PRACTICE Write about the desert. Write for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments. Here's my practice. Hopefully you can do better. David strode out. Two steps at a time. The hard packed sand-dirt scraped under his feet. There was no...
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.
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Your Favorite Christmas Story
Well, submissions for our "Show Off" Writing Contest are now closed. I'm excited to tell you seventeen of you decided to submit your Christmas story to the contest, with a total of eighteen stories (yes, one of you submitted twice—you know who you are—it was part of...
The One Secret to a Deeper Memoir
When I was 13, my best friend’s father, the pastor of my church, came out as gay. Years later, I decided to write about the experience.
I had this memory of my best friend being harassed by members of our church congregation as she walked home from school, but when I asked my mom about this, she reminded me I couldn’t have been walking home from school with my friend since we didn’t attend the same school. I had created that memory out of stories I’d been told.
Four Ways to Make Your Writing Sound Prettier
Some writers write prose that sounds good. The writing makes you want to read it slow, as if you could let the words melt on your tongue. I once read some of Faulkner's Sartoris out loud to Liz. Faulkner is known for his long, convoluted sentences and huge jumps in...
Roz Morris on Why Writers Should Read
Why do authors read? We all know why we should read more: to learn the rules, to understand the language better, to figure out which stories work and which don’t. But I wanted to get deeper than shoulds. Why do experienced, published authors actually read? Roz is about as experienced a novelist, not to mention blogger, as they come, so I hope this gives you an insight into a real author’s reading life, and how to improve your own.
There Will Always Be Too Much Work To Do
This week, I began my new editing job by getting into a novel on track to be published in 2012. To prepare, I read three novels, two of which were by other authors in the same genre to get a sense of the "rules" of the genre. The other was the first book in the...
Hide Away Your Writing
Happy Saturday, writing friends. As you know, on Saturday I have only one rule: do the opposite of something we did during the week. The reasoning behind this is simple. If you occasionally break the guidelines you set for yourself, your writing will never get stale,...
The “Show Off” Writing Contest: Christmas Special
The Write Practice's mission is to help writers like you succeed, and one of the ways we want to do that is by giving you a place to show off your work. That's why today we're launching something I'm extremely excited about (and huge thanks to the illustrious Mr. Jeff...
Today is a Big Day
Every day is a big day. Today, the trees are bare in Georgia. I see the white bark and skeletal branches from my window. Today, Talia will smile at me and we'll talk about our days. I will call my parents to see how their flight home was. Today, I will be alive, and...
How to Be Present By Planning Ahead
Writing, for me, is not just writing. It's blogging. It's tweeting. It's sharing on facebook. It's responding to comments. It's checking stats. It's guest posting. It's a day long hustle to make this blog into something I know it needs to be. And it's worth it....