AJ-Parker94

Over the years in growing and discovering myself as a writer, I've (quite unknowingly, to be honest) molded myself into this daily routine/ritual when it comes to getting ready to write, and while I'm writing in general. Sometimes, the routine varies depending on how seriously I want to write-- i.e. if I'm writing just for fun, like a fanfic, I'll be much more lax, or if I need to really get shit done, like essays for my classes, I'll haul ass and force myself to get in the zone.

Like every other writer, I often get caught in slumps, writer's blocks, and downright refusal to write at all. And that's okay. Sometimes you need a break from time to time. And in addition, I've found that getting away for a while can help you clear your head and speculate about what you want to write, as opposed to forcing yourself to write when your heart's not quite in it. If you don't take a break, you won't find any fun in it anymore, and then what's the point?

And when I do find the drive to come back into writing, I go by these daily rituals to help me get-- and stay-- in the writing zone.

1. Write when you're at your most fresh

Get a good night's sleep. Eat right. Shower up. Drink energizing liquids. Do anything to freshen yourself up. You'll feel ready to accomplish anything, even getting past that pesky first paragraph. I've tried to work well in the wee hours of the night, but the thing is....I'm not much of a night owl. I end up feeling too tired and groggy to go on, getting irritable. And what's worse, when I go over what I wrote the next day, I end up thinking, Why the F*** did I write this shit?

So, the gist: Be wide awake and ready to write, not a sloppy, tired mole.

2. Have some background noise

This doesn't apply to everyone. I know a lot of people who need absolute silence to focus. In fact, I used to be like that. But lately, events in my life have made me adapt to working with various sounds buzzing in the background-- whether it's kids running around yelling and singing, dogs barking, or heavy machinery whirring just outside my window. While some sounds are not exactly welcome, I find that having a fan on helps me relax (and with my minor case of Tinnitus, sleeping with a fan on is one of most relaxing things of all). 

I'll also listen to music from the Pandora app at a low volume to help inspire me, depending on what I'm writing. I.e: I'll listen to epic movie scores like from Lord of the Rings when I'm writing fight scenes, love longs when I'm writing romantic scenes, sad songs for sad scenes, etc.

But I don't watch TV while writing, as promising as that sounds. That's a little too distracting for me.

3. Find inspiration anywhere

Like I said, I get into slumps more often than not. So I go out and find me some motivation to get me to write. I go to bookstores. I watch episodes from shows or movies my writing's based on. I go online and read blogs from famous writers or watch some of my favorite BookTubers. I read writing tips. I read. A little advice and inspiration goes a long way, folks.

4. Move around from time to time

You're not doing your ass any favors by sitting and staring at a white screen all day. Get up and move around. Take a short break. Play some video games. Stretch your muscles. Maybe even act out the scenes you're writing. I get weird looks from my family when I do this, but I've grown to accept that they'll always think I'm nuts.

Otherwise you're gonna be sore for the next few days.

5. Go for a walk

This kind of goes hand-in-hand with number four. Sometimes, I like to go outside and take a nice, long walk to help clear my head. Since I live in a small country town, I'm gifted with some nice, quiet scenery to trek through. I especially love to go out around this time of the year-- when the air is crisp and cool, and the leaves are turned into an array of beautiful warm colors, like nature's own fireworks display.

6. Keep a notebook and pencil at hand when out and about

You never know when inspiration will hit you. When I'm away from my computer, I usually take with me my journal and my case full of pencils, pens, and other various art supplies. Whether I'm at classes, restaurants, on vacation, or just out of the house, without fail I'm struck with ideas. So I jot them down in my journal. And when I get home, I transfer what I wrote into my digital documents, albeit edited and proofread.

If you ransacked my room, you'd find a tote full of notebooks and journals consisting not only of personal entries, but several pages of written scenes and snippets, short and long.

Hmmm...maybe I should hide that tote better. Just in case. Because some of that stuff from years of wear and tear and awkwardness is prrrreeeettttyyyy embarrassing...

7. If stuck, write ahead

I do this a lot. More often than I like to admit, I end up getting stuck on a scene, a sentence, a paragraph, or whatever. It feels like no matter what I write in that one place, it just doesn't feel right.

So when I get stuck in a place, I end up writing about things that take place further in the story. It often helps me keep the writing flow going. Sure, some of them end up being scrapped and not used at all, but hey, you're still writing something! That's all that matters.

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So those are the things I tend to do when I want to write. Do you do any of them? What is your daily routine to get those creativity juices flowing? Let me know!  


READ ON!!!!

Hellooooo, deviants! How're you doing under this fine October sky?

I could use your help at the moment. I'm looking for book recommendations to read. Right now I'm reading my way through Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and it is really good so far. Like, REALLY good! Probably one of the best books/series I've read since the Heroes of Olympus series. I'm almost done with it, though, and I'd be most thankful if anyone would suggest a new book for me to read when I'm finished to keep me out of the reading slump-- because I can't seem to survive without reading a book at least once a day.

Max: "Geez, you really are a Book Freak."

Me: "I never said I don't still wear that title loud and proud."

So, anyway, if you have a favorite book you'd like me to read, please give me a shout, and I'll check it out!

Also, what are everyone's plans for Halloween this year? Dressing up? Going to parties? Haunted Houses? Festivals? Pumpkin patch scourging? ....PUMPKIN EVERYTHING?

