I am so guilty

There was a time when I could use words effectively, but I have become paralyzed. One reason for creating this blog is to force myself to write until I smooth out my writing.

In reading The '10 Mistakes' List at Broca website, I recognized myself and cringed. Here are the first 3 mistakes.

Repeats

"Crutch words" are acceptable words unless they are used incessantly. I was impressed that the post author had researched different writers and concluded that Hilliary Clinton's word is "eager." Kate White's favorite is "quickly" in A Body to Die For. Other writers use "weird" or "sad" repeatedly.

NaNoWriMo...what?

 11/12/2011 - corrected typo: "For those of who taking" Ugh. At least it was funny.

For those of you taking the NaNoWriMo challenge, best of luck! Karen Ware (see link a few paragraphs down) writes that:

...nearly 60 novels begun during NaNoWriMo have been published, including Water for Elephants, a New York Times #1 Bestseller by Sara Gruen. It also became a film in 2011 starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon!

So who knows what may happen.

Could there possibily be anything new to say about writer's block?

OK, it's been said before, but I like the way WriterKMP divides the problem into three problems. See what you think.

Writer's Wednesday: Writer's Block (and how to deal with it)
by WriterKMP at YouTube

Grandma's Superhero Therapy

Original article by Eugene at My Modern Met blog
My writing prompts/exercises are at the bottom.

I discovered this from a link on Twitter. Here's the Twitter message:

from @ThatBarbPerson

Stories need vibrant characters. This morning's character #prompt: Granny is a superhero... mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs… #writing #amwriting

Check out our super hero's face:

Photographer: Sacha Goldberger

French photographer Sacha Goldberger wanted to cheer up his 91-year-old grandmother who was feeling lonely and depressed. His solution was to "shoot a series of  outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, ad locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn't stop smiling."

He had unexpected success from this series of photos. So he decided to create a MySpace page for his grandmother, Frederika.

Cracked me up

Here's a new kind of writing prompt: - one-minute versions of the classics, or more precisely, a one-minute lampooning of the classics.

Jane Eyre

By Charlotte Bronte
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard

---

(People are MEAN to Jane Eyre.)

Edward Rochester: I have a dark secret. Will you stay with me no matter what?

Jane Eyre: Yes.

Edward Rochester: My secret is that I have a lunatic wife.

Jane Eyre: Bye.

(Jane Eyre leaves. Somebody dies. Jane Eyre returns.)

THE END

Ira Glass on the creative process

I discovered this at Careann's Musings blog. Careann is Carol J. Garvin, a writer of fiction and nonfiction.

The video is from Getoutthebox1 at YouTube. Wikipedia says that Ira Glass is a radio personality.  

The presentation itself drives me crazy.  It gives me motion sickness. (I wish the makers of Prezi and/or similar tools would catch on to this problem.) But the content is right on:

• His point is that we start writing because we have enough talent/insight to know what is good. Problem: Because we have enough talent/insight to know what is good, we aren't easily satisfied with our work - which is probably good in the long run because it makes us perfecting it.

• Like any endeavor, writing takes practice. Don't quit.

Writing prompts: photo #1

from http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=509&fullsize=1

Take a break; listen to a story

I have enjoyed listening to free audio books. These works are in the public domain. 

The Machine Stops (version 3)

by E. M. Forster (1879-1970)

“The Machine Stops” is a science fiction story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster’s The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard ‘cell’, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. (Summary by Wikipedia)

mp3@64kps (For other speeds or audio types, visit the site.)

Part 1 The Air-Ship – 00:30:53
Part 2 The Mending Apparatus – 00:26:01
Part 3 The Homeless – 00:23:44 

What is incredible about this story is that was published in 1909. It describes a world run by a machine (a computer). People communicate with people in other parts of the world by talking out loud and seeing the other person's image in a blue glowing tablet. Like so many science fiction works, the story predicts modern gadgets with surprising accuracy.

Writing prompts and exercises #2

Maybe one of these three ideas will get you thinking

from Twitter:

tweeted by @dfarb (David Farbey)

RT @SarahKSilverman When ur relatives drive you crazy just close your eyes & pretend it's dialogue in a woody allen movie (via @joshpines)

I just happened upon this. I don't know the people, but I loved the idea and got a great scene going in my mind. (They weren't even my relatives.)

from Writer's Digest:

You had planned to attend a friend’s birthday party and plugged her address into your GPS system, but the system guided you to somewhere else. Oddly enough, there was a man waiting for you at this mysterious place. “Sorry I had to rig your GPS, but this is urgent,” said the person.

