Love all of these tips! I am currently writing the first draft of my first novel, and I have a whole google doc filled with inspirational quotes and writing advice. I've taken to picking one of them to add to the header of whatever chapter I am working on that day to serve as a reminder while I write. Today's quote: "It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done."
Watching from a vacation to Jamaica! Best advice I've received is "your book won't be finished unless you sit down and write it" and "don't revise as you draft"
"Progress is progress" is what I especially needed to hear right now. I've been working on a large story, closing in on 200K words and it's not even half-way finished 💀Progress feels really slow and sometimes it does get to me. I really appreciate these videos and your Shorts, they really help me with motivation ❤
It is so helpful to be reminded of all these little things - for some reason it is so easy to get bogged down when we’re in the thick of it. My theory is it’s because a novel is such a monumental project to undertake. Progress sometimes doesn’t even look like progress because sometimes things have to get messier before they’ll be ‘right’. One of the things that helps me in those moments:: remembering all the times I had to write bad words to get to the good ones. I’ve personally experienced this multiple times - writing sessions that are almost painfully bad, and then having an aha moment that clicks everything together. You just have to keep going!!
I love how Brandon Sanderson and Neil Gaiman stress how important finishing your novel is. I've found too many people jump from project to project and never finish any of them. By the way Sara, you looked so adorable covering the mic with your hand. It looked like you were whispering
Wind wasn't audible at all, birds were nice bgm and your tips were amazing!! I'm an artist (who hasn't drawn much in the past 3 years) I'm trying to get back into it, and all this authortube community is so freaking cute!! Y'all motivate me so much!!! ❤❤❤
Thank you. Just because I can get better, doesn't mean I'm not already good. What would someone who loves themselves do? If you don't practice, you don't want it.
A few of my favorites. The first draft is for just getting the idea down. I've heard one author say something along the lines of the first draft is just for puking ideas onto paper, worry about editing the mess later. Write what you are interested in. This encourages you to keep writing. It also potentially helps you figure out things in the story that you might have otherwise been stuck on as it can be easier to connect A to B rather than figuring out where A needs to go next if you write ahead.
Wow, that background with the snow covered mountains was gorgeous. That's a great setting for sharing all of those terrific writing tips! I'm in the DFW area this week. Not a snowflake in sight. 🌞🏜
Not only can you write after you retire, you can start writing after you retire! I started writing a year and a half after I retired. It is the most fun creative outlet I have ever experienced.
I find this advice equally applicable to me as a programmer by trade. I'm particularly the type that needs to be reminded of the Steve Jobs quote: "Real artists ship." Left to my own advices, I'm not the type absent creative ideas but overflowing with them. My vicious tendency is to work on something for a whole day, week, sometimes even month, only to generate more and more ideas midway, throw everything out, and start over again. I keep wanting to reset my progress as I keep discovering new and radically different things I want to try, and it's difficult for me to even start trying anything in the first place since I keep second-guessing my ideas and keep coming up with new ones. In my field working professionally, I have looming deadlines and project managers breathing down my neck to keep my habitual tendencies from veering off the rails (I maximally appreciate the strictest managers and tightest deadlines since I doubt I'd get anything ready to ship absent them). Yet my personal projects outside of my work are a complete mess: endless analogues of half-finished gardens overgrown with weeds from neglect as I keep ditching project after project to try something new.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 ☁️ 🌥️ ☁️ Sara, I love the photo with a lake and mountains 🏔️ in the background! You look so fun and full of energy and beautiful! I'm not flirting with you. It's just a compliment. (Dutch people are famous for being direct.) I pressed play and ... silence. Oh, my phone is still talking to my Bluetooth headphones, which are in the bedroom. I'm off to retrieve my headphones. I like the quotation by Louis Lamore! To get your creativity going, you have to turn on the faucet, which means ... just start writing! It's a quotation, not a quote. Quote is a verb, quotation is a noun. My dad taught me this when I was 7 years old. Even professional journalist say quote, but the word is quotation. 🧑🏫 I wish everyone a happy and productive summer, with a vibrantly effervescent 🥂 🍾 personality, a crisply efficient work ethic, subtle, oaky 🌳 high notes, and a dash of whimsy, just like me, Anthony 🤠
Is that Lake in the North Cascades in Washington? Looks like somewhere I've been!. Best writing advice for me was: learn to be happy with the success achieved in short, consistent writing sessions. Overtime a book will get written just by showing up consistently for your project.
Thanks for the video and tips! I recieved my game-changing guideline while studying traditional art, but I've found that this formula works for a lot of other areas, including writing: quantity becomes quality + analysis = big progress.
