How To writing ideas from me and a few of my writing friends.
Letter Writing Prompts Letter writing has become a lost art with the onslaught of email and instant messaging. Writing letters in your journal is an excellent way to re-master the art of connecting with others in a contained format. It’s also a great method of working through your thoughts, delve into the past and converse…
At the end of the year, any year for that matter, I like to look back and take stock of things as well as look forward and make some goals. I prefer the word “goal” to the word “resolution” as goal seems more positive and resolution always seems like you are trying to fix something….
Seven January Prompts January feels like the longest month of the winter. It is cold, damp and dark. A perfect time to get some writing done. Here are some writing prompts to make you think about something else. Day One: Write about someone who’s birthday is in January. Day Two: Describe a homeless person spending…
Anyone who writes knows that rejection is as natural to the pursuit of publication just as the night follows the day. Rejection is like death: it happens to all of us. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any story or anecdote about any writer who has never received a rejection of some…
I first learned of collaging for inspiration about ten years ago when I began reading a lot of self help books related to creating the life you want and how to manifest the things you want in your life. Some called it a collage, Shakti Gawain called it a “treasure map” in her seminal book, Creative Visualization….
In a recent forum here on Book-in-a-Week, under Getting To Know Members, a new member, Patricia listed an Agatha Christie quote as one of her favorites. “That was the moment I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of the professional which is to write even when you don’t want to,…
In other words, dialogue tags. Dialogue tags are words that identify the speaker. Dialogue, at its best, is tricky; at its worst, nightmarish. But get it right and you have got one of your main ingredients of your novel nailed. However, trying to write great dialogue that moves your story along and is not stilted…
Reviewed for BIW by Connie Weber Instead of giving her reader lots of philosophical and biographical information, in her book Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin gently guides writers through a series of exercises to help focus and hone the writing. She quotes classic literature from Jane Austen to Mark Twain to Virginia Woolf,…