Writers groups can be an incredibly rich experience. In fact, you can learn more about the craft of writing from a good writers group or creative writing club than you can learn from a thousand blog posts on writing.
However, at the same time, a bad writers group can be a waste of time, and if particularly dysfunctional, can even be incredibly damaging to your confidence and your writing.
If you’re part of a writers group, how do you take it to the next level? And if you’re looking for a writers group, how do you make sure you choose the right one?
If you’re reading this, then you want to be a better writer. However, becoming a better writer is elusive, isn’t it? It’s more art than science. There are hundreds of writing rules, thousands of words to know, and millions of possible ways you could write even a simple message.
How do you become a better writer when writing itself is so complicated?
Are you looking for a writing challenge that really tests your writing skills? Something that pushes your writing process beyond national novel writing month (although trying out NaNoWriMo is a good challenge to face)?
As a writer, you’ve probably heard this question: “What’s your genre?” Or maybe you’ve been asked, “What is your book about?”
As writers, we tend to find a creative “happy place” and stay inside three boxes: medium, form, and genre. This allows us to find a consistent voice and target our work towards ideal readers.
But staying inside these boxes without any deviation can have major drawbacks that threaten the quality of your writing, and the joy of writing itself.
In order to stay sharp, writers need challenges to keep their creative juices alive and well.
And whether or not these challenges are daily writing challenges or something you find on social media without even looking for them, it’s important that, as a writing habit, we tackle them head on every once in a while.
We only become better writers when we step out of our comfort zones.
These three writing challenges will test and strengthen your writing skills.
Do you love books? Are books what made you want to be a writer? Are you looking to become a better writer, but not sure what books writers should read?
It’s an age old lesson that if you want to be a great writer, you need to read—and read a lot!
Do you love writing but find it hard to be productive when working on your book? Have you tried the Write or Die app to help you stay focused?
Write or Die is a writing app that uses various tools to keep you focused and productive during timed writing sessions.
Not everyone loves restrictions when working on a book, but those who do often find the accountability factor a game changer to actually reaching their word count.
If this is you, but you haven’t found the perfect tool to help with your procrastination pitfalls, Write or Die might be the answer.
It was for me, which I’ll explain more in this post.
How many articles, blogs, or books have you failed to write? Or have you ever started one of these projects and then hit a hard halt? Are you stumped at why you stopped writing?
Eighty percent of the time writers stop writing is because of three lies they tell themselves.
Knowing what these lies are will help you notice them creeping into your writing process, which is the first step to preventing them from convincing you to quit writing.
