All writers have a need to write, but it is not so easy to translate this need into actual stories, poems or novels. Part of the reason why this is so, is because it is all too often thought that to write (or to write well) one needs to wait to be inspired to do so. But if you do that, as you’re most likely aware by now, you will not get much writing done. In other words, you must write even when you are not inspired to do so! That’s all there is to it and below is a simple, barebones list of 10 steps to take to get writing.

So think of these as writing commandments and just do it:

1. Make a decision to write everyday and stick to it.
2. Set aside at least 15 minutes of pure writing time everyday.
3. When you are not inspired, make use of writing exercises and prompts to get the writing done.
4. Set writing goals for yourself, like, for example, writing one story a month.
5. Finish all first drafts.

See, nothing hard, but if you stick to these five rules your writing will get better and you will find it easier to get even more writing done.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Kicks Off

The idea behind the NaNoWriMo project is to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days, in the time from November 1 to November 30. It sounds scary, I know and it is supposed to be. But it also meant to help you get to writing that novel that you have only been mulling over in your head and always putting off starting to write for various reasons, some better than others.

But who am I to talk, really? I have no idea how easy/hard/fun/dreadful it is to attempt to write a novel from scratch in the space of thirty days, as this year will be the first time for me. I have, however, calculated that you only need to put in 1700 words a day, starting yesterday, and you will have a 50 000 word winning novel at the end of the 30 days of the challenge.

A winner of NaNoWriMo is anyone who manages to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days. At the end of the month you have to upload your creation so they can validate the word count and then it is time for some prizes. The best prize this year is most certainly the free proof copy for Amazon’s Create Space that all winners will receive, and even if you don’t plan on taking your book down the self-publishing route it is still nice to see your name on a cover of a book.

In short, since you should all go and check out the site for yourselves now, I would just like to say I strongly encourage all of you to take part in this event as it is, in my opinion, a great way to free up your writing and thereby take it to the next level. And the challenge is open to everyone, from anywhere, so it should really be called the International Novel Writing Month, but somehow it is not.

Stay Creative!

This is probably a question many aspiring novelists ask, especially at times of severe writers block. I know I asked it. A few months ago I did lots and lots of searching for the surefire magic formula that would tell me how to get going, how to push through my block, start writing, finish a manuscript and finally have a book written that I could call my own.

And the Result…

Well…Needless to say, there is no such magic formula. Or maybe there is, but it is not exactly what I expected, though it is pretty self explanatory, obvious and a lot easier that you think. And the magic formula is: WRITE! When I first heard this advice, and everyone in the business of giving writing advice will give it, my first thought was, “Yeah, that’s what I want to do, but how?” I was going through a bad block, I hadn’t written anything in over a year, I was completely out of touch with my writing self and here was everyone telling me to just write. So I searched on, read books, read articles, looked far and wide for advice on how to write a novel.

And The Answer…

The answer is still to write, and write everyday. But you need to build up to writing everyday, especially if you’ve just spent if you’ve just spent hundreds of days only thinking about writing. So start small. Start by writing for 15 minutes a day, or set a goal of 500 a day, something manageable. But do it everyday. Without fail and without excuses. After awhile, when you are ready, raise your daily quota and set a goal. An attainable, but rigid goal, and work towards it. It will give you something to work towards and a way to measure you progress effectively.

What to Write About?

Ultimately you are the only one who can answer that question. My experience was such that I first needed to get back into the practice of writing anything at all before I could graduate to writing fiction again. As advised by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Guide to Higher Creativity, and Dorothea Brande before her in Becoming a Writer, I started the practice of writing the so-called Morning Pages. The idea behind these is to start writing as soon as you wake up, when a part of your mind is still in that dream state where stories come from or, in other words, the unconscious. What you do is set an amount to write (Julia Cameron suggests 3 pages) and then start writing as soon as you get up, perhaps even while you are still in bed. You should write these pages without stopping and without editing. Basically, just write anything that comes to mind, and if you think you have nothing to write about then you write that. It really is as simple as that and it will get you into the practice of writing daily, as well as into contact with the part of you mind that is responsible for coming up with story ideas. And eventually those ideas will rise to the surface.

Once they do you should make a separate schedule to write them out. In order to complete a manuscript you must work at it everyday even if just for a little bit. Of course the more you write the more will get written. So set a goal and stick to it. Make sure any excuses you come up with for not writing are 100% valid and non-surmountable. Because the writer’s job is to write. It is not to think about writing, talk about writing or to complain about not being able to write. It is to write. And once you have gone a week or two of writing diligently everyday you will start to wonder how you ever went without. And soon you will have your book finished. It will need editing, but you will have something to work with, something more that just a wish or an idea. Which brings me to the last point I wish to make in this post.

