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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What can ol’ fuddy-duddies like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë teach us about writing successful modern fiction? Most of us think of the classics and groan over memories of boring high school textbooks. You may even be familiar with Mark Twain’s facetious (and rather ironic, considering his own status as a classic author) definition of a classic as a “book which people praise and don’t read.”
It’s summer and the weather is beautiful—at least where I live. Today, write about the sun, the summer, the warm weather.
Write for fifteen minutes. When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to read a few practices by your fellow writers and give feedback.
Happy writing!
I love words. A lot of us get into writing because we love words. We love words strung together in sentences; we love that those sentences blend to form an amazing story that we immerse ourselves in. Sometimes it’s just the sound of the word that enraptures us, or maybe it’s two words put together that, when combined, are the epitome of sonic euphoria. When that happens, we experience euphony.
Three years ago, I was like many of you. Just starting out. Not a clue which way to go. I had an idea for a book and that was it, but I wanted to become a full-time writer.
Fast forward a couple years, and I’m doing this for a living (on top of being a stay-at-home dad). I make a living writing fiction, but everything didn’t converge until four months ago. So what did I do to get here?
Just last night, I arrived back home from the Middle East, where I was working for the last two weeks. I traveled over 7,400 miles over thirty-two hours, and honestly, I’m exhausted.
When I last posted, we were one week into our move, and now I can hardly believe it’s fourteen days later! I’m still quite unnerved with no familiarity to anchor me (except my family, of course!).
I have found myself turning inward for grounding, seeking that which hasn’t changed amidst everything that has. It’s as if I wonder, “Am I still who I am HERE though I am without my familiar people, environment, office, and coffee shop that helped support my identity? Perhaps you have experienced your own transitions that have left you feeling similar?
I have a soft spot for sarcasm. This is probably no surprise to anyone who has been following the Write Practice since the early days, but I often say that the primary love language of my family is sarcasm. It’s nothing too cutting; we understand where the line between sarcastic and downright hurtful is. This is probably why I love the word “snark” as much as I do. Fun fact: snark is a portmanteau of “snide remark”, which is one hundred percent the best definition of snark.
Even when you ask for it, when people critique your writing it can feel like a dagger to the gut. It can knock out your confidence and even cause you to question whether you should ever bother picking up a pen again.
“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.”
“The only requirement,” to be a writer, said Stephen King, “is the ability to remember every scar.”
I have a few scars (and you do, too). There’s that girl in the eighth grade, my father’s illness in the seventh, and there was that boy earlier than that who told me to shut up every time I spoke to him.
When did I learn to fear my voice?
