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Write What Matters

August 30, 2010

If you don’t care about what you’re writing, neither will your readers. This doesn’t mean you should take on only big subjects – war, peace, love, hunger, oppression. It means that if what matters to you is the way the light falls on the bougainvillea in the morning, that’s what you should write about. If what matters to you is the relationship between sisters and brothers, then that’s what you write about.

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The Written Word

August 23, 2010

The written word preserves what otherwise might be lost among the impressions that inundate our lives. Thoughts, insights, and perceptions constantly threaten to leave us before we have the opportunity to grasp their meaning. Writing can keep technology-driven, fast-paced, quick-fix, ambiguity-intolerant modern life from overpowering us – and give us something palpable upon which to reflect. Reflection slows matters down. It analyzes what was previously unexamined, and opens doors to different interpretations of what was there all along. Writing, by encouraging reflection, intensifies life.

– Helena Hjalmarsson

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Original Detail

August 20, 2010

I’ve been reading a lot of books on the craft of writing lately, perhaps as a way to inspire myself to become a better writer. Throughout this journey, I have discovered a few authors who amaze me. Natalie Goldberg is one of them. Her book, Writing Down the Bones has such good advice and encouragement for all writers, not just beginners. Here is a snippet about original detail. It was too good to summarize, so I thought I’d share it with you:

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Guidelines For Writing Practice

August 18, 2010

We all know how important it is to practice your writing every day, or at least almost every day. The author Judy Reeves has some great writing tips in her book Prompts and Practices. Some of them are similar to things we’ve already talked about, but there are some new things, as well, and it offers great advice to all writers, whether you’re practicing or working on something. Here they are:

1. Keep writing. Don’t stop to edit, to rephrase, to think. Don’t go back

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Resistance and Self-Doubt

August 16, 2010

Here’s another pearl of wisdom from Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art about resistance and self-doubt in writing:

Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

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First Sentences – Exercise

August 13, 2010

Here’s a writing exercise for you. Write five great first sentences, beginning right in the middle of the action. They can be all for your current novel, or they can be ideas for future novels. If anything, it’ll get you thinking.

Here are mine:

1. The school had never closed for any reason, other than weather, but today was different.
2. The old rocking chair that had been sitting in Old Jim’s yard for thirty years was missing.
3. The smell was enough to stop him in his tracks.
4. For days on end, there had been nothing to eat but soup.
5. Kaitlyn’s heart was racing as she walked up to the little blue house and rang the doorbell.

Feel free to post your first sentence ideas in comments. I’d love to read them!

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First Sentences

August 11, 2010

I know we’re way past this, but today I started thinking about first sentences in novels. They’re what pull you in to the story. They set the tone for the entire book. They’re like the entryway of a house. They greet you, they give you a brief feeling of what the rest of the house is going to be like, and they let you know whether you should be taking your shoes off or not.

While the logical thing would be to begin at the beginning, first sentences seem to have the most appeal when they begin in the middle of things. While “once upon a time” works for fairytales, it doesn’t always have the draw that we look for in a novel. Some of the best books I’ve read begin where the action starts, and makes it impossible for me to put it down.

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Resistance

August 9, 2010

Here’s a quote from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield about resistance – one of the worst forms of procrastination:

If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.

Take that, resistance.

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Slacker

August 7, 2010

For all of you who have been waiting so long for me to update, I apologize, and thank you for your patience. Summer is here, as I’m sure you all know, and the combination of that, and still not being done with my novel is making it a bit difficult for me to get on here and update.

The good news is, I figured out where my story is going. The bad news is, I’m not quite there, yet. I promise that soon my first draft will be complete and I will be back here in full force, talking about the next steps of novel writing – editing, more editing, and even more editing. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, just so I don’t leave you lonely for so long again, I’ve decided to post some book reviews I’ve written recently as well as some fun writing exercises, just to keep you all limber.

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Breaking the Rules

June 11, 2010

I broke my own rule and read over some of what I had written. This turned out to be a really bad idea, because before I knew it, I was thinking “this is garbage,” and totally rewriting my most recent three chapters. This wouldn’t be so bad if I had only corrected spelling and grammar and left it at that, but I took the story in an entirely different direction than I had planned, and now I’m left wondering which direction I should continue. Either way, it’s going to make a whole lot of extra work for me. Why didn’t I just resist the urge to peep?

Anyway, the last couple of days have been very slow in the writing department because of my breakdown, and my creativity doesn’t seem willing to allow me to write anything more in this story until I’ve chosen which path I’m going down. After all, it would be pointless to finish both, wouldn’t it?

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