The First Draft…

Many writers are crippled before they even start writing because they think that what they write must be perfect as soon as they put the words on paper. I suffered from this illusion too, thinking that there was no such thing as the first draft with my writing, that everything I wrote was good enough to get published without any rewrites. Well I was wrong, and I am still trying to learn the art of editing and the importance of the second, third or whichever draft. So what I am trying to say is that the first draft can be bad, should be bad, and most likely will be bad. Don’t worry about it. Because no one needs to see it and it is very easy to fix something once you have something to work with, namely the first draft of your manuscript. And you get this manuscript by writing everyday.

Believe me, it is not so hard. Just set a schedule and stick to it and your love of writing will do the rest!

Today I thought we could take a break from the regular creative writing prompts in the form of words, sentences, phrases, pictures and the like and do some reading, so to speak. As far as creative writing ideas in general go,they are usually gotten from some outside source and rarely just from within your own mind. Though it can often seem like they do. Reading is because of this of the utmost importance to aspiring as well as established writers as it is through reading that you gain a better understanding of your own personal style, as well as the basics of such elusive elements of writing as tone, rhythm, pace and such. Reading great stories and novels also allows us to see how the narrative, point of view, fictional time, and so on are handled by other authors, which is great for learning how to do it ourselves.

As writers of fiction most of us already tend to read a lot. It sort of goes with the territory, so to speak, and it is also good for us and our own writing. However, once you sit down to write a longer piece of work you should generally put books by other writers aside and just concentrate on your own story, your own voice and style. Too often our written expression is influenced by what we just read and we should avoid that when trying to create something of our own. It is great for Creating Your Own Writing Style http://creativewritingideasandprompts.com/creative-writing-ideas-creating-your-own-writing-style/, but when it comes down to it, your style is your style and must not be an imitation of someone else’s. But you already knew that!

Just in case you have nothing to read just now, I’ve come across a free giveaway of a pdf collection of short stories and some theories from Narrative Magazine titled 18 Lies and 3 Truths. You can get it from their website by signing up (Note: if you’re already signed up you won’t be able to download it, it seems that it is only for new members. In this case, sign up again from a different email address and you’re fine!) You can also buy a hardcopy from Amazon.com.

The collection contains 18 short stories by great authors (and teachers) such as Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Janet Burroway, Pamela Painter and other. In addition, the book also contains essay on the writing process by Rick Bass, Robert Olen Butler and Gail Godwin, which makes this book that much more of a must have. It is always advisable to do some research into how other writers view the process of writing-it gives you creative writing ideas of your own!

Anyway, enjoy your reading and…

Stay Creative!

Some more creative writing ideas:

Creative Writing Ideas: Get Your Own Creative Writing Prompts
Creative Writing Ideas: Free Writing
Creative Writing Ideas: Seeing Clearly is Writing Well
Creative Writing Ideas: Creating Your Own Writing Style

This creative writing exercise is very old and often used to help writers gain a firm grasp on their own style and even voice, while it also helps writer’s decipher what works in fiction, and poetry and what does not. And all this is achieved by studying closely the works of other writers or rather by copying them.

The idea and process of this exercise is quite simple. You should pick a passage from your favorite book by your favorite author and copy it out until you grasp the fine intricacies of language and tone and style that make this passage so powerful. The next step in this exercise is to write a similar passage yourself, with different characters and a different setting, but still ultimately the same in style and voice and use of language and tone. You are trying to recreate the same feeling, the same emotion of the original, but using your own words, imagination and creativity.

Do this exercise a few times and with different passages. In the process you will learn exactly what makes a powerful passage, all the elements required to entice an emotion in the reader, as well as come at least one step closer to your own unique and fully developed writing style. By studying the works and style of others you will soon be able to understand better all the parts that make up the whole of it and you will then be able to apply that knowledge to your own writing.

In addition you will also learn how best to to handle certain fictional situations, such as descriptions, characterization, foreshadowing and so on. At first pick passages from works you like best, but then as you get more efficient at this exercise branch out and try to copy authors whose style does not appeal to you so much, or is not so close to your own. For example, if in your own writing you like to keep the descriptions to a minimum try copying and rewriting a passage full of descriptions. This will certainly help you make your own descriptions much more powerful.

