Category Archives: Writing

“Nothing is as close to magic as nature.”

quote by Anastasia Bolinder

Here are some tips from Writer’s Relief on writing nature poetry.

Read its full discussion here.

I’m thinking this list would work for prose, as well. Come to think of it, much of this applies to writing in general. But hey, that’s just me probably overthinking…

  1. Avoid the expected.
  2. Be prepared.
  3. Personify with awareness.
  4. Don’t ignore the effects of human involvement.
  5. Be aware of your message.

Curation Corner: Twitter Resources for Writers

I sifted through this piece from hootsuite and I’m highlighting a few from its list.

https://twitter.com/WritersDigest

https://twitter.com/writing_tips

The writer, Todd Clarke, caps the list with the following hashtags readers/writers can follow.

Hope you find some value here!

Lift that pen and go!

Curation Corner: toasted-cheese.com

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Picked up on this interesting site via my weekly Internet Scout Report.

This link takes you to its calendar of writing topics/prompts, but check out the other menu items as well, including the Writer’s Excuse Bingo, which strikes me as potential Zoom meeting fodder for your writers group.

[Note: Ignore the ‘Resources’ menu item. Lots of dead ends there.]

Enjoy!

Curation Corner: Check out WritingRoutines.com

Whoa…the 100 Interviews page alone abounds with lessons and insights from successful writers, researchers, and award-winners.

Some favorite topics covered:

  1. The trap of calling yourself a ‘writer’ [Neil Pasricha]
  2. Drawing to Spark Writiing [Dana Simpson]
  3. Carving out distraction-free creative blocks [Dr. Michael Greger]
  4. Declaring a ‘shut-down’ time [KJ Dell’Antonia]
  5. How to be indistractable [Nir Eyal]

Just think of the self-customized online course you could create this site.

And if you’re in a writers group, this is tailor-made or a fun and informative Zoom meeting.

Curation Corner: You Can’t Write What You Wouldn’t Read

Target with the words discipline desire drive

The latest from Jon Winokur’s Advice to Writers blog. Also, excerpted in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing

The most important thing is you can’t write what you wouldn’t read for pleasure. It’s a mistake to analyze the market thinking you can write whatever is hot. You can’t say you’re going to write romance when you don’t even like it. You need to write what you would read if you expect anybody else to read it. And you have to be driven. You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done. —           Nora Roberts

The power of warming up

So, here is a warmup for my discussion of ‘warmup’.

It’s a quick brain dump [not my favorite term, by the way] to get some ideas rolling.

It might be a typed list, since I’m currently [obviously] on my laptop, but it might evolve into a mind map in my codex.

But it’s something that gives me a starting point and it dodges the ol’ blank white paper/blank idea-less mind syndrome.

Warmup

Get ideas flowing

Don’t stop yourself. Don’t edit yourself. 

Get some momentum. It can help you achieve flow. 

Sometimes it takes a few minutes, 50 or more words, but it is rarely a waste of time. 

It often clears your mind of other distractions. 

It reminds you that you have ‘shown up for work’, so that’s a reward in itself.

It just hit me that ‘warmup’ is such a nebulous unclear term that writing about it can be a little dry, but I’m forging ahead.

It loosens your muscles and it reminds you that, by warming up, you are striking out against ‘perfectionism’, so that’s another reward.

This is a practice that yields plenty of benefits and I think it’s worth making it a ‘habit’, one that shakes the cobwebs out of your brain. Right now, I feel like sketching two brains…one filled with cobwebs and then one—after warming up—with just a few wisps of cobweb.

I’m still going on this warmup about warmups. This is almost getting weird, isn’t it?

As I write this, I’m starting to get a vision of what an ideal warmup session might look like. It might well include a fresh cup of coffee and both analog and digital tools nearby. I wouldn’t want to be cooped up in a windowless room. And I would want some creativity books [a future post] nearby if I do get stuck. And I might even make a poster with some warmup criteria and prompts listed to keep me on track. Yeah, I like this. And I wouldn’t have reached that poster idea unless I had reached that ‘ideal warmup session’ idea, which had resulted from the previous 250 words. 

Wow…what a warmup session on ‘a discussion of warmups’.

Have a safe 4th of July weekend, everybody.

Finally! A completed writing project!

book cover for The Incomplete Book of Retirement Wisdom

What are the best parts of this book being on the Amazon shelf?

  1. I finished a project!
  2. There’s nothing like seeing my book available publicly…to spotlight glaring necessary fixes.
  3. Offshoot projects resulted from this one.
  4. I have more time to create my mini-course on ‘acts of kindness’ writing.