PRACTICE
The Mayans were right. The world ended today.
Write about the end of the world for fifteen minutes. When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to comment on a few practices by other writers.
Here to learn? You’re in the WRITE place!
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.
And make sure to subscribe to get a weekly digest of our latest posts, along with our free guide, 10 Steps to Become a Writer.
Six Effective Ways to Inspire Yourself
Don’t you hate the feeling that you get when you stare at your blank computer screen or your fresh piece of paper, your hands above the keyboard, your pencil hovering above the paper, and you don’t know what to write? I sure do. But instead of sitting and staring, frozen with not a single idea of what to write, I get up, walk away, and get inspired.
How Writing Helps Us Heal
Conflict is a necessary ingredient for creating an intriguing story. And conflict is an inevitable part of life. Disappointment, sadness, sickness, and death plague us at different points in time and in different ways.
We all have methods of coping with what we don’t understand, of dealing with painful situations in our lives. One therapeutic technique that helps us heal in times of confusion, broken hearts, and deepest loss is simple but so very powerful—writing.
What You Haven't Written Yet
What if you only had only one more day to write? What would you write?
This is the dilemma faced by Harry of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Snows of Kilamanjaro.” We find Harry on his deathbed, plagued by the depression that his life will soon end. Yet, the thought that torments Harry most is that he will never be able to write all of the stories he has put off writing over the years.
Does Your Story Really Matter?
Let’s take a look at the numbers:
– There are currently over 181 million blogs.
– Three million books were published in 2011. That’s one book for every 100 or so people in the US.
– The chances of getting your book published traditionally are somewhere between 5% and .1% (1 in 20 to 1 in a thousand).
– If you give up on a traditional publisher and decide to self-publish, the average self-published book sells somewhere between 20 and 100 copies.
For the aspiring writer, those are not great numbers to hear, and in the midst of that, you might wonder, “Does my story really matter?”
Do Over
It happened again last week. I poured my heart, soul, time, and energy into a scene. It was on my mind for days and I tried to sculpt every world to the point of perfection. Then the scene disappeared.
A Year of Reading the World
Is what you’re reading what you write? Not entirely, though admittedly it can be a subconscious influence. Reading foreign authors and other cultures, in different genres and styles, can broaden one’s horizons almost as much as visiting remote places and exploring cultures. The opportunity to find out – to explore – to discover – is only a book away.
Focus Your Story with a Central Image
A CENTRAL IMAGE: build one into your story and readers will love you.
What would Moonstruck be without its full moon? Or Moby Dick without its white whale? When you think of The Sun Also Rises, you think of Spanish bulls.
Cartel [writing prompt]
PRACTICE
Jeff’s got a great post on goinswriter.com today about the difference between cartels and clubs that’s fueling my imagination. For our prompt today, write about a cartel. Think Mexican drug cartels and East Coast mafia families.
Write for fifteen minutes.
When your time is up, post your practice here in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to comment on a few posts by other writers.
What The Hobbit Taught Me About Writing
Unless you have been living in a hobbit hole, you probably know J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous novel, The Hobbit, has been adapted for film and is coming out this Christmas season. If you’re a die hard Tolkien fan, you may have already bought your tickets for the midnight show (I haven’t, but I did make plans to see the Friday matinee).
The Hobbit is one of the best selling books of all time, selling over 100 million copies since it was published in 1937. Needless to say, there are a few things every writer, regardless of their genre, can learn from it.
