Showing posts with label getting ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label getting ideas. Show all posts

5 Creative Truths I Needed to Discover: A Decluttering Story

In January of 2020, I started decluttering. Again.

This is something I've done since I was little. My copy of Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens (co-written by Julie Morgenstern and her daughter, Jessi Morgenstern-Colón) is one of the most ruffled and well-loved books on my shelf. I especially love her idea that it's not about following a "one size fits all" system but rather if your possessions are organized in a way that makes sense to you and supports how you live your life.

More recently, I heard about the KonMari Method and started incorporating some of her suggestions into my days, too, such as thanking the objects I pass on or recycle, and looking at things from the perspective of whether they spark joy.

With the organizing and decluttering process being a welcome part of my life rather than a despised one, I actually thought my possessions, digital and physical, were in decent shape, until a milestone birthday on the horizon got my wheels turning and an unlikely trio of movies changed my life.

How to Write Descriptively with Detail Clusters

Have you ever looked back on a scene you’ve written and wondered why it feels a bit ... generic?

You’ve developed amazing characters. You’ve crafted a fascinating plot. It flows, but something is missing.

The missing ingredient might just be detail.

14 Easy Ways to Bring Your Scenes to Life

You know that feeling when your writing starts to just get thin? Like if it was a three-dimensional being, it would be so insubstantial it would just faff about and never get anything remotely interesting or useful done?

Yeah. I think most of us have written scenes like that. And it can get even worse during NaNoWriMo, when you’re pushing yourself to meet your daily word count, and you’re running out of steam and getting discouraged because you’re not sure what to say and oh my gosh what am I going to do, I’m never going to finish this, and I may as well just quit now, there’s no way I can reach this word count by the end of the day, let alone 50,000 by the end of the month (or whatever your goal is).

*takes deep breath, in and out*

Too many of my writing sessions have looked like this: pushing myself to meet a self-imposed deadline and getting down on myself because my writing is getting thinner and thinner by the minute.

We need easy ways to jazz up a scene, to beef it up a little without having to throw a dragon into the mix (though you could do that, too). If you’re suffering from writer’s block, pick one of these ideas, throw it at the page, and see if it sticks. Worst case scenario, you and your character will have fun trying!

10 Ways to Regain Your Writing Mojo

Okay, I admit ... it can be really difficult to write during the summer. Whatever free time we have, we want to spend at a music festival or prepping for the neighbourhood barbeque or attending a family reunion, or maybe even just lazing in a hammock with the latest Grisham novel.

It's so hard to get back to writing, though, once we've dropped the ball. You know that feeling you get when you look at your WIP and realize you haven't touched it in weeks? Yeah ... I don't want to feel that way either.

If the ball has already been dropped, if it's rolling down the sidewalk even now, we can catch it! Try one of these ideas, tomorrow if not today, and your writing mojo will be crawling in the doggy door before you know it.

Take Writing Prompts From "Meh" to "Awesome!"

It's no secret that I love writing prompts, but when they don’t lead anywhere it starts to feel pointless. Some leave you with a list of generic facts about your main character, or you make something up just for the sake of having an answer. When you have limited writing time to start with, it can be super frustrating to spend your time on something that leaves you feeling "meh."

What if I told you it's possible to take any prompt from "meh" to "awesome," and that you'd get new insights into your story to boot?

How to Honour (or Toss) Old Bits and Bobs of Writing

If you've been writing for any length of time, chances are you have some old writing laying around (unless you're incredibly ruthless about purging nostalgic clutter and/or terribly crafty about finding ways to re-purpose it, in which case can I please borrow some of your magic?).

I've been helping my mum sort through stacks of old files and paperwork this week, and I stumbled on a handwritten story snippet, about half a page long. By the time I was a paragraph in, my shoulders were tense and I was waiting for the no good horrible thing to happen (hint: it involved a ransom note), and then - AHA! I burst out laughing, the tension defused. Mum had pulled off one of the best reversals of tone, and false alarms, I've ever read.

When we were done giggling about it, we started to wonder, what to do with it now? It's years old and has no connection to any of her current stories, but it's a nifty piece of writing, and worth keeping.

Still. What to do?

I've been thinking about it, and I think we have a few options when we come across an old piece of writing.