What's fun about Writer's Digest writing prompts is that viewers can post their responses. Write down the scene as it comes to mind (500 words or less), then look on the website to see what other people wrote.

When I saw this prompt, I didn't feel inspired to write anything.  It didn't seem credible. I was very pleased, however, when I looked at what other people wrote. Even if a few of the details didn't make much sense, reading these little stories woke up the muse.  I imagine this would have been even better if I had tried my hand at writing first.

from CreativeWritingPrompts.com

This is not my favorite site for writing prompts. Seems very cheesy. But there were a couple of good prompts.  Here's one:

"Write down 50 things you would never do."

Making lists is effective because you don't have think too hard to get started. I came up with 10 things without much work. That was enough to pull me out of my slump.

Staying Creative

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

Writing prompts and exercises #1

Dawn
by daronlarson at YouTube



This is nothing more than an image and sound effects. The creativity is up to you.

If you are a mystery writer, what crime occurred here (or is getting ready to occur)?

If you are a romance writer, focus on the man (in your imagination). Why is there silence between the man and the woman? (You do see them on the bank don't you? Or are you on the dock? In your mind, of course.) Are they angry? Are relaxed and listening to the sounds of nature? Are they afraid? Are they waiting?


One Word 
Here are the directions at the site (written in very pale type):

simple. you’ll see one word at the top of the following screen.
you have sixty seconds to write about it.
click ‘go’ and the page will load with the cursor in place.
don’t think. just write.

There's very little else on the site. You are shown a word. You write about it for sixty seconds and then save it. The fun part is you get to see what other people. For a 60 second prompt, I have found it useful.

Suddenly Jamie got my attention

I am very excited about a blog I have discovered: Live to Write – Write to Live (http://nhwn.wordpress.com). The articles are are beautifully written – both in terms of content and style. Here are a few samples on writing habits and the writer's life.  I will cover articles on plot, characterization, and so on in a separate post.

10 Ways Journaling Makes You a Better Writer
by Suddenly Jamie (@suddenlyjamie) at Live to Write – Write to Live blog

[Keeping a journal]  brings you closer to perfect. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell says that to be an expert at something, you must invest at least 10,000 hours in practice.  The hours you spend journaling count. Start logging pen time today.

Will anyone notice?

Grammar Goof of the Week: Apostrophe catastrophe: Old Navy botches a big batch of T-shirts

by Eileen Burmeister at Ragan.com

How to show that you attend a first rate school...

Truckloads of erroneously punctuated garments are destined for colleges and universities.

The big question: Will anyone on campus notice the error?

Am I over-reacting?

I am always looking for writing prompts.  I'd like to have a large collection that I could refer to when the muse is silent.

During my search, I found this site: Writing Prompts.  The author, who is never identified, indicates the pictures are used as writing prompts for students.

Let's hope these students are college students.  Otherwise, I found it appalling that a teacher would give children a picture like prompt #241. It's of a human being wrapped up like meat you would buy at the supermarket. The label is "whole human."  The label gives the weight and a bar code. The writing prompt reads:

The door bell rings. You answer the door and find this on the front stop.  You yell inside the house. "We got another one." Tell the rest of the story.

Vegetable beings?

I curate several Scoop-its.  One is Home and Garden.  While checking the recommendations for garden sites, I saw this post.  The flowers were pretty, but the content - well, you read it and see what you think.   On a scale of bad to the worst, how would you rate this? (The change of color in the text is my doing.)

The flowers and their characteristics What's the most beautiful and significant than a flower? Through these wonderful vegetable beings we can communicate or manifest many moods, we can thank, love, hate, be happy, or to express a certain kind of sadness. Through the articles that make up this section, we will try to explain more specifically the composition of the flowers... We will explain the flowers par excellence like those of orchids, brightly colored and full of elegance and charm, the flowers of the mimosa, very near and dear to women, the flowers of the rose, perhaps the most loved and appreciated...as the daisy, a symbol of love and lots of other uncertainties....In addition to telling you and inform you of these wonderful flowers, we will happy to publish your eyes with beautiful and colorful pictures make it the idea of ​​this wonderful world.

