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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How many times have you wanted to write, but just couldn’t get anything out? How many times have you procrastinated, coming up with some seemingly valid excuse to avoid writing?
We’ve all been there. The challenge is getting out of our funk. The solution is simple: action. The book that taught me how to take action as a writer was “The War of Art.” Let’s skim over a handful of my favorite quotes from Steven Pressfield’s epic kick-in-the-arse.
Sunday night at an Easter potluck dinner, a group of my friends and I were talking about our Myers-Briggs personality types. I'm an ESFJ, and have been since I first took the test in high school, but in the course of the conversation, one of my friends mentioned that...
Recently I attended a workshop called “American Author” inspired by American Idol. People anonymously submitted the first pages of their novels, which were read aloud to a panel of editors and agents. The panel then provided their immediate, brutally honest feedback for all to hear.
Given my past post on how to write the perfect first page, I thought it was important to add to it by sharing what I learned from hearing the perspective of people who have read hundreds, if not thousands, of first pages.
Warning: tips are easier said than done.
When a book moves you emotionally, you can’t help but tell others about it! But how exactly does a writer move his or her readers to take action in the form or reading, buying, sharing?
Since my last post, I’ve almost finished Tomcat In Love, and it has been somewhat of an exercise in frustration. This isn’t due to the book itself; it’s more due to the fact that the narrator is one of the most profoundly annoying protagonists I’ve ever encountered in fiction. He is a narcissist with a complete lack of self-awareness (at least until the last forty pages), and an unrepentant womanizer. Early on in the novel, we’re introduced to a woman who immediately provides a voice of reason, and helps serve as a reader surrogate. Everything that Thomas believes himself to be, Donna firmly states this is not the case, and her protests to his behavior make his ridiculous narcissism stand out even more boldly. She is a perfect foil to Thomas’s insanity.
At the opening of Odyssey, Homer appealed to his muse for the inspiration to tell his story. Shakespeare did the same thing in a number of his plays. Let’s face it, when it comes to art, inspiration is the queen on high.
Leads, nut grafs, and the infamous six W’s—who/what/when/where/why and how—set the everyday newsflash apart from creative work. Or do they?
Let’s look at a comparison…
In just a week we will be saying goodbye to Paris and go to Florence and finally Rome and arrive back in the States May 1.
One of my Paris adventures was to paint a “masterpiece” and then try to sell it on the street. While I’m nowhere near talented enough to paint an actual masterpiece, I reached out to local artist Pauline Fraisse who agreed to help me with my painting, and over a few days in the Luxembourg Gardens and the Marais, I managed to paint something that wasn’t terrible.
What I found fascinating about working with Pauline was how many parallels her painting process had with writing. As she taught me to be a better painter, I found I was learning to be a better writer as well.
I love writing. Isn’t it obvious? I mean, I spend my days and nights clacking away, ignoring the world, crafting my latest tome. And yet, every once in a while, the doubt creeps in like a slithering python, ready to chomp down on my creativity.
Why is that? Why can writing be so durned frustrating?
Right now, I’m reading Tim O’Brien’s Tomcat In Love, which, in a nutshell, is about a middle-aged linguistics professor in Minnesota who is trying to win his ex-wife back by sabotaging her new marriage. He’s also quite possibly a crazy person…
