Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
if i look back, i am lost
art blog(derogatory)
Misplaced Lens Cap
Origami Around
JBB: An Artblog!
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Xuebing Du
Sade Olutola
Peter Solarz
tannertan36
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TVSTRANGERTHINGS
todays bird
taylor price
trying on a metaphor
YOU ARE THE REASON
@theartofmadeline
Love Begins
Andulka
seen from Indonesia
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@emmeecrit
Writer’s Block
A picture says a thousand words. Write them.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about this picture.
Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!
comfort book
These are the books we go to in times of stress, whether we need a happy pick-me-up feel-good story or an old friend to keep us company. My comfort books are:
Harry Potter (all) by JK Rowling
If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino
Seveneves by Neil Stephenson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
What are yours?
Sloppy or forced foreshadowing leaves readers feeling confused and manipulated. Here are 4 things to avoid in figuring out how to foreshadow a story.
NaNo Bust
Hello all! NaNoWriMo this year was a semi-bust for me. I ended up with 12,000 some odd words. I’m not very sad about it -- life got busy and I got lazier and lazier. Maybe next year!
We all get angry. It is natural and it can be a good thing. When it is uncontrolled or unnecessary, anger will not do us any favours on either a personal or a social level.
The same is true for the characters we create. When we write about angry characters, we should remember that there is always something behind this emotion. Anger is usually a surface emotion. It is a reaction to an underlying problem.
Let’s look at:
Motivation
Body Language
Passive or Aggressive - How angry is your character?
Ways To Create Conflict
The Importance of Anger in Plotting
by Amanda Patterson
If you enjoyed this article, you will love:
Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language
10 Ways to Introduce Conflict in Dialogue
Writing Tip: Why you need a villain in your story
Universal Needs - Creating Characters
When crazy is good - Nine good reasons for your character’s anger
Eight Personality Disorders - Does your character have one of these?
Every once in a while I get an email from someone asking for advice about writing. Some of these emails come from fellow bloggers, some are students looking to strengthen their voices, some are just curious about how to improve their skills. And that’s the thing right there—improvement. And while it is flattering to think …
Writing Tips From Stephen King
“I drew it.”
Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.
Jane Smiley (via maxkirin)
Art is made by the alone for the alone.
Luis Barragàn (via wnq-art)
The Elephant Technique or How Not To Break Your Momentum During NaNoWriMo And Beyond
Have you heard of NaNoWriMo?
It’s where people in November pledge to write 50,000 words - a novel - in 30 days. It’s great! If you’ve ever wanted to write a novel, consider this as the sign you were waiting for. Seriously, check it out.
There’s lots of good advice to be had when attempting NaNo. But the one thing people tend to get hung up on is this: it’s hard. Really hard. Really, REALLY hard.
This can be for a variety of reasons, but for me it’s research. I try to research all the things and stuff I need to before I write, but sometimes I’ll be going on my merry way and BOOM, I forgot what I named that hospital. Or BOOM I don’t know what the parts to a horse’s saddle is. So I go to Google and Google tells me. But it never stops there. I always go, “While I’m here, I might as well check tumblr.” And then, BOOM - an hour has passed and I haven’t touched what I was writing.
This is no good. I need to focus and not break my momentum while I’m writing. Stopping to open a browser and searching on Google breaks my momentum. So what do I do? Research even more? As much as I’d like to think I can predict everything that happens in my plot, I just can’t.
Instead of extensive, mind-numbing research, I do this. Whenever I find myself stalling to think of a name or an adjective or literally anything else, I write ELEPHANT instead. Elephant. And then go on my merry way.
It felt really stupid when I started. The worse is when I read what I’ve written and forgot that I slapped on an elephant in the middle of an intense scene.
But it works! I promise, I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t.
And when I edit, all I do is find each “elephant” with the search option of whatever word-processor I’m using and insert it’s rightful word - the well-researched-after-I’ve-written-the-book word. I’ve told a few people about my Elephant Technique, and I knew a few people who use different words: cantaloupe, poodle, Febreze. It all works.
Now. Please go forth and write all the things.
from Listverse
As an expert in writing – okay, I just made that up (count how many times I break my own rules below) – I thought that I would write a list of the top 10 ways to improve your writing. These rules apply to writing on paper or for the internet. You can be sure that you will see a dramatic improvement in your writing by following these simple rules. In no particular order: (yes – I know that isn’t a sentence).
Activate your sentences
By avoiding the use of passives in your sentences, you can give strength to your words. Passive verbs include “is”, “were”, “was”, “could have”, “would have”, and so on. Take this sentences for example:
The mouse was eaten by the cat (“was eaten” is in the passive voice). A better sentenced would be: The cat ate the mouse (“ate” is in the active voice).
You can remember this difference easily by recognizing the subject and object of the sentence: the cat is the subject, the mouse is the object. If the subject is “doing” the verb (in this case “to eat”) then the sentence is in the active voice. If the subject is not the actor, it is in the passive voice. Unfortunately for us English speakers, we have almost lost the clear differentiation between subject and object that other languages have, so you must think harder to determine the subject and object. The difference does remain in a few words, for example who (subjective) and whom (objective), I (subjective) and me (objective).
Read More →
It’s that time of year again—National Novel Writing Month! Every November, thousands of authors take part in the NaNoWriMo marathon writing challenge and attempt to successfully complete a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. In 2014, NaNoWriMo had 325,142 participants!
Many writers start out filled with energy and determination on November 1, eager to begin tracking their word counts. But as the days stretch into weeks and more and more nights and weekends are spent hunched over a keyboard, your initial enthusiasm may begin to falter. Fortunately, we have some tips to help you survive the rigors of NaNoWriMo and make it all the way to November 30 with your head held high—and hopefully the first draft of your manuscript clutched in your cramped, tired fingers.
Click the image to read on!
Week 1 of NaNoWriMo
This week has been a trial of time management. I have numerous homework assignments I;ve put off, social engagements I’ve avoided, eating protein bars instead of meals because they take less time, among other things. NaNo is excellent, though, with a lot of fun people. I’ve made a few writing buddies and other friends on the website’s forums and I have a lot of inspiration. I reference my writing journal often, and they help me keep the creative juices flowing. On the other hand, there’s a lot going on in my life, even with NaNo. Being a full time student with three writing intensive classes, plus work, plus extracurriculars, plus having time to eat and sleep and all the other essential things that humans do, is a lot of hard work.
Let me repeat that: NaNo is a lot of hard work.
I started out on this journey not realizing just how much you have to sacrifice and compromise on in order to write a novel. Currently, it is day 7 and my goal for the day is 11,666. I am currently at 11, 274. I hope to get past the word count goal today, because I slacked off a little bit yesterday (had a formal dance, I deserved the break!).
How is everyone else’s NaNoWriMo going?
A writer is a palmist, reading the lines of the planet.
Pico Iyer
(via gideonsway)
I go into several methods for outlining longer pieces, including free-write summary, skeletal summaries,
NaNoWriMo World Building Resources - The Writersaurus
