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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For several years I have thought about writing my memoir. But, I wasn't really sure how to proceed. Was I supposed to write about every mouse I had ever caught? Do I start my story where I was captured in an alley during a rain storm? I was desperate to find out how...
This week I am at a five-day writer’s retreat taught by Cheryl Strayed, the author of the critically-acclaimed, Oprah-stamped, book-turned-movie Wild.
If you are a Cheryl fan, then I’m here to tell you that she is as awesome as she appears to be in her book and Dear Sugar advice columns. She’s as engaging a speaker as she is a writer, and her lessons and writing prompts are so inspiring I now have ideas for two new essays and a plan to make my novel stronger.
It’s only been two days, and it’s impossible for me to share everything, but over the next series of posts I’m going to try.
The first lesson I learned from Cheryl Strayed: Lean Into Subjectivity.
Today, we’re officially opening the BW Writing Contest! But just in case you think you know what a writing contest involves, let me tell you that this is not your average writing contest.
Disney released its new live re-telling of its classic fairy tale Cinderella last week to mostly good reviews and high enthusiasm.
This, after we’ve already consumed almost the exact same story in cartoon form for years, read the fairy tale itself, and consumed countless remixes of it, from Ever After to Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister to Pretty Woman to Into the Woods to… you get the point.
And Cinderella is hardly the only tale with this power. Consider how many different ways stories like The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Romeo and Juliet, even Batman have been reinvented over the years.
But why do readers do this? Why do some stories keep readers coming back again and again? How do fairy tales stay popular for so long?
Publishing is the most important step to becoming a writer. Writers are people who write things for others, not just for themselves or the benefit of their computer harddrive. If you want to become a writer, you need to publish.
However, besides the actual writing, there’s one step in the publishing process that’s so essential that if you forget it, you’re almost certainly going to have major issues.
I had trouble concentrating today when I sat down to write. I couldn’t seem to focus on the details of my story. I tried to finish the article that is due at the end of today, but I didn’t have any energy, the words were stuck in my brain. I needed help. I needed a nap. A cat nap.
Spark your creativity with today’s photo prompt.
I assume it was a typo. It should have been “The early bird gets the word.” Why? Because writers who want to be more productive need to start getting up earlier.
Now, before the night owls start hooting at me, let me make my case—a very unscientific and highly personal one.
Somehow I missed the Taylor Swift bandwagon in 2008. But this year, I hopped on for good. Whether you’re a hater or a fan, Taylor Swift is clearly doing something right. It’s funny how much sense her songs make when we, as writers, substitute “writing a book” for the references of love and men.
With that in mind, let’s look at what Taylor Swift can teach us about writing a book.
Story ideas often come to us almost out of thin air—whether from an overheard conversation in a coffee shop, or just a random thought that pops into your head in the shower. But other times, you’re ready to write a new story and all that you’ve got is the blank page in front of you.
That’s okay! There’s a number of tried and true methods to jumpstart your brain and draw those ideas out. Here are my three go-tos:
