Tag: Writing
You Must Write It
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” -Toni Morrison
How to Write Fiction: Ernest Hemingway
[found on openculture.com]
Ernest Hemingway’s tip on How to Write Fiction (from openculture.com)
“To get started, write one true sentence. Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer’s block. In a memorable passage in A Moveable Feast, he writes:“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.” “
[found on http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_ernest_hemingway_on_how_to_write_fiction.html]Book Wanting to be Written
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
-Madeleine L’Engle (found on www.goodreads.com)
A Better Writer
“Pay attention to punctuation, especially to the correct use of commas and periods. These two punctuation marks regulate the flow of your thoughts, and they can make your text confusing even if the words are clear.” -from dailywritingtips.com
Publishing Contest!
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http://abooksmind.com/writingcontests.php
Contest ends June 15th!
10 Techniques to Spark the Writing
10 Techniques to Spark the Writing*
“Andrew Motion has garnered the highest acclaim as a poet, including a knighthood and the post of Poet Laureate of the UK. In addition to his many books of poetry, Motion has published seminal biographies of poets and been a leading champion of poetry in the contemporary world. Though he has reached the pinnacle, he seeks to write poetry meaningful to all.”
10 Techniques to Spark the Writing
- Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly.
- Think with your senses as well as your brain.
- Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.
- Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on.
- Remember there is no such thing as nonsense.
- Bear in mind Wilde’s dictum that “only mediocrities develop”— and challenge it.
- Let your work stand before deciding whether or not to serve.
- Think big and stay particular.
- Write for tomorrow, not for today.
- Work hard.
From an article in The Guardian / *from writingclasses.com
Write, then modify.
“We write frankly and fearlessly but then we modify before we print.”
– Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi
