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How To Write If You Have A Cat

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  How To Write If You Have A Cat If you are a writer who lives with a cat, or multiple cats, then this blog post is for you! Here are 3 handy tips to get your cat to leave you alone for long enough so you can write something. Guaranteed* to work! (*nothing is guaranteed with cats except for the fact that they want your attention when you are busy!)     Step One Serve up distractions for your cat. Toys, catnip, a windup mouse, any of those work. Toss the toy in one direction for your cat to chase, while you sprint in the other direction to your laptop. Try and get three words down before your cat follows you and sits on your keyboard.     Step Two Create a barricade. You will need to hole up your writing supplies in one area, preferably behind a secure door. Barricade yourself inside, use extra timber and a spare mattress if necessary. This is your bunker now.   If the noise your cat makes on the other side of the door becomes too much, try out some nois...

How I Wrote My First Draft in 25 Weeks

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How I wrote my first draft in 25 weeks     You may have heard this piece of advice before: Writers Must Write Every Day!   But if you're like me, that advice is no help. I don't write every day, and I don't think it's necessary to.   Everyone is different, and how we write will be different. Difference is fine.   Persistence is key!   This is how I wrote my first draft in 25 weeks (under six months).   I didn't write every day, far from it. But I did try to write every week until I was done.   My first draft was 100,000 words. This means that I averaged around four thousand words per week. That's about two chapters, for me. And it doesn't seem like a huge amount, now I look back on it. One or two chapters a week is doable. There were days when I thought I'd never finish the first draft, but I kept writing one chapter at a time. Just one chapter. Bite-size amounts. Those words all count toward the end goal!   This is my method: When I s...