Goddamn I love this time of year.

I usually dress up for the sake of my nieces and nephew (at least, that's what I tell the other grown ups when they question my maturity). And when I do, I go all out. But sometimes, even that can be a bit of a struggle.

Like, do I scary? Do I Disney princess? Or do I fandom cosplay?

I usually end up doing the third thing. It's just too much fun portraying your favorite characters whether they're from books, movies, or TV shows.

I've narrowed my options down between two costumes. Finn from Adventure Time? Or the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who? What do you think?

I hope everyone is enjoying this Autumn so far! Have a happy Halloween and a very joyous holidays in the very near future!

READ ON!!!!

Well hey there, deviants! Long time no see!

Yeah, I know it's been a while. A long while. I've been spending most of my time on my fanfiction.net account than on here these days, writing my other stories. And if not that, I've been swamped with real life probz, whether it's from my classes, work, family dilemmas, or other mundane tasks that get in the way of all of us eventually. So yeah, sorry I've been a bit, you know...dead on this site.


Max: "Yeah...very dead."

Tito: "Unless you count favoriting a lot of awesome artworks, maybe."

Me: "Can't help it. Despite being inactive, people still make amazing stuff here."

Speaking of artwork, I've decided to do a little fall cleaning on my channel, and deleted some of my old works in my gallery. Don't worry, my Digimon stories and others are still up. I just got rid of the old, OLD pictures and written works that I uploaded when I first joined DeviantArt....

...the cringe-worthy ones that I won't regret never seeing again.  

Max: "What ones?"

Me: "Good question...."

Max:   "Uhh....okay."

Also, I'm still in the process of rewriting and freshening up some of the past Digimon Revived chapters. However, it's still going to be a while until I get the motivation to write new chapters. I don't know. I just feel like that story's been pushed back into the back of the line of my priorities, regarding real life and other stories that have my full attention right now. Things are just kind of that way right now.

So that's where we're at. Hope none of you are too disappointed.

Tito: "Well, maybe a little, but we also kind of understand."

Chris: "Yeah, it happens to all of us in the end."

Andy: "Yeah! And we'll still be here when you come back!"

Rita: "After we kick your sorry butt, that is."

Me: "...Good to know."

Until then, you beautiful deviants, READ ON!!!!

 .....Is it safe to come out? *slowly reveals myself out in the open* ....Maybe? Perhaps? Perchance?

Max:   "THERE YOU ARE, YOU SON OF A WHORE!"

Me: O_O "....Well, I'm a woman, so technically you should only call me a whore."

Max:  

Me: "Heheheh....."*leaves a me-shaped cloud of dust behind as I run off to the horizon*

Max: "GET BACK HERE!"

Yes, yes. I know, it's been a while since I've done anything productive on here. I've mostly been busy over at my fanfiction.net account and stuff, but I've also been occupied with a lot of other things outside the social media. School, work, personal matters, family issues, etc. It's been a preeetttty busy (not to mention emotionally damaging) year.

Max: "NO EXCUSES!"

Me: "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you get this mad, Max.....heheh, Mad, Max. You  been driving on a Fury Road lately?"

Chris: "Haha! That was pretty good."

Max: "Well, you know, I'll never be old enough to drive. BECAUSE I'M GONNA STAY THIRTEEN FOREVER BECAUSE YOU'VE PUT US ON HIATUS!"

Well, if it makes anyone feel any better, I have been thinking up ideas for the next chapter.  Lately, I've been finding more and more inspiration to come back here. I guess the reason I put the stories here on hiatus for so long was because I wanted to work on whole new projects, like my Sherlock fanfic. But now that I've taken some time off, I feel a bit ready to come back. I've even been contemplating restarting up the long discontinued Digimon Journey story (maybe do a little rewrite on that one before going any further, though).

Of course, I can't promise I'll have the next chapter of Digimon Revived uploaded anytime soon. Last I checked, I only got a small fraction of it written out.

But that's not the only reason I've come back. Like the events I've described in my last journal entry, I've been digging through some of my old projects that I did in high school. And I found something that I kind of felt proud of, and thought that I had lost until now.

You see, for my final exam in my creative writing class, we had to write a twenty-page story of anything we wanted. And of course, twenty pages aren't really that long for me(especially when it's double-spaced, so technically it's only, like, eight to ten pages. Lame.) So I wrote my story no problem, turned it in, and got an "A" on it. What surprised me, though, was that my teacher had praised my story for a compelling science fiction idea with a twist of magic, adventure, and interesting characters and my thorough description of them, especially the strange creatures that I wrote about......

......It was actually a Digimon fanfiction.

   :bademoticon:      


Yep. Still got it.

I still kind of like the idea I had, and I'm already brainstorming up ideas for later plot points and junk. But in the meantime, I'll tweak and fix up the first two chapters (which I have written as my final project) and post them here and on my fanfiction.net account sometime soon. I'd like to get back into the Digi-swing of things, starting with Throwback Whateverday again!

I will say, it's good to be back.

Max: "Yeah.....I'm still gonna kill you." *grabs tomahawk axe*

Me: "Oh crap!" *runs off*

Harley: '...Is it always like this around here?'

Wizardmon: "Pretty much, all day, every day...."

Harley: O_O '....It's weird being with someone who can actually hear my thoughts, but it's kinda nice too.'


READ ON!