That quote by Terry Pratchett is spot on! I need to post that on my computer, because I tend to edit my first drafts way too much as I go along. Thanks for these!
Good morning Sara and those are inspiring quotes. I also love the mountain view with you sitting in front of them. I'm an author as well after writing 2 books and a short story which has been published in a magazine. Anyway, have a lovely day and happy writing/editing. ❤
Love the different pieces of advice in here! Getting me motivated to get back into writing! The bit of animal watching that’s now some sort of reoccurring subplot to your channel is great haha
Love this! The best advice I’ve received is to write consistently in whatever way works for you. And I can totally vouch for this. There is a marked difference in the quality of my writing between before I was consistent and after
You had me at ‘Creativity is a muscle’ and kept me throughout the whole video. I love to be creative but I never consider it as a muscle, so it’s interesting to know. Thank you so much for these advices. I plan to hold on to them as I continue on my first draft for my future novel. Thank you so much again, and best of luck for you on becoming a published author yourself. Plus, I am a little envious on how lucky you are to live near a view like that. Such a paradise, despite people being there lol 😂❤
Great video, but I think it might be even easier to follow videos like this, if you would highlight the key points or headlines in a written form, while you talk about it. Same goes for the timestamps. I get that you probably don't want people to just look at the timestamps instead of the video, but it is actually way easier to come back to and watch the explanation of the specific point. Without highlighting the headlines, it kind of feels like reading a book without being divided by chapters - great information, but confusing. I hope this comment is helpful, thanks for putting the effort in for all your videos, keep it up ;)
Sara, I’ve been working on my fantasy novel for a couple of years while watching your videos, and today I sent my first queries! I wanted to share with you as encouragement because I know that like me, you’ve felt as if the revision process has taken forever, but it does eventually end! I’m excited to hear about your querying journey when you finish revising :) Selfishly I wish we were both querying right now so that you could make videos about the mental game the dealing with rejection. It’s too soon for any rejections to have come in yet for me but I’m already wondering how it will feel 🫣
(Sorry for the late response but…) CONGRATULATIONS!! 🎉 It’s so reassuring to know the revisions do end 😅. Lol you and me both, I wish I was querying right now too but I’m looking forward to the process and learning from any feedback I get. Feel free to share any of your wisdom as you go along! You got this!!
The best writing advice I've received is what Sara always says, which is "Progress is progress." It helps to motivate me on days that I find it hard to concentrate. I picture Sara as a reporter when I see the little microphone, lol.
this is such great advice! unfortunately i'm a chronic methodical plotter and i can't write a single word on a page until i know the whole story. i need to train myself somehow to just write. just write.
I have to rephrase from what I said earlier in my comment. I wrote 2 manuscripts to become published books but still editing them. The short story I mentioned is true though and is the only one so far.
As an SFF author, I have to disagree about editing while drafting. Making sure certain elements remain consistent across your notes and the draft can save you a lot of wasted time and effort in the long run. That said, don't proofread everything. Just focus on consistency and structure for these early edits.
That makes sense! What I meant in this video was editing as far as wording goes, you can always rephrase things later but don't get caught up in the minutia
Come for the writing advice, stay for the deer mouse
@I-am-a-unicornnn Thank you!
Love all of these tips! I am currently writing the first draft of my first novel, and I have a whole google doc filled with inspirational quotes and writing advice. I've taken to picking one of them to add to the header of whatever chapter I am working on that day to serve as a reminder while I write. Today's quote: "It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done."
I'll use that for my today's writing slot. Thanks for sharing!
First draft reveals the art, revision reveals the artist?? Come on, now; that's a bar!!
Right??
I loved hearing the birds in the background while you chatted about writing. So peaceful and inspiring!
I'm so glad!
This is one of those videos you have to watch/listen more than once
Love hearing that :)
Watching from a vacation to Jamaica! Best advice I've received is "your book won't be finished unless you sit down and write it" and "don't revise as you draft"
Oooooh! Have so much fun in Jamaica!
"Progress is progress" is what I especially needed to hear right now. I've been working on a large story, closing in on 200K words and it's not even half-way finished 💀Progress feels really slow and sometimes it does get to me. I really appreciate these videos and your Shorts, they really help me with motivation ❤
WOW! You got this tho, good luck and happy writing!
