The Daily Routines of Famous Writers
By Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity. Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Enjoy.
Comic Books for Grown-Ups: 10 Masterpieces of Graphic Nonfiction
by Kirstin Butler Seeing the world in six-panel strips, or what Allen Ginsberg has to do with the wonders of zygotes. Who doesn’t love comic books? While infographics may be trendy today (and photography perennially sexy), there’s just something special about the work of the human hand.
20 Ways to Become a Better Writer
Two years ago, if you were to tell me I’d one day be writing for my favorite magazines and finishing my first screenplay… well, I wouldn’t believe you. That’s because even though I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six, you couldn’t tell by looking at my former lifestyle. At the time, it was filled with so many things not related to writing I barely had the focus to write a shopping list. A shopping list. I still don’t understand how it happened, or why the most important thing to me was always shuffled to the bottom of my priority list. All I know is this: if you want to become a better writer, the longer it takes you to get started, the stronger your resistance will be to get started at all.
Writing Task Resource List
Summary: This resource will help you find OWL material for the many different kinds of writing tasks you may face in school and in the workplace. Contributors:Allen Brizee, Allen BrizeeLast Edited: 2011-02-17 11:01:05 Overview
How to Write with Style: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word
Find a Subject You Care About Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
Neil Gaiman's 8 Rules of Writing
By Maria Popova In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman: WritePut one word after another.
Ray Bradbury Gives 12 Pieces of Writing Advice to Young Authors (2001)
Like fellow genre icon Stephen King, Ray Bradbury has reached far beyond his established audience by offering writing advice to anyone who puts pen to paper. (Or keys to keyboard; "Use whatever works," he often says.) In this 2001 keynote address at Point Loma Nazarene University's Writer's Symposium By the Sea, Bradbury tells stories from his writing life, all of which offer lessons on how to hone the craft. Most of these have to do with the day-in, day-out practices that make up what he calls "writing hygiene." Watch this entertainingly digressive talk and you might pull out an entirely different set of points, but here, in list form, is how I interpret Bradbury's program: Don't start out writing novels.
How To Write A Book When You’re Too Busy Making Money
Do you ever dream of writing a book? Maybe yours is half-done and you can’t seem to finish it. Or perhaps you’ve already written your first book, and it’s time to pen the next. When you’re busy running a business, it can feel near impossible to find the time to get your book done.
