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.
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The end of the year/beginning of the next one is always exciting. It’s a time to reflect on your accomplishments and prepare for the next ones. Often times, the newness and anticipation of New Year’s resolutions lasts for a few months before fading away, checklists long forgotten in a dusty drawer. If you want to stay strong throughout the entirety of 2018, here are five tips to help you achieve just that.
For the last two weeks I have received emails from over eight different companies offering to teach me how to have a wonderful and amazing year next year. Their premise is that I will have a wonderful year if I complete a goal. Since I am a writer, perhaps I should complete some writing goals.
The companies offer to give me practical advice to assist me. Some of them even offered to give me a certificate of completion when I finished their course. The least expensive offer was close to five hundred dollars.
Today, I will give you my three steps to complete a goal and have a great New Year. And, I won’t charge you five hundred dollars.
Being a know-it-all, I’ve always assumed I was a good teacher and coach. I’ve often taken that attitude into blog posts and book chapters, and then wondered why I received negative comments and feedback.
I’m learning a tough lesson about successful teaching and coaching: Tone is everything.
Because if we coach with the wrong tone, we might not be coaching at all, but driving our readers away!
Are you not sure what to get the writer friend in your life for Christmas? Would you like help with a list of gift ideas? They probably already have their two front teeth, so that is not an option.
Do not worry. Here is a collection of Christmas gifts for writers that will help you find the perfect present.
There are few things in the world as weird as being a writer. We pour ourselves into our work, giving it everything we have, pushing through rejection, overcoming one barrier after another, hoping our work will be noticed. In this strange and taxing pursuit, it’s important that we hold onto some truths that can keep us centered, inspirational quotes for writers that will remind us why we write.
Sometimes, the best place to find those truths is in movies.
Stories create empathy. Stories bring hope. Stories change history. Yes, even yours—especially when you know how to show empathy in writing.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) ends on Thursday. That means you have to figure out how to finish a novel . . . in three days.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first—you might not make it.
The good news is that it’s not impossible. With the right strategy and enough determination, you can finish writing your book and win NaNoWriMo.
As you sit down today to write are you filled with a sense of dread? We’ve come through the first weekend of NaNoWriMo. This is where I always fall behind in my word count.
I never get as much done over the weekends that I think I will. I tell myself, “This weekend I will catch up. I’ll spend a few extra hours, knuckle down, and catch up to my word count.”
But then my wife tells me about some obligation I neglected to notice on the calendar, or my kids need to be driven places I didn’t foresee, or things break in the house that need to be fixed, and I look up on Sunday and all my writing time is gone, and I’m farther behind than I was before the weekend began.
If that’s you, don’t panic! All is not lost. Many of us have been where you are. There is hope.
An argument can be made that the beginning of any story is the most important. It is the first part your readers will encounter and it is what potential agents and publishers will read in order to determine if your project is right for them. But do you know how to start a story? What’s the perfect opening?
It’s good to study other writers’ rules, but in the end, those rules were not made for you—they were made for other writers. If you’re serious about being a writer, then you need to figure out your rules of writing and stick to them. This post will show you how.