Hello, fellow wattpadders! My name is Dilyana and today I'm going to share with you my favorite tips and a sneak peek from a work-in-progress that is not available anywhere yet.

A bit about me: I'm a blogger on Dilyana's World (dilyanakyoseva.wordpress.com) where I post writing tips, book reviews, author interviews and more, and a Wattpad Ambassador and writer. On this site, I'm known as CatMint5 and here I post Contemporary Romance stories, some straight Romance, some LGBT, some set in our world, some Paranormal. If these sound interesting to you and you like Teen Fiction, check out The Green Girl and Here We Go Again; if you prefer YA/NA, check out You Are the Answer, We Are the Answer and Sentiments & Reason; as for Hunt Me Down, I think it's somewhere between Teen Fic and YA.

I'd like to thank KellyAnneBlount for including me in yet another Wattpad Block Party! These are always so much fun and I hope you'll enjoy my post!

We'll start off with...

On my blog, I've given plenty on character and plot development tips, as well as advice on editing. But sometimes we don't get to the create-a-character or editing stage; sometimes we are stuck before we even begin. That is why, today I'll cover tips on motivation and productivity.

Tip 1. Let's start with your morning. It could be difficult to get out of bed, especially if it's Sunday and you want to spend the day being lazy. But you have things to do. Stories to write. What can help you get up?

A motivational phrase.

It can be a quote from your favorite book/movie, something you stumbled upon online, or something you came up with yourself. Mine is "If you want it, work for it" sometimes with "get off your butt and" put in the middle.

Remember, it doesn't have to be fancy or elegant; it just has to work for you.

Tip 2. Okay, so now you are up. But you are still sleepy and can't remember what you were supposed to be doing. A way to avoid that?

Have an updates calendar.

I print out a calendar for each month of the year and pin it to my corkboard. Since I post on several sites, I color code it. Light blue is for blog updates, light orange is for Wattpad, darker orange is for Patreon posts, black is for when I have to sent an email to my blog subscribers and dark blue (the one that comes out of your average pen) is for book- and writing-related events, such as Twitter chats or a Facebook book release party.

Whenever I'm done with a task, I write a green checkmark next to it; if I've failed, it's a red X. This in itself can be a motivation; whenever you write an X, think of it as a challenge to have only green checkmarks the following week.

Tip 3. So, you are up, you've seen that your calendar says "Update Wattpad story" and you know that's what you are supposed to work on. But you just can't. You sit down to write, but nothing shows up on the page. Here's where My #1 Writing Tip for the Times You are Stuck comes in handy: talk about your story.

I know it seems basic, but it works. If you don't have anyone to speak to at that moment, imagine that you have. Imagine that they know nothing about the story and introduce them to your characters. Speak about the plot. Share what you are insecure about, what your favorite parts are and where you want the story to go. Just saying those things (or thinking about them as if you are speaking to someone) can help you discover a plot hole, realize a character needs more work or come up with new content.

Tip 4. And now you are writing. And writing, and writing. This is good - especially if you have a high word goal or an approaching deadline - but don't forget to take breaks. Overworking yourself is bad for your creative process and your health. Pause every half hour or so. Get up and grab some water or walk around the room for a couple of minutes. Go online and tweet/post your current word count for the day, but be careful: if you have the tendency to get distracted by social media, avoid it while you write!

Otherwise it's a good idea to post your writing goals online, especially in groups dedicated to that. You'll find like-minded people there who will cheer you on and help you stay on track. One such group that Kelly and I are members of is Sprinters United on Facebook.

Apart from after half an hour of writing, it's a good time to take a break when a new scene is starting or you are switching POVs.

Tip 5. While you write (or after you've written the story and have started editing it), it's important to remember these two things: don't compare yourself to others and don't strive for perfection.

I'm guilty of both.

I can never be perfectly satisfied with what I write, and I always think it could be better. And to a certain extent, aiming to present your best work to the world is a plus. But no one and nothing is perfect and trying to be would just stress you out and hinder your creativity.

The same applies to comparing yourself to others. To a certain extent, it could be healthy ("This author writes wonderfully and I can learn a lot from them!"), but it could also be detrimental ("Oh, my God! This is so good! I'll never write like this! Why do I even bother?!"). There is one person it's always good to compare yourself to though; want to know who that is?

You.

Compare your present self to your past self. Are you doing better now?

Yes? That's great! Congratulations and keep it up!

No? Well, what were you doing back then that you aren't doing now? Think about it and that will help you get your mojo back.

Okay, time to move on to the sneak peek.

