At The Write Practice, we publish a new article each day designed to help writers tackle one part of their writing journey, from generating ideas to grammar to writing and publishing your first book. Each article has a short practice exercise at the end to help you immediately put your learning to use.
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Seven weeks ago, I accepted a challenge to finish my book by September 2, and if I miss my deadline, I have to give $1,000 to the presidential candidate I despise. More on the challenge and other productivity hacks for writers here.
Today, I’ll share an update on my progress, and what I’m learning through the process.
If you haven’t at least heard about Hamilton, you’ve been living under a rock. But if for some reason you still don’t know what it is, I’ll give you a brief introduction.
Hamilton is the rap/hip-hop musical that long-time Broadway fans and Broadway newbies alike are talking about. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a crazy good dramatic portrayal of our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Alexander Hamilton also wrote. Like a lot. And there’s a ton we can learn from him and the musical Hamilton. Here are twelve of those things.
It’s been proven in many scientific studies that we writers are significantly more emotionally healthy than the general population.
Why is that?
Because we write about the hard things of life. We write about the things that haunt others’ souls. We write about our pain, share our torment. We write about the worst experiences of our lives.
While the rest of the world lets their agony steep, we write.
Do you have a book inside of you?
No, I didn’t mean, “Did you eat a book?” I meant, “Is there a book you have always wanted to write?”
I have several books inside of me. And they will stay inside of me until I can figure how to write a first draft.
We know our characters must change. From the first word to the last, if our main character isn’t different, then we haven’t written a story people will connect with.
But writing believable character change can be hard. Change doesn’t just happen. It’s not enough to simply flip a switch and make our protagonists different from one scene to the next. Our characters need to evolve slowly.
In today’s post, I’m sharing a system of thinking that helps me build characters that experience believable and realistic change.
Have you ever seen an expert do something so brilliantly that they made it look easy? Writing is like that.
Here’s the thing: when our favorite authors write, they sit down and they write and they make it look easy. We see (or imagine) their facile skill with words and phrases, and we think, I want to do that. For a while, we even feel like we can do that. But when we put words down . . . well, they just don’t come out like that.
The truth is, though, no writing is wasted—not even your worst words, the pages that will never see the light of day.
In the last few weeks, we asked you to tell us about what you’re writing. Many of you are in the middle of writing a book, and many more would like to start one. Writing a book is an awesome goal, and we want to support you in every way we can.
That’s why we’re so excited to announce our brand-new program: Write a Book in 100 Days.
This program is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Let me explain how it will virtually guarantee that you finish your book in 100 days.
Let’s say you’re living the dream and writing a chapter of word problems for a grade school math textbook. You’ve got a girl named Mandy who has sixteen apples. You’ve got a guy named Frank who has four fewer apples than Mandy.
Wait. Is it four fewer or four less?
Let’s discuss, shall we?
I have a theory why the Olympics are so exciting (despite all the Zika gloom and doom leading up to them). It’s the stories!
So much is at stake every day of the Olympics. The veteran Olympian hoping to clinch his last medal, the refugee who went from swimming for her life to swimming for gold, the gymnast finally getting her shot on the world stage.
Since the Olympics provide such great material for story writing, they obviously provide great material for writing prompts.
For writers, as well as athletes, there’s nothing like being in the zone. Distractions fall away, time disappears, and your work seems to write itself. Unfortunately for most writers, being in the zone is rare—instead of inspiration, we feel dread; instead of knowing, we feel lost; and instead of excitement, we feel anxiety.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. In fact, according to the research of Susan Perry, Ph.D., there are several concrete writing techniques and practices that can actually make finding inspiration and “getting into the zone” an everyday occurrence.