Waiting for inspiration
If you’re waiting for inspiration to happen so that you can start writing, well, you could be waiting for a while. For instance, I get inspired in situations when I’m relaxed, comfortable, happy, content like when I’ve just laid my head down to sleep and I’m enjoying the fact that my head is on the […]
Write your own damn novel!
This is something a tutor used to say to our class when we were learning to give critique to fellow writers. As a writer, with all our insecurities about our own writing, we get feedback from everywhere. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s basically like a stab to the heart, the pain is excruciating and […]
Your writing voice is perfect
I remember when I first started to write fiction, I didn’t know if I was writing properly but as fate/luck/whatever would have it I did a 10 week creative writing course. This was my first introduction to hearing different voices or styles of writing. Now, I hear you say, duh, didn’t you read any fiction […]
Music and sleepiness make me write faster
This is the weirdest thing I discovered while trying (I have to use that word) to write a first draft for a second and third novel idea (I started the second novel got bored and started the third idea – me like this one). I would turn up at the pc in the morning and, […]
The writing state and the fictive dream.
If you’ve been writing for a while then you may relate to this passage from John Gardner’s ‘On becoming a Novelist’. It’s on page 120 and I’m going to quote it here. (Note: Because I’m a woman I always read this passage with ‘she’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘her’ for ‘his’. So the text below […]
Am I stuck or just scared of writing?
So the quest continues into my inability to write my novel. Is it merely my perfectionist self that says things to me like: ‘You can’t do that’ or ‘Do it right, if at all’. Or am I stuck because the idea is bigger than me at the moment. Stuck to find my characters motivations in […]
Books to get you writing
Of all the books I have, I think the two that are good for starting out are: Writing down the bones by Natalie Goldberg The sound of paper by Julia Cameron Why? To get ideas to write something. Anything. Get the flow going. Natalie Goldberg recommends in the chapter ‘First Thoughts’ in Writing down the […]
Picking up the pen…
At the end of the day, that is what writing is about: Just doing it. The act of picking up pen and paper, putting pen to paper and making your mark, pouring your heart out, throwing your ideas down, scribbling, scratching the surface of the multitude that will come in time. And the writing does […]