Stay creative!

Other creative writing ideas:

Creative Writing Ideas: Get Your Own Creative Writing Prompts
Creative Writing Ideas: Free Writing
Creative Writing Ideas: Seeing Clearly is Writing Well

Today we are going to try something a little different…you will generate your own random words creative writjng prompts and then freewrite some very fine stories. In essence this exercise combines both the use of random words creative writing prompts as well as the freewriting creative writing method of getting the wrods to flow and jogging the inspiration. This creative writing exercise is great if you have trouble coming up with things to write about or if you have any sort of writer’s block, since the random words provide a jumpstart on getting that story on to the page, while the freewriting creative writing method allows you to let go of your inhibitions, silence the internal critic and just write…which is what we are here for!

In this exercise you will choose your own random words to use as cretive writing prompts. To do this take a book, any book, open it to a random page, cloes your eyes and point to a word. Copy that word out and repeat the process five more times. Once you have the five words, sit down and start writing a story, poem or flash inspired by those words. Freewrite like this for at least 20 minutes, which means that you should actually time yourself. Set up an alarm on your mobile phone or use a kitchen timer. And then just write. Once the 20 minutes are up stop writing and read what you have written. Most likely you will find the beginnings of a story in there and once you do just write it. This is a great creative writing exercise to do when you have limited resources, i.e. when travelling, but still want to stretch your creative muscles a bit.

Stay creative!

*Inspired by http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingexercise1/ht/dictionary.htm

Some other creative writing ideas:

Creative Writing Ideas: Seeing Clearly is Writing Well

Creative Writing Ideas: Free Writing

Just a quick post today, this one one the topic of great creative writing ideas designed to help you get into a routine of daily writing and the like. One of the best ways to get a story, or any kind of writing for that matter, going is to just free write. The idea here is to sit down with a pen and paper or in front of your computer and just write anything and everything that comes into your head without stopping and without looking back and checking over what you wrote.

The object with this creative writing exercise is to open up the flood of words that you will later need to harness to get some real and more structured writing done. I am assuming that most of you will be using your computers for this writing exercise and the instructions for you are sit down in front of a blank document and just start typing, just start writing. It doesn’t need to be connected it just needs to flow. Free write like this for at least 15 then stop and read over what you wrote. You will most likely be very surprised at some of the things that come out onto the page in this exercise, and if you look closely enough you will probably be able to find the start of a story, poem or flash, or two, in the free written mess.

If the blank page scares you and keeps you from being able to free write effectively then I would suggest that you do it with the monitor of your computer turned off. Alternatively you might try this doing this creative writing exercise by hand, writing for 15 minutes in your journal. It has been suggested by some that writing by hand allows for greater creativity, but ultimately it comes down to what you prefer.

Anyway, so much for today. Stay creative and I will see you back here tomorrow!

P.S. The other creative writing idea:

Creative Writing Ideas: Seeing Clearly is Writing Well

Today’s writing exercise is really more one of the creative writing ideas, since it doesn’t involve much writing, but rather a lot of imagining and thinking.

Sit comfortably for a few minutes, breathing evenly until your mind is clear (just let thoughts pass through, but do not try and hold on to any one of them). After a few minutes get up and walk out of the room. Once you are outside the room turn and walk back in. Stop. Now try and picture yourself, how you look entering the room. Try to see the details, try to imagine what the people that might see you enter the room can know about you from your appearance, the way you entered the room, the way you are standing there. In other words, try to describe yourself as you stand there on the landing.

This exercise will help you learn the skill of being able to clearly describe people and their actions so that your readers will be better able to imagine what you are writing about.

After a few attempts with this exercises, say in a few weeks, try elaborating on it. Instead of doing something and seeing what it looks like, just sit back comfortably and imagine yourself doing something like brushing your hair, preparing lunch, sewing or whatever else you can think of. See yourself doing it and then describe it to yourself in all detail, leave nothing out.

This exercise is especially useful for those of us who have trouble with concrete and telling descriptions in our writings.

Adapted from:
Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande
Which is, by the way, an excellent source or creative writing advice and no writer should be without a copy.

Two things are important for any aspiring or established fiction writer. The first is that he or she must write and write daily and the second is that he or she must do creative writing exercises. This blog is here help writers do both by providing fresh creative writing ideas and creative writing prompts, which serve as the basis for creative writing exercises. And if the writer does these daily than his first obligation of writing daily is also met. So just dive right in!