Dec 12
As a writer, it’s within your power to give a one-of-a-kind present: The gift of your words.
If you’re searching for a special gift for a friend or relative, consider the gift of a poem, essay, or heartfelt letter.
Imagine one of your poems artfully written in beautiful script and framed.
Children can create gifts of writing too by writing an autobiography from their perspective, no matter what their age.
Here are a few tips to spark a piece of writing: Read more
I was on a reorganizing binge recently and realized I had way too many notebooks, even for me, a notebookaholic. They’re full of notes from writing workshops and observations about life that I felt compelled to write down in case I could turn them into a story or poem. My next rainy day project is to review them and pull out the ideas to spark some new writing. If you’re like me and love journals, you might like these blog post from our archives.
A twist on the writer’s journal: The commonplace book is another approach to creating a journal.
Writing in a journal is a powerful way to create the bits and pieces that become literature. See how these writers did it.
For excellent tips about using a journal to record our evolution as writers, read, Two great reasons to keep a writing journal.
Do you want to be more observant? Try this: Write a poem a day.
I’ve been trying it and it’s taken my observational skills up a notch. Even if you don’t see yourself as a poet, try it anyway. Not only will you enhance your ability to see more of the world around you, you’ll begin to tune into your writing in a new way. You’ll become more conscious of words and their connotations. These skills will carry over into other forms of writing that you do.
Here are several tips that might help:
1. First, don’t freak out. Relax and just tell yourself that you’re going to go with the flow. You don’t have to write completely polished poems here. Just write. Your poem doesn’t even have to be “finished” the day you write it. Shoot for having a “draft.” Read more
Sometimes, I forget the simple things. Working on my fantasy novel, I’ve been caught up in figuring out plot points and events and looking at the larger picture which is great–all stuff that needs to be done. But I’ve also been reminded lately of the most important aspect of telling a good story–writing from the heart.
I gave a poetry reading last weekend with two other poets and several people came up after the reading to tell me their favorite poems. In every case, they were the poems that I wrote one hundred percent from the heart–from that space of total abandon and honesty. Read more
How do you know when your novel, short story, or poem is finished?
I tend to work on a poem over a series of days or months. I’ll come back to a poem in progress days or weeks later and see a word or phrase that didn’t work because I was too close to it the first time I wrote it.
I listen as I read the lines to myself aloud to decide if something doesn’t sound right. If something doesn’t ring true or feels awkward, or if the poem just doesn’t feel complete or whole, I know I’m not done. Read more
Write something truly awful to find the good stuff. That’s what poet Brendan Constantine promotes in his post “Idle Hands are the Poet’s Playground: Brendan Constantine on Taking a Chance.”
“Furthermore, it will always be true that our poorest work lies ahead of us. We’re going to write something truly awful in the future. We have to. Why do we have to? It’s often the only way to uncover the good writing. Like going through a kitchen drawer, sometimes we have to take out things we don’t need in order to get at the things we do.” Read more
Sometimes limiting yourself forces a sort of creativity. Boundaries open up possibilities. I learned this recently while writing to a specific word count for a contest.
The 91-Word Memoir Writing contest sponsored by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop celebrates longtime Gotham student Norma Crosier (left) who died in July five days before her 91st birthday. The deadline to enter is October 15, 2012. The winner will receive a 10-week workshop and $91 cash.
Writing a 91-word memoir felt like flash fiction mixed with poetry.
Here are some tips: Read more
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