@@SaraLubratt Thank you! ❤
It is so helpful to be reminded of all these little things - for some reason it is so easy to get bogged down when we’re in the thick of it. My theory is it’s because a novel is such a monumental project to undertake. Progress sometimes doesn’t even look like progress because sometimes things have to get messier before they’ll be ‘right’. One of the things that helps me in those moments:: remembering all the times I had to write bad words to get to the good ones. I’ve personally experienced this multiple times - writing sessions that are almost painfully bad, and then having an aha moment that clicks everything together. You just have to keep going!!
I love how Brandon Sanderson and Neil Gaiman stress how important finishing your novel is. I've found too many people jump from project to project and never finish any of them. By the way Sara, you looked so adorable covering the mic with your hand. It looked like you were whispering
I was whispering 😂 I was very self conscious with how many people were walking by and staring at me with my little tripod and mic
@@SaraLubratt It added to the video. Like the tips you were about giving were for us only. Not the people around you. It was sweet.
@@TimRG :)
Fantastic video. Really important pearls of wisdom. THANK YOU
Thanks for watching!
Wind wasn't audible at all, birds were nice bgm and your tips were amazing!! I'm an artist (who hasn't drawn much in the past 3 years) I'm trying to get back into it, and all this authortube community is so freaking cute!! Y'all motivate me so much!!! ❤❤❤
I was really amazed with how the mic performed outside! Love that, happy to have you here!
loved the advice sara ☺️
Glad you liked it :)
Thank you.
Just because I can get better, doesn't mean I'm not already good.
What would someone who loves themselves do?
If you don't practice, you don't want it.
Love it!
A few of my favorites.
The first draft is for just getting the idea down. I've heard one author say something along the lines of the first draft is just for puking ideas onto paper, worry about editing the mess later.
Write what you are interested in. This encourages you to keep writing. It also potentially helps you figure out things in the story that you might have otherwise been stuck on as it can be easier to connect A to B rather than figuring out where A needs to go next if you write ahead.
Those are great ones!
Wow, that background with the snow covered mountains was gorgeous. That's a great setting for sharing all of those terrific writing tips! I'm in the DFW area this week. Not a snowflake in sight. 🌞🏜
Love DFW! Have a great time!
Not only can you write after you retire, you can start writing after you retire! I started writing a year and a half after I retired. It is the most fun creative outlet I have ever experienced.
Totally!
I find this advice equally applicable to me as a programmer by trade. I'm particularly the type that needs to be reminded of the Steve Jobs quote: "Real artists ship."
Left to my own advices, I'm not the type absent creative ideas but overflowing with them. My vicious tendency is to work on something for a whole day, week, sometimes even month, only to generate more and more ideas midway, throw everything out, and start over again. I keep wanting to reset my progress as I keep discovering new and radically different things I want to try, and it's difficult for me to even start trying anything in the first place since I keep second-guessing my ideas and keep coming up with new ones.
In my field working professionally, I have looming deadlines and project managers breathing down my neck to keep my habitual tendencies from veering off the rails (I maximally appreciate the strictest managers and tightest deadlines since I doubt I'd get anything ready to ship absent them). Yet my personal projects outside of my work are a complete mess: endless analogues of half-finished gardens overgrown with weeds from neglect as I keep ditching project after project to try something new.
Fantastic tips and quotes. Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 ☁️ 🌥️ ☁️
Sara, I love the photo with a lake and mountains 🏔️ in the background! You look so fun and full of energy and beautiful!
I'm not flirting with you. It's just a compliment. (Dutch people are famous for being direct.)
I pressed play and ... silence. Oh, my phone is still talking to my Bluetooth headphones, which are in the bedroom. I'm off to retrieve my headphones.
I like the quotation by Louis Lamore! To get your creativity going, you have to turn on the faucet, which means ... just start writing!
It's a quotation, not a quote. Quote is a verb, quotation is a noun. My dad taught me this when I was 7 years old. Even professional journalist say quote, but the word is quotation. 🧑🏫
I wish everyone a happy and productive summer, with a vibrantly effervescent 🥂 🍾 personality, a crisply efficient work ethic, subtle, oaky 🌳 high notes, and a dash of whimsy, just like me, Anthony 🤠
Is that Lake in the North Cascades in Washington? Looks like somewhere I've been!. Best writing advice for me was: learn to be happy with the success achieved in short, consistent writing sessions. Overtime a book will get written just by showing up consistently for your project.
Love that! And no, this is a lake in Utah :)
Thanks for the video and tips!
I recieved my game-changing guideline while studying traditional art, but I've found that this formula works for a lot of other areas, including writing: quantity becomes quality + analysis = big progress.
That quote by Terry Pratchett is spot on! I need to post that on my computer, because I tend to edit my first drafts way too much as I go along. Thanks for these!
