When you open your work-in-progress…
close your eyes.
Yep. That’s my tip. Am I crazy? No. But I do lack willpower and when I open up my WIP I’m often tempted to look over what I’ve already written.
And once I look, I want to tweak. And then I revise and rewrite (for the 1,000 time) the opening of my book. This is a bad thing. Because when my writing time is over, I have no new pages. So, if you’re at all like me…
Do not even LOOK at that first page. Instead, go immediately to the last page you wrote and, if you must, revise that bit and let it lead you into a new scene, new pages, and new progress.
And that’s my tip for today. Hopefully, none of you can relate to this because you never ever get distracted when you’re writing. 
Have a great Tuesday!
This is a new feature I hope to continue every Tuesday, where I share a writing tip that’s worked for me. These entries will be short and sweet and cover all sorts of topics–but feel free to ask questions or suggest areas you’re interested in.
I actually do this one…Well, I don’t actually close my eyes, but I scroll to the bottom of the document before I can read over anything. I used to be lousy for tweeking what I have instead of writing anything.
Thanks DL! I’m glad to know I’m not the only one with “tweaking disease.”
It does take willpower to trudge on forward. Good advice! On the other hand, sometimes a big scale “global” read uncovers all sorts of unnecessary stuff that needs clipping. But that’s a different day of writing, or month, or year… Which proves your original comment!
Exactly…and I love that global read day because it means I’m done with a draft!
(Done is such a good feeling…even if it’s just “done” until I start again.)