by Guest Blogger |
I am not a poet but I read poems regularly. Their succinct and succulent lines transform the way I see the world around me, fill my head with color and sound and taste and most important of all to me, emotion. And all without lots of words.
If you can’t quite say what you’re getting at, playing with metaphor-making may unlock your voice and expand your piece. And even if you don’t think you need metaphors for your writing, metaphor-making may unlock new ideas for you.
by Joe Bunting |
Today is the first of November. For many writers, that means one thing: National Novel Writing Month has begun.
One thing’s for sure: writing 50,000 words in 30 days takes a lot—a lot of dedication, of imagination, of perseverance. It’s important to know why you’re writing at all. Focusing on that reason for starting will help you power through when the writing gets hard and you’re tempted to quit.
There are hundreds of reasons to write a book in just thirty days. Today, though, I’ll focus on just one.
by Jeff Elkins |
The first time I took up the NaNoWriMo challenge, I lost my first two days staring at a blank scene. I’d write a paragraph and then delete it. I’d get a couple sentences into a chapter and then change my mind. My writing was a disappointing mess.
By the third day, I was already so far behind my goal, I realized I was never going to catch up. I stuck it out for two more weeks, but then, discouraged and frustrated, I quit.
The second time I tried the NaNoWriMo challenge, my experience was different.
One preparation secret made all the difference in helping me start off on the right foot and actually finish my book.
by The Magic Violinist |
Happy October! Fall is here, and that means one thing for me: NaNoWriMo season.
What is NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a yearly event in November where writers all around the world set out to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Insane, right?
It sounds crazy, and it is, but it’s very doable! You just need to have the right tools at your fingertips. But not all writers are the same. We have very different approaches to writing from each other. Luckily, there are lots of tools at your fingertips to help you reach your goal. Here are five different types of NaNo-ers and the tools they might use.
by Guest Blogger |
If you’re anything like me, you hope in your heart of hearts that your writing will reveal a Great Truth to your readers, that it will open a doorway to compassion and understanding that will ripple out to change the world. Ah!
The authors who have been most effective in ushering me to that doorway are those whose writing reveals connections between images, ideas, and sensations I otherwise would have missed. Like Annie Dillard’s terrific simple line: “The air bites my nose like pepper.”
How did Dillard come up with such a lively sentence, one that bridges two physical sensations (cold and biting) and scent (pepper)? And how can we play around with unlike sensations to create similes that shine?
by Ruthanne Reid |
Over the next month, there is one rule I want you to keep as the foundation of everything you do during the month of November: Write it anyway.
I know how difficult this is. The inner critic gets vicious during NaNoWriMo, especially right around the middle of the month.
But your inner critic is a jerk. You can’t listen to it because the inner critic’s goal is not to make you a better writer. Your inner critic is trying to get you to quit.
Don’t quit. Write it anyway.
