No matter who you are, no matter what kind of writing you do, or how long you’ve been doing it, writer’s block is going to occasionally strike. There’s no reason to kick yourself over it. Sometimes you just get stuck. It’s an inevitable part of the creative process.
Fortunately, you don’t have to just sit there and take it—there’s ways to take matters into your own hands and give your creativity a jumpstart. Yes, I’m talking about writing prompts.
They say there’s two types of novel writers: pansters and plotters.
Pansters catch the spark of an idea and just get down to the writing. Plotters, on the other hand, create an outline of the novel before stringing sentences together.
This summer, I’ve been binge-watching my way through the television show Dexter. For those of you unfamiliar (don’t worry, no spoilers here): Dexter is a serial killer. He is also the protagonist of the show.
We know how to become better writers. As with anything in life, the way to get better is to practice.
That said, there’s two kinds of practice. There’s the competitively oriented kind where you run drills to improve, like soccer.
And then there’s the process-oriented kind, where you mindfully return to it over and over, for the sake of the experience itself, like yoga.
If you want to be a better writer, you have to practice like you practice yoga.
Within the last week, I’ve completed the final round of revisions on my fantasy novel and started querying agents. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Woo! Huzzah! Happy dances all around.
