The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do.
Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Because that is what writing is all about. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer.
25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer
When George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what the best training for an aspiring writer would be in a 1954 interview, Hem replied, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.” Today, writing well is more important than ever. Far from being the province of a select few as it was in Hemingway’s day, writing is a daily occupation for all of us — in email, on blogs, and through social media. So what can we do to improve our writing short of hanging ourselves? 1. Don’t just plan to write—write. 2. [The] Resistance knows that the longer we noodle around “getting ready,” the more time and opportunity we’ll have to sabotage ourselves. 3. Find your best time of the day for writing and write. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Treat writing as a job. 10. 11. 12.
Aliventures — Writing, blogging, and self-publishing
How to Write Better: 7 Instant Fixes
Does your writing stand out? Do you worry whether your writing is good enough? I can see you nodding your head. You are not alone. The good thing is that writing is a journey. On this journey, you can either travel the long road – or use shortcuts. Using shortcuts means learning to spot and fix mistakes in order to write better. Here are seven instant fixes that will improve your writing. But … what is good writing? Inexperienced writers think that ‘good’ writing is elaborate. No, good writing is simple. 1: The art of natural Check out an example of elaborate writing below (I’ve sourced examples of writing from free Kindle books chosen at random). This is from a story about a young girl who is at home with her young brother when a thunderstorm strikes. An ebony abyss claimed the den. I take this to mean, “The room went dark.” Maybe the author consulted a Thesaurus to create a sentence with special words. Your words should sound natural. I reckon you’d get a strange look … 2: Is it obvious? Careful!
Salvaging a Book + GIVEAWAY- Guest Post from Mou Saha
Hi everyone, Mou Saha here from Creating Keepsakes magazine. In spirit of green crafting, I had been salvaging an old book into my current art journal. Here’s a spread from that book. Here are my steps in visuals and captions. Hope you enjoyed my little process tutorial and would give it a try. If you like upcycling the stuff of life, you might enjoy the 4-week workshop I’m teaching at Big Picture Classes called Lift Me Up! Please leave a comment to this post about your favorite thing to upcycle and ONE person can win a spot in the workshop. Good luck J
PaperHaus Magazine: 30 Ways to add texture to your art journal pages by Lynn.
Hi everyone, Lynn here with some mixed media tips. If there is one thing I love, it's adding texture to my art journal pages (and mixed media canvases, and scrapbook pages...) For this technique, I wanted to show you as many ways to add texture as I could think of! For items that needed to be glued down, I put the type of glue I used in parentheses. I start by laying down mostly non-bulky texture. Here's how it looks so far: Now, I start to add some thicker pieces. Another peek: It's time for some finishing pieces. I also wait until near the end to add stamped images and rub-ons (otherwise they will just end up obscured). Let's see what the background looked like before I added the heart. And here's the final product: Almost all of the products I used are generic and relatively cheap. (Credit also goes to Anna Dambroska aka Finnabair, as I lifted the general composition and color palette from one of her lovely mixed media creations) That's it from me this week, thanks for stopping by!
Synonyms for words commonly used in student's writing
Amazing- incredible, unbelievable, improbable, fabulous, wonderful, fantastic, astonishing, astounding, extraordinary Anger- enrage, infuriate, arouse, nettle, exasperate, inflame, madden Angry- mad, furious, enraged, excited, wrathful, indignant, exasperated, aroused, inflamed Answer- reply, respond, retort, acknowledge Ask- question, inquire of, seek information from, put a question to, demand, request, expect, inquire, query, interrogate, examine, quiz Awful- dreadful, terrible, abominable, bad, poor, unpleasant Beautiful - pretty, lovely, handsome, attractive, gorgeous, dazzling, splendid, magnificent, comely, fair, ravishing, graceful, elegant, fine, exquisite, aesthetic, pleasing, shapely, delicate, stunning, glorious, heavenly, resplendent, radiant, glowing, blooming, sparkling Begin - start, open, launch, initiate, commence, inaugurate, originate Brave - courageous, fearless, dauntless, intrepid, plucky, daring, heroic, valorous, audacious, bold, gallant, valiant, doughty, mettlesome
Journal Writing Topics
A collection of journal writing topics, journal writing ideas and journal writing prompts to inspire you and get the creative juices flowing. Pick one for your creative writing journaling from the list of journal writing topics below. Journal writing topics to get you started A diet journal. Keep a daily dietary logbook. Be honest and record everything that you eat and drink as well as the emotions that you experience while eating or craving certain foods. More journal writing topics prompts and ideas Click here for more journal writing ideas, journal writing topics and prompts. Recommended Links Brief tips and advice on how to write a journal Journaling tools you need to write with. What is a journal? Types of journals some suggestions Journaling Software Return from journal writing topics to the homepage. Journaling Prompts: All About me Classic brainstorming techniques and brainstorming methods.
