THE DAKOTA STAR
READ ALL ABOUT IT: News from newspaper reporter/turned children's author Dakota Douglas
October 16, 2017
READ ALL ABOUT IT: News from newspaper reporter/turned children's author Dakota Douglas
October 16, 2017
Do you keep a diary? As a kid, author Dakota Douglas did. And it had a big key so only she could read it.
"I used to scribble down where I'd been and what I'd been doing that day," she said. "I don't know where those diaries are now. Probably under a pile of dust in the attic of the house I grew up in or hidden in my garden because I had a habit of squirreling away bits and pieces in old biscuit or sweet tins and burying them."
Journal keeping has been around for centuries. It used to be a habit only practiced by the rich because they could afford the paper and they were better educated and could write.
When paper became cheaper and the general masses became better educated, all sorts of folk started putting pen to paper. These days, many people keep diaries on their phones, laptops, computers and on blogs on the internet.
One of Douglas' characters, Jeremy Turner stumbles into all kinds of scrapes and adventures after he befriends a stray dog in WOOF: A Body Swap Adventure. He has just started writing a diary. Zip over to my Blog4Kids page to read his first entry.
"I used to scribble down where I'd been and what I'd been doing that day," she said. "I don't know where those diaries are now. Probably under a pile of dust in the attic of the house I grew up in or hidden in my garden because I had a habit of squirreling away bits and pieces in old biscuit or sweet tins and burying them."
Journal keeping has been around for centuries. It used to be a habit only practiced by the rich because they could afford the paper and they were better educated and could write.
When paper became cheaper and the general masses became better educated, all sorts of folk started putting pen to paper. These days, many people keep diaries on their phones, laptops, computers and on blogs on the internet.
One of Douglas' characters, Jeremy Turner stumbles into all kinds of scrapes and adventures after he befriends a stray dog in WOOF: A Body Swap Adventure. He has just started writing a diary. Zip over to my Blog4Kids page to read his first entry.
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Children’s author Dakota Douglas today revealed a new technique that is helping her write much faster.
The former newspaper reporter recently finished the first draft of the first book in an exciting new series that she plans to publish in a few months’ time – and she did it in record time.
“I'm usually a plodding farm horse; now I'm racehorse after trying this technique," she said. "I wrote a 16,500 word draft in just eight hours. My fingers were a blur on the keyboard."
The author of ANTics and WOOF used a method called the Pomodoro Time Managed Technique. She set an online timer for 25 minutes and did nothing but write solidly for the whole period. When the timer went off, she took a five-minute break, then reset the timer again and repeated the cycle. After four cycles, she took a longer break.
“I had already plotted out the story in detail,” said the author, “so I knew what I wanted to write. When I finished the first 25 minutes, I did a word count and was surprised to find that I’d written more than 1,000 words. I repeated this four times over four days and completed about the same word count each cycle. It was amazing. It’s important just to write. No stopping to check emails or social media. No research. No pausing to correct typos. Just write. When I came to a part that needed checking, I put several question marks in bold and pressed on."
You can try an online Pomodoro HERE It only has one time setting of 25 minutes, however, if you want to vary the time you spend writing, the TICK TOCK timer is useful because you can set it for as long or as short a time as you like.
“People will prefer different time lengths; I found 30 minutes perfect for my attention span," Dakota said. "Also, my back started to ache, so after 30 minutes I was ready to do a few stretches, go to the loo or grab a snack."
The former newspaper reporter recently finished the first draft of the first book in an exciting new series that she plans to publish in a few months’ time – and she did it in record time.
“I'm usually a plodding farm horse; now I'm racehorse after trying this technique," she said. "I wrote a 16,500 word draft in just eight hours. My fingers were a blur on the keyboard."
The author of ANTics and WOOF used a method called the Pomodoro Time Managed Technique. She set an online timer for 25 minutes and did nothing but write solidly for the whole period. When the timer went off, she took a five-minute break, then reset the timer again and repeated the cycle. After four cycles, she took a longer break.
“I had already plotted out the story in detail,” said the author, “so I knew what I wanted to write. When I finished the first 25 minutes, I did a word count and was surprised to find that I’d written more than 1,000 words. I repeated this four times over four days and completed about the same word count each cycle. It was amazing. It’s important just to write. No stopping to check emails or social media. No research. No pausing to correct typos. Just write. When I came to a part that needed checking, I put several question marks in bold and pressed on."
You can try an online Pomodoro HERE It only has one time setting of 25 minutes, however, if you want to vary the time you spend writing, the TICK TOCK timer is useful because you can set it for as long or as short a time as you like.
“People will prefer different time lengths; I found 30 minutes perfect for my attention span," Dakota said. "Also, my back started to ache, so after 30 minutes I was ready to do a few stretches, go to the loo or grab a snack."