Thanks for watching!
Good morning Sara and those are inspiring quotes. I also love the mountain view with you sitting in front of them. I'm an author as well after writing 2 books and a short story which has been published in a magazine. Anyway, have a lovely day and happy writing/editing. ❤
Happy writing!
@@SaraLubratt Same to you. ❤
Love the different pieces of advice in here! Getting me motivated to get back into writing!
The bit of animal watching that’s now some sort of reoccurring subplot to your channel is great haha
😂I'm here for it
Absolutely loved the on location video. I couldnt hear the wind at all!!
I was super impressed with how well the mic handled it! And I hope to film more videos out in nature in the future :)
@@SaraLubratt that would be awesome!! please do :D
The best writing advice I received was from my fifth grade teacher "You can".
I love this so much 🥺
Thank you Sara !
Thanks for watching :)
Love this! The best advice I’ve received is to write consistently in whatever way works for you. And I can totally vouch for this. There is a marked difference in the quality of my writing between before I was consistent and after
Love that!!
Thank you so much for sharing your lovely view with us! What a gift :)
Happy to share!
The view! 😍😍😍
Right??
The view is gorgeous! :D
Right??
You had me at ‘Creativity is a muscle’ and kept me throughout the whole video. I love to be creative but I never consider it as a muscle, so it’s interesting to know. Thank you so much for these advices. I plan to hold on to them as I continue on my first draft for my future novel. Thank you so much again, and best of luck for you on becoming a published author yourself. Plus, I am a little envious on how lucky you are to live near a view like that. Such a paradise, despite people being there lol 😂❤
❤️
Great video, but I think it might be even easier to follow videos like this, if you would highlight the key points or headlines in a written form, while you talk about it. Same goes for the timestamps. I get that you probably don't want people to just look at the timestamps instead of the video, but it is actually way easier to come back to and watch the explanation of the specific point. Without highlighting the headlines, it kind of feels like reading a book without being divided by chapters - great information, but confusing. I hope this comment is helpful, thanks for putting the effort in for all your videos, keep it up ;)
Good note, I'll consider this
I love your channel, I'm so glad I found it! I am working on my first novel.
Happy to have you here!
this video was very motivational!
So glad!
What a lovely background
Unfortunately, people are not allowed to swim in most lakes in Utah because of the watershed, so no :(. Plantsing is the best!
The last one got me. It's so simple but yet hard to remember. Just. Keep. Writing! ❤
Just keep writing!
Sara, I’ve been working on my fantasy novel for a couple of years while watching your videos, and today I sent my first queries! I wanted to share with you as encouragement because I know that like me, you’ve felt as if the revision process has taken forever, but it does eventually end! I’m excited to hear about your querying journey when you finish revising :) Selfishly I wish we were both querying right now so that you could make videos about the mental game the dealing with rejection. It’s too soon for any rejections to have come in yet for me but I’m already wondering how it will feel 🫣
Fingers crossed for your queries!!!
@@isobelledger omg thank you 😊
(Sorry for the late response but…) CONGRATULATIONS!! 🎉
It’s so reassuring to know the revisions do end 😅. Lol you and me both, I wish I was querying right now too but I’m looking forward to the process and learning from any feedback I get. Feel free to share any of your wisdom as you go along! You got this!!
The best writing advice I've received is what Sara always says, which is "Progress is progress." It helps to motivate me on days that I find it hard to concentrate. I picture Sara as a reporter when I see the little microphone, lol.
❤️
this is such great advice! unfortunately i'm a chronic methodical plotter and i can't write a single word on a page until i know the whole story. i need to train myself somehow to just write. just write.
Some people are full plotters and I respect it! If it works for you, there's no need to change anything!
thank you
Thanks for watching!
❤❤❤ I love this. My favorite one advice is "Keep writing because you're not perfect author just keep doing it."
❤️
I have to rephrase from what I said earlier in my comment. I wrote 2 manuscripts to become published books but still editing them. The short story I mentioned is true though and is the only one so far.
Congratulations!
@@SaraLubratt Thank you, Sara! I truly appreciate it. ❤
Hi! The best writing advice I received is to trust the process.
Love that!
As an SFF author, I have to disagree about editing while drafting. Making sure certain elements remain consistent across your notes and the draft can save you a lot of wasted time and effort in the long run. That said, don't proofread everything. Just focus on consistency and structure for these early edits.
That makes sense! What I meant in this video was editing as far as wording goes, you can always rephrase things later but don't get caught up in the minutia
You can't edit a blank page
Totally!
:)
✨
❤️