New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

How To Properly Harvest Your Very Best Ideas

The gardener plants his seeds and knows to wait before he ever pulls the fully formed plant out from the ground. He knows that there is a dark period that the plant must go through before it can bear any fruit.

During this dark period, everything is obscure. The gardener cannot see the plant grow, and no matter how hard the gardener works—nothing at all seems to come of his tremendous effort.

He toils day and night. Sacrifices so much. Uses the clearest water, the richest soil, and the best plant food to help the seed grow.

Pinterest Prompt

by Joe Bunting | 51 Comments

We’re going to do something a little different today.

Pinterest is a social “dream board” that’s grown to gigantic proportions over the last year. If you aren’t on Pinterest yet, you’re a man.

Today, let’s use it to find some writing inspiration. We’re all going to find a picture on Pinterest that captures our imagination, we’ll link to it, and then write about it here. Sound fun?

Show Off Writing Contest: Spring Edition

by Joe Bunting | 258 Comments

Once a month, we stop practicing and invite you to show off your best work.

This might be for you if:

You want to be published (in print)
You want to improve your writing
You enjoy a little competition
You like the Write Practice

Interested?

Is Travel Restful?

by Joe Bunting | 17 Comments

Well, I’m out and about again. Having just gotten back from Spain and Chicago, Talia and I are off to Nashville for a conference. I like to travel, and I like to meet new people, but it makes resting a challenge.

Is driving or flying or taking the train restful?

A Place to Call Home

by Joe Bunting | 16 Comments

My name is Anna and I am from Filer, Idaho, where the men fight over water rights and the women over 1st place ribbons for peach pie. I lived with my four sisters in the attic of my parent’s barn-red farmhouse with purple and orange shag carpet. When I was fifteen, I would sneak out my window to meet Brett. Brett sang me songs on his guitar and shared his dreams about becoming the next John Lennon. Two years later, on the night Brett left, he gave me a pale green sapphire ring with delicate flanking diamonds. A ring which—two years after that—my mother made me throw in the trash because she (who’d married a man who’d given her a twenty year-old daughter and a nineteen year-old marriage certificate) had found the man I would marry.

Spring

by Joe Bunting | 78 Comments

PRACTICE

Write about the spring.

Write for fifteen minutes, and when you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.

And if you post, be sure to comment on a few others.

All the Pretty Words: Writing In the Style of Cormac McCarthy

by Joe Bunting | 81 Comments

As I was riding across the steppes of Outer Mongolia (it hurt to sit down for a year afterwards), beneath horizons that appeared to be of limitless blue, I thought this was a country that called for an elemental style.

I’ve always loved Cormac McCarthy and amongst his many talents is the nature of his prose. “Clean and hard as pebbles,” says the Independent on Sunday; “language as subtly beautiful as its desert setting,” the Sunday Times. His style has been likened to The Old Testament and described as, “formidable,” “overpowering,” “transcendent.” To me his writing is beautiful and direct, naked and almost pagan in its connection to the landscape and base human nature.

7 Reasons Your Muse Isn’t Talking to You

by Joe Bunting | 72 Comments

“…as immediately I stopped disciplining the muse,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald, “she trotted obediently around and became and erratic mistress if not a steady wife.”

Most writers either over discipline their muse or ignore her (or him).

The key to solving your discipline problem is to realize you don’t have a discipline problem. You have a relational problem.

You can either be a good lover or a failed one, a committed wooer or someone who makes lots of promises but doesn’t deliver.

A Historical Case For Why You Should Write Funny

by Joe Bunting | 25 Comments

There is an interesting trend in writing today. I’ve noticed it in the contests we host here, in the practices, in many of the books I read, and even, if I’m honest, in my own writing.

Our stories are all very serious and dark.

Humor Writing for People Who Aren’t Funny

by Joe Bunting | 25 Comments

Being funny just seems to come naturally to some people.

We all know the class clowns, office jokers, and court jesters that make us laugh.

We know our favorite TV sitcoms and comedies that crack us up.

And we serious writers may be thinking to ourselves, “I could never be that funny. I could never be that clever.” And maybe we’re right.

But what if we could be funny in our own way? What would it take to find our own humor voices?

Here to learn? You’re in the WRITE place!