Writing

Hello, everyone! Sorry I’m a little late with this post! I just started school, and I’ve been pretty busy.

Today I’m going to talk about writing discipline, and then later on I’ll share some exciting news!

Here’s the Deal

Sometimes, you just don’t want to do it. You don’t want to wake up early, get ready, and go to work. You don’t want to get up and go to school. You don’t want to get your computer and work on your book or story.

Here’s the thing: everybody has those “off” days. Days where you just can’t do it. When you feel like you just can’t get the inspiration and motivation to write. Well, good news, friends! I’ve got some tips for you!

Tips and Tricks

Take a day off. One day won’t hurt that much. Especially if you don’t have a deadline. If you do, you could at least take a couple of hours to yourself.
Spark your creativity by reading this post I wrote.
Don’t work as long as you usually do. If you usually work for a couple of hours, try only one hour. My motto is: If you can’t do it well, then don’t do it. If you make yourself write, it won’t sound right, and it might not be correct grammar and spelling.
Learn to love writing. One way to do this is to write in a journal every morning or night. Think of a topic, and just write down every thought that has to do with that subject.

Steps to Create Discipline

Set up a time to write every day. You could set a reminder or alarm on your phone to help you remember.
Write somewhere you won’t be distracted.
Decide how long you’ll write each day.
Have a trial run to make sure that the time you decided on isn’t too long or not long enough.
Set up a place to keep track of how long and when you write. If you’re a bullet journalist, then you could keep track of it in your bullet journal.
Ready, set, write! Make sure that you be consistent and write every day, if you can.
Set up a time to journal or write about a specific topic every day. I have a book full of writing prompts, and I like to do it right after I get up every day.

Discipline is very important. If you slack off for even one day, you probably won’t be very motivated to write the next day.

A Few Other Things…

First of all, September is a very important month for me. And here’s why…

I’ve been bullet journaling for a year! I can’t believe it! Now, please keep in mind that I didn’t bullet journal every single day. There were some days that I just didn’t have time to bullet journal. But I always made sure I got caught up.

This means two things.

One, this is my last month in my first bullet journal. At the beginning of October, I’ll be moving to a new journal!

Two, to celebrate, I’m going to start a series of posts all about (you guessed it!) bullet journaling! The posts ahead are going to be filled with tips and tricks and fun pages for you to try out! So make sure you stick with me for new and fun posts!

Alright, last but not least, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get a post out every week. I need time to adjust to my new school schedule, and adjust to the new curriculum as well. I will still post, just not as regularly as I usually do. It’ll probably be every other week. And this is only temporary, until I get used to everything. Thank you for understanding!

I’m not sure when I will start my new series, but it will be soon!

Do you have writing discipline? Do you need to develop writing discipline? Do you have any extra tips? How long have you been bullet journaling? Tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading! Happy writing!

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Psalm 127:1 ESV

Hey, everyone! July is officially over, and August has begun! School is about to start back, and I am super excited! Let’s get started!

Reading/Books

This month, my goal was to read four books. Unfortunately, I only read three.

A Common Life (The Mitford Years book six)
Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities book four)
Lodestar (Keeper of the Lost Cities book five)

I was supposed to have finished two more books by the end of this month, but I just didn’t have enough time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get much writing done this month either. 😦 We’ve definitely had a busy summer! My goal was to do twenty minutes each day, two hours each week, and ten hours for the entire month.

July 1-6: 1 hour 10 minutes
July 7-13: 2 hours
July 14-20: 45 minutes
July 21-27: 1 hour 10 minutes
July 28- August 3: none
Entire Month: 5 hours 5 minutes

My excuse for the last week is that I didn’t have access to my writing since I was staying at my grandmother’s house. 😉 Overall, I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking with it and getting it done.

Bullet Journal

I was super pleased with July’s pages! They were exactly what I needed, and I’m probably going to stick with the same design for next month. If you missed the pictures for July’s bullet journal pages, click here to see.

I am very proud of myself because I bullet journaled almost every day this month! It’s been a struggle for me to find the time to fill out my journal, and keep up with all the habits and trackers, but this month, I did pretty good!

Now, onto August’s pages.

I didn’t really have a theme this month, so I decorated the title page with school supplies, as seen at the top of the page.

I did end up changing the layout of my Monthly Log a little. Of course, first I have my calendar, which is on the top of the left page. The space under that is divided into three sections: Events, Goals, and Notes. I also did a quote underneath the Notes section.

On the right page, I have a section for Books (to write down the books I’ve read), Memories (to write down memories and fun times to remember), School (to write down the subjects I’ll be taking this year), Blogging (to write down my blog plan for this month), Bullet Journal Ideas, and Writing (to write down how much time I spent writing/editing each week and for the month).

I decided to go back to my original Habit Tracker layout. The one I used last month was too time-consuming and confusing.

This month, I had time to take a picture of my first weekly layout. This is not how I usually do my weekly layouts; I just did a simple layout last week since I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time to work on it.

Blogging

This month I did not do as many posts as I would’ve liked to have done, but like I said before: it’s been a busy month.

These are the two other posts I did this month.

Goals

My goals for July were:

Write for twenty minutes every day. I did miss a few days, but other than that, I did pretty well.
Drink more water. Sadly, I didn’t do very well in this area.
Bullet Journal every day. Yay! I did do this almost every day!
Be on phone less. Oops . . . I did ok the first part of the month, but the second part is another story.

My goals for August are:

Be on your phone less.
Don’t stress about school too much.
Drink more water.
Write every day.
Bullet Journal every day.
Pre-plan blog posts and work on them in advance.
Practice piano every day.

Life

July was a pretty busy month, and I have enjoyed my last month of summer. I filled the time with binge-watching Netflix, taking morning walks, writing/editing, bullet journaling, and reading. I spent a lot of time at home this month, but I also stayed at my grandmother’s house last week. That was definitely awesome, because she has a pool!

Just a few days ago, my mom and dad presented me with a new laptop! I’ll mostly use it for school this year, but I can also use it for my writing and blogging.

I start school next week, so this week I’ll be getting school supplies ready, setting up my new laptop (yay!), and watching orientation videos (I do online school). That means I probably won’t get posts out until Saturdays or Sundays during this first month of school- but I promise I’ll try to work ahead.

That’s the end of today’s post! If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments. Also tell me: how was your July? Are you looking forward to school starting? Also, if you have any topics you would like me to do a post on, please let me know!

Thank you so much for reading! Have a wonderful week! Happy writing!

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26 ESV

Tag: Writing

Writing Discipline | Exciting News