Name Your Gifts

Quote: "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart..." - William Wordsworth

The following exercise is taken from The Soul Tells a Story by Vinita Hampton Wright.

For the next five minutes, write about what gave you joy as a child. Write quickly without analyzing or editing.

Take another five minutes and describe the most glorious or satisfying event of your high school life.

Try to remember the last time you were involved with a project that so captivated your attention that you lost track of time. What were you doing?

If five people closest to you - whether friends or family - were to tell you honestly what good things you have brought to their lives, what qualities or gifts would they list?

A Bit of Advice about Writing

The following was taken from Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups by Judy Reevees.

Eight Techniques from Jack Kerouac

• Blow as deep as you want to blow
• Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
• Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
• Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
• Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
• Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
• No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language and knowledge
• Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it

Nine Guidelines from William Struck Jr.

• Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
• Use the active voice.
• Put statements in positive form.
• Use definite, specific, concrete language.
• Omit needless words.
• Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
• Keep related words together.
• In summaries, keep to one tense.
• Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

Twelve Suggestions from E.B. White

• Place yourself in the background
• Write in a way that comes naturally
• Work from a suitable design
• Write with nouns and verbs
• Do not overwrite
• Avoid the use of qualifiers
• Do not affect a breezy style
• Do not explain too much
• Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity
• Make sure the reader knows who is speaking
• Do not use dialect
• Revise and rewrite

Seven Beacons from Gary Provost

1. Brevity
2. Clarity
3. Precision
4. Harmony
5. Humanity
6. Honesty
7. Poetry

Eleven "Fumblerules" from William Safire

• No sentence fragments.
• It behooves us to avoid archaisms.
• Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration
• If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, "Resist hyperbole."
• Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
• Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.
• Kill all the exclamation points!!!
• Don't verb nouns.
• Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

Writing Hodge Podge

Writing Contests:
For guidelines on evaluating contests and to determine if a contest is legitimate, go to: www.sfwa.org/beware/contests.html.

The 2009 Christian Writers' Market Guide has an incredibly long list of contests in just about every genre. If you are interested in entering a contest, please let me know what genre and I will be happy to e-mail you a list.


THE WRITER’S EDGE, PO Box 1266, Wheaton IL 60187. E-mail: info@writersedgeservice.com. Website: www.WritersEdgeService.com. No phone calls. A manuscript screening service for 90 cooperating Christian publishers. Charges $95 to evaluate a book proposal and if publishable, they will send a synopsis of it to 90 publishers who might be interested. If not publishable they will tell how to improve it. If interested, send an SASE for guidelines and a Book Information Form; request a form via e-mail or copy from Website. The Writer’s Edge now handles previously published books, including self-published books or those that are out of print and available for reprint. Requires a different form, but cost is the same. Reviews novels, nonfiction books, juvenile novels, Bible studies, devotionals, biography, and theology, but no poetry. See Website for details.
I am planning to try this once "Letters to Edward" is finished.


Questions for Discussion:
What does your writing life look like? Where do you write? When? What inspires you?

Writing Conferences

Here is a short list of Conferences listed in the 2009 Christian Writers' Market Guide:

Check out these websites for more complete lists: www.freelancewriting.com/conferences, or www.screenwriter.com/insider/WritersCalendar.html Link to these conference websites at www.stuartmarket.com.

ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) National Conference www.acfw.com

Act One: Screenwriting Weekends www.ActOneprogram.com

American Christian Writers Conferences www.ACWriters.com

Faithwriters Conference www.faithwriters.com/conference.php

Muse Online Writers Conference www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference

The Publishing Game Workshop www.PublishingGame.com

"Write His Answer" Seminars & Retreats www.writehisanswer.com/Writing_Seminars.htm (I have been to this one and it is fantastic!)

Writer's Nudge Workshops www.writersnudge.com

Fellow Travelers

I ran across a blog a few days ago called A Novel Journey. In these past few days of monitoring it, I've seen such interesting and quality posts come across it that I wanted to share it with everyone. This looks to be a blog for Christian writers, and most notably, they seem to interview a published author nearly every day. They also post entries containing wonderful advice for aspiring writers, such as:

• Five Tips for Writing Mystery Novels - from an author with book #5 on the way
• Reading your Manuscript Aloud - from an author with 37 published short stories
• The Q Factor (learning a lesson from James Bond stories) - from an author on book #19

Though the accomplishments of these submitters are impressive if not intimidating, I've found the advice and interviews to be down-to-earth and practical. If it's something others really like, may I suggest we add it to the list of links?

Daily Promptings

A few days ago, I came across (through Lifehacker.com) a site called Plinky. Despite the strange name, it offers something wonderful to writers: a new topic--or "prompts"--every day. If you're stuck or just wanting something to stir your inspiration, check out the prompts. Here are the prompts for the last five days, to give you a taste:

• List five things to do before you die.
• Engineers are getting closer to the dream of the flying car. How would you sell one of these if you were an auto dealer?
• What gadget is at the top of your wish list?
• Hybrid Prius or Escalade with gold rims?
• What's the worst way you've ever dumped or been dumped by someone?

You can also view the answers others give on each prompt, which is wonderful for inspiration for a character.

Update: the newer posts give a much better idea of its eclectic nature:

• You have to give away a million dollars. How?
• Name a children's book that makes you nostalgic.
• Give us your unreasonable demands.
• What will you do when the zombies come?
  
  

Advice from Writer to Writer

I came across an interview with a published writer in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I thought his advice (though we've all heard it before) carried some force given that it came from another writer. So, here it is:

BB: What advice do you give to fledgling writers?

LW: The same as everyone else's. Write. Apply seat to office chair and fill screen with words. Don't expect to be a master from the beginning. Your first drafts will always suck. That's what first drafts are meant to do. Once the story is down on paper (or magnetic media), you can re-write and revise until you've said what you meant to say. Get friends who write, or are discerning readers, to critique for you. Once you think the story is perfect, put it away in a drawer for about 3 months, and then look at it again. You'll be appalled at what you find, but that's usually the point where you can do a final draft and actually have something that's not an insult to an editor.

Do you think this guy is out in left field, or is his advice spot on? If he's got a point, how will you apply his advice to your writing?