work backward as you outline.

I hope this quick overview sets your characters on a productive road toward misery and heartbreak! Just kidding… but remember, happiness is for real life. Delicious conflict is what keeps your readers turning the pages.

Have a question for me? I might answer it in a future blog post! Contact me here.

Making Time for Writing & Persevering Until “The End”

I recently received a DM on Twitter in response to a tweet I posted that went viral. (Note how casually I said that, which is total artifice; I was fangirling over my follower engagement for two days straight).

The person who sent it to me was asking two questions, essentially. One, how do you make time in your life to write, and two, how do you persevere until the end of a daunting project?

What I posted on Twitter was this:

What makes you a Real Writer isn’t fame or a book deal. It’s showing up, even when you don’t want to, and doing the work. I struggled with three sentences today for half an hour. Had I given up, I would have missed the chance to dig in and get creative. Don’t miss out. #amwriting

I would post those three sentences, but I am working on a pivotal portion of my book and can’t do so without revealing a major spoiler. I would also like a medal for them anyway; please see my contact page for details on how to get it to me.

Writing is hard. I am painfully slow at forcing sentences and paragraphs to show themselves. Every time I see someone post on Twitter about how they’ve written 10,000 words in one afternoon, I consider throwing my computer out the window and finding another calling that will cause me less agony, like juggling fire, or cliff jumping.

Nevertheless, I know I will always come back to writing. I have done it again, and again, and again, since I was four years old. I don’t have a choice; it’s part of me. Unlike a spleen or an eyeball, it is a polarizing, obsessive, all-encompassing, demanding force at the heart of whatever it is that makes me tick. See what I did there?

That’s not to say clearing creative space in my life has been easy. On an emotional level, it’s mostly been about accepting who I am — a woman more fascinated by the art of storytelling than literally anything else. Logistically speaking, to persevere in the act of writing you must do three things: 1) make time, 2) do the work, and 3) show up, unerringly.

We’ll cover #1 and #2 first.

If I don’t write first thing in the morning (in my life that’s 5 a.m. — feel free to groan collectively, because I do), it doesn’t happen. Even if you’re not an aggrieved early bird like me, figure out a parcel of time that will belong to you, and you alone. Make it a non-negotiable portion of your day/week/time on the subway/time in the school pick-up line/whatever suits you. You can do it, and if you don’t think you can, consider the fact that even 15 minutes of daily writing time adds up to almost 100 hours over the course of a year.

The second part is both easier and typically much harder to manage — putting yourself in front of your computer or notebook when you could easily be Doing That Thing Right Now that would have a more immediate effect on your life. If you’re a writer, you’re automatically playing the long game. Do it anyway.

Why? Writing is all about rules, as anyone who’s ever suffered through a middle school grammar class can attest. Being a writer is mostly about knowing how to break them to elevate your story (or whatever you are creating) in a new and different way. How do you know which rules to break? Instinct. How do you cultivate instinct? Thousands of hours, practicing the rules. These days, I can “hear” when a sentence is fumbling. From there, I can back into how I’ll fix it and keep the rhythm going, but that certainly wasn’t always the case.

Which leads me to #3 — and the only thing that makes anyone a Real Writer — show up, even when you don’t want to. The path to becoming skilled at writing, or at anything, really, is to build layers of competency on top of deliberate goals. Forward motion, no matter how small, is worth it when done with frequency. Anyone who tells you that they birthed their first novel fully formed from an unedited premise is lying to you. Ariavide, Ever Onward will be born into a world on top of several thousand pages’ worth of short stories, poems, novellas, and other novels that I labored over in the moment, but ultimately left behind. Was it all worth it? Absolutely. It’s all a part of the long game.

Dig in. Don’t give up, and don’t be afraid to accept that a level of discomfort is part of the process. I’m a fantasy writer, and I truly believe that the act of writing allows me to manifest magic in my real life. Who wants to miss out on that? A sentence becomes a paragraph, and a paragraph becomes a chapter, one step at a time. Be a Real Writer — show up, and keep going.