nimblesnotebook:

Here.

I would also suggest:

• Looking at my “prompts” and “inspiration” tags.
• Recording your dreams and turning them into stories.
• Free writing for one minute and then taking one phrase or line you like as something to use in a story.
• Keeping a section reserved for recording short descriptions of your story ideas that you don’t want to forget.
• Writing a journal entry from the perspective of one of your characters.
• Writing a page filled with small notes as if your characters are writing to each other during class.
• Turning the bottom corner of the entire journal into a flip book that illustrates one of your character’s story arcs (if you’re like me it’ll be with stick figures).
• Maps of worlds, islands, countries, towns, or even just your character’s room.
• Maybe color coding with ink to differentiate between pages that hold plots, characters, lines of dialogue, prose, etc.
• Keeping track of character motives.
• Write out plots in a visual manner, with names in different colors, phrases that describe a plot twist in stylized letters taking up a whole page, adjectives being written/drawn as the thing they’re describing (red being written in red, sharp being written with sharp letters, furry being written with letters that look fuzzy/furry, etc.), underlining important phrases, and doing anything else that makes it “pop” or that emphasizes certain points or moods.
• Don’t fix grammar or spelling mistakes right away. Instead, go back and edit with a different colored pen when you’re done writing on that page to get some editing practice.
• Try writing out plots as if one of your characters has read your book and must summarize it. This is practice for seeing what, to your character, are the most important parts of the story.
• Keeping a list of names you might want to use later, along with their meanings if that is important to you.