Posted inWriting Life
Reviving Creativity
For a couple of years now, I’ve been suffering from writer’s block. Sure, I’ve written my posts for the Pens Around the World blog. And that’s about it. I’d become…
Posted inWriting Prompts
The Prompt Is the Pen
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing isn’t finding the idea, or building the world, shaping the character, choosing the perfect opening line, or knowing exactly where the story is going.…
Posted inWriting Prompts
Using transpositions to help your writing move forward
For this week's writing prompt, John shares two exercises that may help you write your way out of a writer's block.
Posted inWriting Prompts
Ask your resident robot what to write?
While sitting here looking at the blank page, I was wondering what to write for my writing prompt article. My mind wasn't helping me come up with anything profound, or…
Posted inWriting Prompts
Happy Birthday To You…
My daughter recently turned two. We are now on the fifth day in a row of singing happy birthday to her and blowing out a candle. I haven't the heart…
Posted inWriting Life
Happily Ever After
Once again, I am accosted by a blank page staring at me, intimidating me with its whiteness, with its emptiness. In fact, my brain has been abducted by aliens who…
Posted inWriting Life
NaNoWriMo and Dragons: Anything to Finish a Book
I had never tried NaNoWriMo before, but I had a manuscript that needed a rocket strapped to its word count to get it over the line. I decided that NaNoWriMo…
Posted inAuthors Writing Life
My Artist’s Way
Or How to Repair Broken Creativity A few weeks ago, I came across a book about creativity called The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. This has been around since 1992,…
Posted inWriting Life
Getting Sloppy with It
On the matter of making art, sometimes painters will get intentionally sloppy with their work to get their creativity muscles working. Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images Some visual artists may do a…
Posted inWriting Prompts
Forcing the idea onto the page
Sometimes the pen feels heavier than usual. Sometimes the page looks whiter than before. We’ve all stared at that blank page, knowing that there’s an itch to write within us,…