May 22
Are you curious about where stories come from? How a writer comes up with a particular idea? I find it energizing to learn the story behind the story.
Some stories come to their authors in a rush, seemingly out of nowhere. Others say, a chance encounter, or an observation of something odd sparked their story. Then as they wrote, the meaning revealed itself and the language and the emotion rose to the surface and drove the story home. Read more
Recently, while on a six-hour plane ride, I listened to former poet laureate Billy Collins’ CD “Billy Collins Live.” After the hilarious introduction by comedian and actor Bill Murray, Collins reads nearly thirty of his own poems.
As mentioned in a previous post, “Three Ways to Feed Your Muse,” I often find inspiration in other writer’s works. As I was listening to the flow of words and ideas from Mr. Collins, one particular poem nabbed me and before long I found myself writing a new poem. Read more
Celebrate Friday with these tidbits of writing advice.
In Revealing Character through Details, Julie Eshbaugh at Publishing Crawl explains her philosophy about expressing character details in fiction and includes several examples.
Then, head over to writer and editor Jane Friedman’s blog to read Perfecting Your First Page: Three Tasks or Exercises.
As a poet, I collect symbols. Because poems are usually shorter than novels, we have less space to get our meanings across, and a symbol can convey a mood or theme in a few words.
In a longer work like a novel, symbols can help deepen the plot, add to characterization, and expand themes.
But what exactly is a symbol? I like this definition from http://fictionwriting.about.com:
A symbol is a person, place, or thing that comes to represent an abstract idea or concept-it is anything that stands for something beyond itself. Read more
Sometimes my brain seizes up when I sit down at the computer to write. It’s as if the glare of the screen and the cold, hard keys have drained all the energy out of my ideas. But since I rely on the keyboard and computer to put sentences down on the page, I have to work around it.
So I was intrigued when I read about doodling as a way to boost creativity. Roisin Markham writes about how doodling brings an unconscious clarity to her thinking process.
I’m planning to try it. For all the details, check out Roisin’s post at CreativeDynamix.
Rejection is how we writers grow thick skins, but we can also use it to better our craft. When I first started sending out my memoir, my husband suggested I send it to fifty or so agents right away. Since acceptance can be a numbers game, I understood his logic, but I felt it was better for me to start out slowly. And I’m glad I did. I received excellent, positive feedback early on that made me rethink my story and take my memoir in a new, more exciting direction. Now, I have a book I feel proud of as I begin to send it out again.
But what if you don’t receive helpful rejection letters? What if you get rejection after rejection and aren’t sure where you’ve gone wrong? Jessica Page Morrell, editor, author and writing teacher, has some good tips in her post, “25 Reasons Why Manuscripts are Rejected.”
You can also read my earlier post, “Six Guidelines for Turning Rejection into Success,” for tips on turning those rejections around.
And, if you want to really put rejection in perspective, try the rejection generator.
Do you have any rejection stories you’d like to share?
Besides being a newspaper reporter early in my career, I’ve worked in the corporate trenches writing everything from news and feature stories for customer magazines and newsletters, to sales and fundraising letters. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time as a ghostwriter.
After all these years, my work style is second nature, from how I prepare for an assignment to how I interview sources and get into the writing itself.
But I often run into people who are eager to break into copywriting or freelance writing and they want to know how to go about it, so I decided to analyze and share some of my personal best practices.
