As I began writing The Waking Prince, I realized something important:  the fairy tales that I treasure most all have words that sound old-fashioned and  formal.

This must be where the lovely fairy tale voice comes from, I thought!

And I wanted The Waking Prince to sound exactly this way.  So I continuously reminded myself:

Look for words that sound old-fashioned and formal.

HOWEVER, this idea started to slow down my work.  At various moments, I would get badly stuck for a fairy tale-sounding word.  At times, absolutely nothing came to me!

And, when I was at a loss for one word, I lost track of everything else.  Rather than working with all of the words I did know, I made the story come to a screeching halt each time I couldn’t think of one word!

I have no idea why, but one day when I was stuck, I simply wrote down XX in place of a word and moved on.  And from then on, I used XX every single time I couldn’t think of anything better.  XX is not in the dictionary, it is an invention, a word that means FILL IN LATER.  I now love this non-word and use it very frequently!

New idea: When you are next at a loss for one word, fill in XX without delay.  No matter what type of word you happen to be searching for, you needn’t ever spend long stuck!  Draw two big Xs and be happily on your way.

You will have to return to the XXs later, but you can do this easily, when just the right word suddenly and inexplicably pops into your head.

Note:  You can use XX for a word, for a paragraph or even in place of a chapter you can’t yet think of.  XX can temporarily plug story story holes of a variety of different sizes!