About this book: I've decided to challenge myself to write 90K words in three months with all of them being on a single, new project (so Wattpad stories and blog posts don't count towards that word goal). This work-in-progress is the product of that still ongoing challenge. It doesn't have a name yet, but it's going to be a Contemporary LGBT Romance with some adult content. The sneak peek that I'm sharing is from Ch. 1 (a proofread first draft). I hope you'll enjoy it!

POV: Dex's

I'll be in town next week. Do you want to meet up?

I kept staring at the message on my phone even as my feet carried me home. Writing 'no' and blocking Julian's number should've been easy. It was something I should've done right after the bastard betrayed me and broke my heart. But it wasn't that simple to erase the two decades of history that we shared. First as friends, then as lovers.

I should've known better by now, but every time he texted me, I hesitated. I remembered how good it used to be... Before he'd decided that I wasn't the most important thing in his life and moved out of town.

And against my better judgment, I usually typed 'yes' as a reply to his texts. And even in the cases when I'd managed a 'no', he'd show up at my doorstep and I'd look at that familiar warm smile, get lost into those familiar brown eyes, and...

I shook my head as I walked, still staring at the text. My finger hovered over the N on the keyboard. A horn blared, I felt a pull at the back of my jacket and suddenly I was falling backwards.

Pain lashed through me as my ass and hands collided with the concrete sidewalk. The first thing I noticed was the drumming of my heartbeat inside my head; the second was the labored breathing. I looked around me. A small crowd had gathered, some with their phones out and aimed at me, others murmuring, and some talking... What were they saying?

'Oh, my God!' and 'Are you guys alright?' seemed to be the most common phrases.

Guys... Guys?

Plural?

A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned my head to see its owner, my breath catching in my throat as a pair of beautiful and genuinely worried eyes searched my face for... What exactly?

"Are you alright?" The guy with the worried eyes asked.

Was I?

I felt... confused.

I remembered Julian's message, I remembered the pain it brought me - as if my heart was tearing again - then a horn and new pain - not as strong as the one from the text and this time physical.

"I think he's in shock." The voice belonged to a curly-haired woman this time. She crouched down - I was still sitting on the sidewalk and the worried guy was kneeling next to me - and then she asked:

"Do you remember what happened?"

I looked about.

Most of the crowd had dispersed and the few people lingering around barely glanced at us. My phone was a few feet away, screen down. My hands and my buttocks still hurt. My brain was still a mess.

"I... Fell?" I tried.

The woman shifted her gaze to the guy and then back to me.

I attempted to reconstruct the scene again: me walking towards the crossing, not paying attention to anything but the text, the loud horn, the pull...

"I was about to get run over," I spoke again, my voice low. "And then," I turned to the guy, "then you pulled me back to the sidewalk and we fell down."

He exhaled, his slender frame relaxing and a tiny smile manifesting on a set of gorgeous large lips. I gulped, my throat dry as I watch them part to say:

"Thank God! You were so out of it the past few minutes, I thought you'd really had gone into shock."

A few of minutes?

It felt a Hell of a lot longer than that as my brain attempted to catch up, or more precisely to wake up from what felt like a dream. Did people usually get this psyched about almost being hit by a car?

I felt my face heat up under the gentle stare of the stranger who had pretty much just saved my life.

"He still seems somewhat out of it to me." The curly-haired woman told the guy who I was staring at, but couldn't find the strength within me to look away from. "I was just about to head to hospital; I'm a nurse there. I think you two should come with me. Him," with my peripheral vision I saw her point with her chin to me, "for the stress and you for your hand."

"His..." I began, looking first at the hand that was still at my shoulder, then at his other one, which he was holding away from him, the palm up and reddened with blood.

"Your hand!" I moved to kneel as well and reached for it just as his eyes rounded in a sudden realization.

"Oh, God! Work!" He jumped to his feet with enviable grace. "I've got to go." He took a few steps back, then paused, those mesmerizing eyes on me; I was still on my knees with my arm reaching out to him.

"Do you think you'll be alright?" He asked, glancing behind me. "You know what to do, right?" This time he aimed his words to the curly-haired woman.

"Of course, but..." She began, only to be immediately interrupted by my savior.

"Good. I have to go. I'm sorry, but..." He was already walking backwards. "I'm really sorry, but I need this job."

He swirled elegantly on his heel and ran in the direction I'd just come from, his lithe form getting lost within the crowds, my eyes following it for as long as I could before my useless brain finally got into gear and I realized I had not even asked him for his name.

---

That was it for my post. If you have any questions about the tips or would like to say something about the sneak peek, or just want to say 'hi', leave me a comment; if you found the tips useful or the sneak peek interesting, please vote!

Don't forget to check out the giveaways we're hosting; we've picked some awesome prizes for you. You can find my giveaway here: https://goo.gl/oCHaqH

THANK YOU FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK IF YOU ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

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