Keep Effing Writing

The most excellent Irregulars have come through again! Tamsin had a great question about character-driven stories and how to nail down the action that gets your characters where they need to go! If you’ve got writing/story/author/ramble questions, please join us on Facebook or drop me a line at krisATkrisripperDOTcom! Links mentioned: Endless Ideas by Sean Platt and Neeve Silver,

If you didn’t watch last week’s excited ramble about revising, you might do that first, because this is the follow-up in which I screw up an entire revision…twice. Last week’s episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfXcixMWM8E Links mentioned: Jessica Brody’s site: https://www.jessicabrody.com/2020/11/how-to-write-your-novel-using-the-save-the-cat-beat-sheet/ Save the C

In this episode of procrastination goodness, I ramble about revising books, confidence, excitement, and how no matter how excited I am, I'm still procrastinating! This video-slash-podcast is for: people who like watching me ramble; writing nerds; people into process. And anyone who likes playing spot-the-Basil-Kitten in the background. This video is not for: anyone who just wa

Load up a little Facetime or Google Meet or Zoom on mute with a pal and get your sh*t done! IT IS WEIRDLY MAGICAL. Link to site where you can do this with humans: https://www.focusmate.com/ (Omg mobile version, why can't I hyperlink???) Royalty free music is "In the Forest" by Lesfm from Pixabay. Link: https://pixabay.com/music/solo-guitar-in-the-forest-ambient-acoustic-guitar-inst

Have you ever approached something you HAVE to do and wished it was a lot more like something you WANTED to do? Maybe there’s a way to make that a reality! The only requirement is that you can figure out how your brain approaches the stuff you love—and apply that process to everything else.

Do you make stuff? Do you build bookcases or bake cakes? Do you paint or draw or do those awesome lathe wood spinning art pieces? Maybe you mix paint colors on TikTok. If you make anything, chances are you've experienced FOFU: the fear of f*cking up. There's no cure for FOFU, but the good news is it's totally survivable!

If you have all the time in the world to do something, do you really do it faster (or better) than if you had a limited amount of time? I know for sure that I work faster and more effectively when I'm up against a wall—and that's whether I'm cleaning the house or finishing a chapter. Here are some ways you might be able to use the tiny pockets of time in your own world for, well,

Feeling creatively stymied? Lacking excitement with your work? Maybe you should take a brief break to indulge in pure idea creation. No pressure to make a finished product or deal with the complexities of bringing an idea from spark to sharing. It's basically tapping into the Force, but for creatives, not Jedis. (You still have to practice to get good at it, though.)

I love a fresh start, but I used to be a massive New Year’s denier. The truth is that the calendar is...pretty arbitrary. It doesn’t matter what season/month/week you pick to take stock of what you’ve done and make plans for what you want to do next, the important thing is that you do it AT SOME POINT. Also of note, in this episode I refer to New Year's resolutions as "a mass

You know how inspired you get when you have a new idea? Maybe you're on a train to work, or in the middle of making a thousand lattes, or taking a long line of orders from pandemic-maddened drive-through customers desperate for an order of fries. Maybe you're in the middle of negotiating a deal that's probably going to make someone a lot of money, but it won't be you, and you're ta