In a world where you can send a message in a few minutes with email, twitter, snapchat, or the latest popular way to contact a friend in another city, state, or continent, a letter posted though the mail carries a wonderful appeal.
Here to learn? You’re in the WRITE place!
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.
Check out the latest articles below or find ones that match your interest in the sidebar.
And make sure to subscribe to get a weekly digest of our latest posts, along with our free guide, 10 Steps to Become a Writer.
3 Ways to Find Writing Inspiration in Images
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but can you get even more words out of one? What about two-thousand? A whole novel? It’s all up to you. But I do have three tips for you to find writing inspiration, as well as five images you can use to spark your creativity.
How to Improve Your Descriptive Writing
In the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith describes the Italian painting “Man Carrying Corpse on His Shoulders” in the detailed way that we writers try to describe the images in our heads. When I read it, it led to a kind of an epiphany–like “oh, that’s how you do it.”
How to Use Scrivener to Start and Finish a Rough Draft
You’re ready to start drafting.
At this point, you’ve been introduced to the important pieces of Scrivener’s user interface; you’re familiar with the essential plot and structure principles, including why you should break your story out into component scenes, which Scrivener excels at; you know how to create character and setting sketches using template sheets; and you have a complete account of my storyboarding process for planning stories and getting unstuck while you’re writing.
In other words, you have all the tools you need to start drafting your story.
Announcing the Anniversary Writing Contest
TODAY our community, Becoming Writer, became a year old. Becoming Writer is a membership community that turns aspiring writers into daily writers, and I’m so excited that we’ve reached our first anniversary.
We wanted to do something awesome to celebrate, and so today, we’re announcing a new writing contest, which we’re hosting jointly with Short Fiction Break. The top story will win a $300 cash prize, and the two runners-up will get $100 each.
This Story Game Will Train Your Imagination (and a prize!)
Once upon a time there was a…? There was a…? What was there? This is not a rhetorical question.
I really, really, really, want you to answer me. Once upon a time there was a…? You can’t think of anything? Okay then, lets play a story game to train our imagination, have fun, and maybe win a prize!
So You’ve Finished a Rough Draft. What Now?
First off, if you’ve recently completed a rough draft (via NaNoWriMo or otherwise), congratulations. Really. A big, whooping, stand-up, slow-clap congrats.
Writing a book’s rough draft is a big feat. But then it’s time to get down to business again, because rough drafts are called “rough” for a reason.
NaNoWriMo Is Over. Now What?
I’ve “won” NaNoWriMo six times (and only published one major work and two novelettes, so this is not a boast). On far too many occasions, I’ve completed my work, gotten my goodies, and then done nothing at all with the novel I wrote. Sometimes, I lost momentum entirely; I’ve even ended up blocked. I don’t want that to be you.
To Become a Writer, Just Do These Two Things
Why did you first have the idea to become a writer? I could be wrong, but it was probably because you read a book that touched you so deeply, that pierced you to your core, that you thought, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to inspire this feeling in others?”
How to Level Up Your Writing Habit
NaNoWriMo demands a sudden burst of high capacity creation—it’s like sprinting a marathon. This works for some people, but if you’re not one of them, don’t feel bad. Try leveling up instead.
