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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Today on the blog, we’ve decided to have a little fun. We created a quiz that will determine which punctuation mark you are!
Punctuation marks can completely change a sentence, a paragraph, and an entire novel. Every writer uses them differently and we often have favorites that accompany our writing.
So we decided to create a quiz to help you determine which punctuation mark you might be most like.
The world still needs more silly. That’s why we want to invite you to please join us for The Second Annual Wacky Writing Prompt Scavenger Hunt. We will randomly choose three participants to win a new Moleskine notebook, a red Swingline stapler, or a pair of rubber gloves.
You don’t have to have fun if you don’t want to. I don’t even mind if you whine a little bit. I won’t even make you brush your teeth before you start the game. And I won’t make you clean my seven litter boxes.
Still—please have fun. Fun is good. So is pizza.
Every year romance tops the list of the most widely read genres. From Edward and Bella to Harry and Sally to Romeo and Juliette, most of the greatest stories ever told have at their center two people discovering their feelings for one another.
We love tales of characters fighting to find a connection, but before we can flush out a fiery story filled with heat and tension, we need to understand what kind of spark our characters are experiencing.
I’ve experienced three different forms of romantic feeling: infatuation, lust, and love. Each is its own unique kind of fire. When we write romantic relationships between characters, it’s important we know which of these three types of burn they are experiencing.
A few months ago, I accepted a challenge to finish my book by September 2. The challenge came with stakes. If I missed my deadline, I had to give $1,000 to the presidential candidate I despise the most.
You’re probably wondering, “Did you succeed? Or did you have to send that $1,000 check to that presidential candidate you hate most?”
By the way, you can read all the updates from my Book Deadline Challenge here.
So here’s the news on my deadline…
Let’s be honest. There is no such thing as Writer’s Block.
This is a phrase that we use to describe the frustrating experience of wishing to write without being able to. But there’s no such thing. We say that we have this thing called “writer’s block” and it’s the reason why we’ll never achieve our dreams. As if it’s a contracted disease. But it doesn’t exist.
What we are experiencing is the self-inflicted phenomenon of writers making choices that frequently lead to failure. And knowing that writer’s block is a myth is exactly what you need to beat it.
English is so weird.
No, really. We only have 26 letters and a hodgepodge vocabulary that seems to make fun of itself. We use insane spelling and restrictive grammar that make no logical sense. I once heard the joke that English doesn’t “borrow” from other languages; it follows them into dark alleys, knocks them out, and takes their wallets.
Yet somehow, we use this cockamamie language to create beauty and power, to communicate multi-layered concepts and share one another’s lives. We use our broken, Frankensteinian tongue to reshape entire world views, to give hope, and to create empathy. That’s why, in spite of its flaws, I love it.
If you’re going to be a writer, you need to learn to love it, too—even when it drives you crazy.
A couple of weeks ago I attended an author talk with Jonathan Franzen at Sixth and I in D.C.. A journalist named Marcela Valdes sat “in conversation” with him and I’m not gonna lie—it was like watching a fawning student desperately trying to impress her professor (who will not throw her a bone).
Was the author talk worth it? Definitely. Even though the conversation was a little weird, every once in a while the too-cool-for-school Corrections author would drop these tidbits of wisdom that I loved.
Last week, our partner literary magazine Short Fiction Break announced the winners of the 5th Anniversary Writing Contest. Entering this contest was a huge accomplishment for all our writers, and we want to celebrate the winners here on The Write Practice, as well.
We received over 300 entries to this contest from a number of very talented writers. The judges thoroughly enjoyed reading all your stories, and with such an amazing selection, you made their job of choosing just a handful of winners very difficult.
You should be proud. We’re very proud of you.
I have been opposed to outlining since childhood. I distinctly remember a time in middle school when I was required to write essays and turn in my outline as well. I couldn’t do it.
The necessity of the outline had a paralyzing effect on me—I couldn’t write anything if I had to know everything I was going to write beforehand. I took bad grades on good essays because I refused to do the outline. (To me, that’s like taking points off a bicyclist at the Tour de France for not using training wheels, but my teacher didn’t see it that way.)
I know many writers who say they can’t write without an outline. While it can help people organize their thoughts, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary for anyone.
I had always dreamed of making it as a full-time writer. Somehow, here I am, every day waking up and driving to a coffee shop to write a book.
In the midst of that, as I’m filled with amazement that I’m actually doing this writing thing, I have to ask myself—why? Why do I write? Why do any of us write? Why write?
I used to think I was writing to make a name for myself. I thought I was writing to one day sell lots of books and make money. But while it’s only been a couple of years since I’ve become a “full-time” writer, each day I come to realize more and more that writing was never about the prestige or money.
I want to take a minute to reflect and remind us why we write.
