Handwritten notes are like sending a hug through the mail. They have personality and character, attributes a computer screen will never have. Let me show you why, when, and how to write a thank-you note.

You have just opened your email from the magazine you submitted your article to. You read the email you have been hoping for and dreaming of: “Hey there, we want to publish your article. Please reply with a fifty-word killer bio. We will post it at the end of your article. You can include up to three links.”

Wow, your writing has been accepted! Now you have to say who you are.

Writing your biography can seem almost as challenging as writing the piece you submitted. But it is a necessary part of publishing your writing. How will your readers know who wrote your wonderful article if you do not tell them?

Write a manifesto, a statement of what you believe, to help others, or yourself. Are you wondering how to write a manifesto? You have come to the right place.

The word “manifesto” is from the Latin word “manifesto,” “make public,” which comes from the Latin word “manifestus,” or “obvious.”

Write a manifesto about something that is obvious to you, or that you would like to be obvious to you. Write your manifesto to make it public to everyone, so that it will become obvious, natural, even when it is hard for you to believe it yourself.

Pretend you are an interviewer for a newspaper, a secret agent, or a novelist, and you are interviewing, or interrogating, a character for your story. Imagine the character is sitting in front of you, you have a new fifty sheet yellow writing pad and your favorite pencil your cat chewed, and you are about to ask them a list of questions.

Create a character by conducting an interview. Interview your character before you start writing so you can immerse yourself completely in who they are and what they stand for. Interview them and find out who they are.

What is the person in your story like? Who is your protagonist? Here are six characterization questions to help you reveal your protagonist’s character.

For the last two weeks I have received emails from over eight different companies offering to teach me how to have a wonderful and amazing year next year. Their premise is that I will have a wonderful year if I complete a goal. Since I am a writer, perhaps I should complete some writing goals.

The companies offer to give me practical advice to assist me. Some of them even offered to give me a certificate of completion when I finished their course. The least expensive offer was close to five hundred dollars.

Today, I will give you my three steps to complete a goal and have a great New Year. And, I won’t charge you five hundred dollars.

Are you not sure what to get the writer friend in your life for Christmas? Would you like help with a list of gift ideas? They probably already have their two front teeth, so that is not an option.

Do not worry. Here is a collection of Christmas gifts for writers that will help you find the perfect present.

Don’t write “on the nose.” Writing doesn’t have to be direct. You don’t have to make it easy for your reader to understand what is happening. Instead, use allusion: make a suggestion or a hint of your meaning. Let your reader think.

The only thing you need to do with your nose is blow it if you have a cold.

When your alarm went off today did you hit the snooze button? Did you wake up wishing, “I hope The Write Practice has some silly writing prompts today”? Have you been dreading getting out of bed because you didn’t have a fun writing prompt?

Now you can get out of bed and look forward to today! Run to your writing chair and write for fifteen minutes with these silly writing prompts.

Writers write. If you want to write a book or a story, but you only write once a week, or on every second Sunday when the temperature is between 72 and 82 degrees, you will never finish your book or your story.

The goal is to have daily writing habits so you can finish your book, or the story you keep thinking and talking about. And when that book is finished, you can write another one and one after that.

You probably already have the habit of brushing your teeth, flushing the toilet, and closing the front door when you come home so the cat doesn’t get out. Here are tips to help you write daily so writing becomes a habit. A habit you don’t have to think about anymore: you just do it. Every day.

After spending years of your life writing a story, you don’t want it to be rejected in the first sixty seconds by an editor. Using pink paper for your novel manuscript submission or dressing like a chicken for your audition on America’s Got Talent both might get you attention, but it is not the attention you want.

How do you avoid the rejection pile and get published?

When you can’t think of what to write, step away from your computer, and doodle. Yes, step away, and doodle. You heard me correctly. (Said in a kind gentle way.) Now, grab a pencil and a piece of paper, and start to doodle your way out of writer’s block.

There are stories published in books, and stories that have never been published. There are stories that have been read by more people than live in Kansas* and there are stories that have been read only by you, the writer. Don’t compare yourself to others.

There are also stories that have never been written. Stories only you can tell.

Fiction or nonfiction, the stories you write are unique to your experiences and your creativity. But if you compare yourself to others, you might never write them.

There are several ways to reveal who your character is in a story: through how they dress, their posture, and through what they value. But the best way to determine who your character is is through their action.

Not sure what your character might do? Put them through the Starbucks Character Test.

When we read books, books with characters we love, we can learn how to write our own characters by studying what details the writers included. There are so many details about your characters you could include in a character description, but which ones do you need?

Let’s look at the advice Stephen King gives in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft about good description and see if applies to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Every item has a story: The true story of where the item was acquired, who owned it, and where it traveled, and the story you are inspired to write about the item.

This is an Adventure Prompt. However, this is not the television show Mission Impossible, starring Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, and Greg Morris, a popular series from the late 60’s to the seventies. This blog post will not self-destruct in five seconds.

Even so, we will pretend we are going on a real adventure.

You are going to write a story. Yes, today is the day you are going to write a fiction story about someone. Your character and their development through the story is the heart of fiction.

Make your characters real, and your readers will care what happens to them because they can identify and sympathize with the character in a situation.

Do you keep a journal? I do. It is how I remember the travels I’ve taken, the life experiences I’ve enjoyed, and the litter boxes I’ve cleaned.

We are writers, and so it is even more helpful for us to journal. Not sure yet? Let me share with you some tips from my journaling experience.

You have finished writing the first draft of your story, a version of your whole story from beginning to end. Now it is time to edit, to revise your words to make your story clear and compelling, so the reader will continue reading after the first sentence.

Editing your story might feel like an impossible task, but when you have a strategy to use, you can be confident you can edit your own story and improve your writing.

Whatever you do, do not skip the important step of editing your first draft. According to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, “Revision is all there is.”

We talk to tell someone we want them to pass the salt. We talk to ask questions, share feelings, and ask for directions when we are lost. We talk to ourselves in our thoughts, and we speak out loud.

In our stories, our characters talk, too. It is not quite as easy to write dialogue for our characters as it is to have conversations in real life. But if you take time to learn how dialogue works and practice writing it, you will be able to write brilliant conversations that sound natural and move your story forward.