What is your favorite grammar site?

If I didn't really like the contents, I would not recommend this site because the ads drive me crazy. But I am recommending it, so that means it is worth putting up with the ads (multiple versions of the same ad, in fact).

The site: Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
by Mignon Fogarty

There are podcasts, a free newsletter, posts, and videos. Here are a few examples:


Grammar Girl's Top 10 Language Myths
by Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) at Grammar: Quick and Dirty Tips.
Grammar is often a dry subject, but Grammar Girl makes it interesting. Here's one of the myths she debunks:

When I retire, I am going to be brain surgeon, Part 2

 Please read Part 1 first.

Writing isn't brain surgery, but it's hard work
By Elizabeth Floyd Mair | Albany Times Union
published at the Montreal Gazette

I found this comment in the "Brain Surgeon" article described in Part 1:

[Author Marion Roach Smith] ....recommends ... seeing what happens if you write about big events obliquely, looking at them sidelong rather than straight on. She writes that, in most cases, she'd rather read an essay about dressing for a funeral than about sitting there listening to the eulogy.

I could write a full blog post on this comment (and I probably will some day very soon.) For that reason I started to omit it here, but it gives an interesting perspective for that brain surgeon or anyone that thinks that there is nothing much involved in writing.

Is good writing more than vivid pictures and a good writing style? 

Bear with me a minute.  I remember long ago someone read a scene I had written. She commented that she could have written a better description - which was true. My style is boring. I trip over my words. (Not good for a writer.) She could write very effective descriptions that made a scene come alive.  These were necessarily  flowery, detailed descriptions that people usually skip over. Her descriptions were clear and vivid. She was very good at it.  But that was all she could do. She created photographs.

When I retire, I'm going to become a brain surgeon

Part 1
Writing isn't brain surgery, but it's hard work
By Elizabeth Floyd Mair | Albany Times Union
published at the Montreal Gazette

Author Marion Roach Smith gets ticked off at dinner parties when brain surgeons ask what she does for a living and then say, "A writer! Wonderful! I'm going to write a book someday myself."

Recently, she says, she has taken to replying, "When I retire, I'm going to become a brain surgeon."

If you are a writer, what kind of reaction do you get from people?  Or what do you sense that people are thinking?  Please share your thoughts using the poll in the right column. You can check as many items as you like.  Even if you don't make your living by your writing (yet), answer the poll if you get reactions when you talk about your writing.

Further in the "brain surgery" article, I found this comment that stuck me as useful. It's a little off the subject and led to me a long post, so I decided to break the post into two separate post.

see Part 2.

Click here to read more of the Montreal Gazette story.

Oops, I'm Stuck

A Simple Trick to Boost Your Creativity

by Art Markman, Ph.D. at the Hoffington Post

I found this article from another post,Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: Adopt a different writing persona by Scott Myers at his Go Into The Story blog. I wanted to mention both posts to ensure that both authors get proper credit.

In the original post, Markman reviews research illustrating the construal level theory; this theory states "we think about things that are near to us in space or time in specific terms, but we think about things that are far from us in space or time in more abstract terms." When we are thinking abstractly, we are more free to let our imagination soar.

For example, when thinking about a trip you might take to Paris next summer, you might focus on how much fun it would be or how great it would be to sit in a café and watch the world go by. When thinking about a trip to Paris you are going to take next week, though, you focus on what you are going to wear, how you are going to exchange money and what you will do when you encounter Parisians who speak no English.

....[Researchers] Polman and Emich reason that if you are trying to think creatively, then generating some distance between you and the problem you are solving might enhance your creativity.

Creating distance is not just about time.

...pretend that you are being creative on behalf of someone else. That will help you think about the problem more abstractly and avoid simply repeating the solutions you already know about.

Jot it down

AdviceToWriters: Always Carry A Notebook

from WRITERLY WISDOM OF THE AGES/Collected by Jon Winokur

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea forever.

WILL SELF

One bright commenter, Common Superman, added this bit of wisdom to carry a notebook: "and a pen." More likely these days, you can use your smart phone or similar device, but the intent is the same.

Keeping the memory is not the only value. Even if you don't look at the notebook again, you will be developing a habit of paying attention to:

• what is around you.
• what creative ideas might be floating through your head.