From the category archives:

writing inspiration

Jellybeanology to Create a Character?

February 27, 2010

We did Jelly­beanol­ogy as part of the True Colours Work­shop with the Bar­rie Job Find­ing club at North­ern Lights this month.
I picked the red jelly­bean.
Cheer­ful, skill­ful, intel­li­gent. A born opti­mist, sel­dom down long. A joy to be with. Never have to worry about money, finan­cially ample. Determined, passionate, sym­pa­thetic for less for­tu­nate. Likes enter­tain­ment and prefers to be […]

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Behind Every Door… A New World

February 1, 2010

“A sense of the mys­te­ri­ous. The feel­ing that behind every door another world is wait­ing can make a child’s world a par­adise.” -  John Mighton
A sense of the mys­tery and promise of the uni­verse should not just be for chil­dren. Keep hope, though it sounds over sim­ple at times, it is one ele­ment we can’t […]

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Five Things you can do When Life Overwhelms You

January 27, 2010

If you’re hav­ing a bad day, week, month even, it’s hard to sit down and focus on writ­ing. Projects which you know are com­ing up, dead­lines creep right along and you just get more and more behind by the moment. It drags on your spirit and takes your cre­ativ­ity with it. But, here are five things […]

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Project Shut Up and Write

January 19, 2010

From Rebecca at Project Shut Up and Write:
So, at this point, it seems hope­less right? Throw down the pen­cil, toss the papers in the trash and move on.
NO, STUPID.
Do not put down the pen­cil (and definitly don’t throw it– that’s all you need right now is to get sued for blind­ing some­one in the left eye.) Do […]

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When the Ending is the Beginning

January 15, 2010

Write a short story with a begin­ning, a mid­dle and an end­ing. Make it at least three para­graphs or one page in length. Then swap the begin­ning of your story with the end­ing. So that your first para­graph is now your last.
How does the story read now? Some things will be con­fus­ing and yet… does it […]

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Six Sentences, Exactly

January 12, 2010

Can you write a whole story in just six sen­tences: Have a look at The 6S Social Net­work on Ning,
The sub­mis­sion period for Six Sen­tences, Vol­ume 3 – a lit­er­ary tour de force sched­uled to be pub­lished in April – is offi­cially under­way! If you’d like to be part of the action, just send your work […]

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Clustering, Can it Work for You?

January 11, 2010

On a clean sheet of paper write a word in the mid­dle. Pick any­thing that comes to your mind: corn, win­dow, lazy, broom, chil­dren… or a topic which you need to write about.
Cir­cle the word in the mid­dle. Now begin writ­ing down other words, phrases which con­nect to the first word in some way. Write them […]

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Conquering Fear is an Art

January 9, 2010

The con­quer­ing of fear is the high­est art.
This was quoted by a fic­tional char­ac­ter in a book (The Demon’s Daugh­ter)  by Emma Holly. I think it’s a fab­u­lous quote. I had a look for it on Google, to see if it was quoted by any­one else. I didn’t find it, at least not exactly the same. […]

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Nominated for Best Twitter Bio

January 5, 2010

What do you have for your Twit­ter bio? It’s the space you have on your Twit­ter pro­file to say some­thing about your­self. Not a lot of space, it is Twit­ter after all.
I nom­i­nate @DPop­Tart for best Twit­ter bio.
The wind says my name. It doesn’t put an @ in front of it, so maybe you don’t notice.
Now that […]

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You Can’t Focus on your Flaws

January 2, 2010

In Writ­ing Thoughts, Laura Spencer writes about Unhealthy Com­para­son. The feel­ings of self doubt we get when we com­pare our­selves to other writ­ers who seem to be accom­plish­ing more, doing bet­ter, etc.
“The trick when read­ing other writer’s works is to spend enough time so that you learn some­thing usable, but not so much time that you […]

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Welcome to the First Day of 2010

January 1, 2010

“One writes to make a home for one­self, on paper, in time, in oth­ers’ minds.” — Alfred Kazin
What is the first thing you will write (or already wrote) today?
What do you pre­dict is the first thing you will write in ten years from now when it is Jan­u­ary, 1st, 2020?

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Write Yourself into Horror

December 21, 2009

Get­ting off-seasonal with Eliza Dash­wood (Word Fer­ret), for a hor­ror writ­ing prompt. I admit, I also read a lot of the para­nor­mal chick lit stuff. Some may call it dark fan­tasy, para­nor­mal fic­tion, etc. I think para­nor­mal chick lit cov­ers it well for me. Some of my favourite para­nor­mal writ­ers are: Michelle Rowen, Kel­ley Armstrong, […]

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It’s a Snow Day

December 20, 2009

“In the depth of win­ter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invin­ci­ble sum­mer.” — Albert Camus
Where do you find your invin­ci­ble sum­mer when things are win­tery all around you? What gives you strength and a feel­ing of pur­pose, the fight to keep going/ trying?

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Christmas Card Signing

December 13, 2009

How do you sign your Christ­mas cards? Is it just a quick “Sea­sons Greet­ings” fol­lowed by your name? Do you go a bit ellab­o­rate and give them a real note?
Write up a more inspired ver­sion of your usual Christ­mas salu­ta­tions in a Christ­mas greet­ing card. Put some­thing extra into your usual greet­ings this year.
Merry Yule. Hope you […]

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Can I Help You, Help You?

December 12, 2009

“Can I help you?”
Say it out loud. Try dif­fer­ent kinds of tone of voice, dif­fer­ent pitches of voice and with dif­fer­ent sound­ing moods in your voice. Try to be sincere,try to be snarky, try to be very help­ful and try to be very bored when you say it. How many dif­fer­ent mean­ings can you give to […]

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