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Spring Into Action: 5 Tips to Jumpstart Your Creative Writing

Good news: Signs of spring are showing up almost everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere right now. Spring is a time of renewal and growth. It’s the perfect time to clean up, declutter, and refresh what’s gone stale sitting in a drawer or cupboard. If you’re serious about your writing (and I know you are!), here are 5 things you can do during the next 5 days to re-jumpstart your writing: 1. Collect all your writings in one place. That might be in one file drawer, in a 3-ring binder, or in one folder on your computer titled “My Creative Writing.” It’s important to know what you have so... [Read the rest of this article]

Video Post – Do You Doodle?

Do you doodle? Are you a simpleton? A fool? Perhaps you swindle or ridicule? Or maybe you’re a corrupt politician? Creative genius and visual entrepreneur Sunni Brown shares what it means to doodle in this 6 minute video. What does doodling have to do with writing? Watch the video, then continue reading below. What does doodling have to do with writing? As creative artists, writers need to practice “thinking” via various modalities. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then perhaps it’s a visual representation that’s the gateway to the words. Some ways doodling may lead... [Read the rest of this article]

Great Writers Read Aloud

Writers and bloggers, if you’re not reading your works aloud before publishing or posting them, you’ll never be a great writer. Your writer eyes are blind to seeing the flaws in whatever you write until you take it away from the computer and read it aloud. To edit your own work, do this: 1. Always print your works-in-process often. Author Anne Lamott says, “Don’t be afraid to kill a few trees. Just recycle.” (I turn the pages over and put them back through the printer so both sides are used.) 2. Read your writing with fresh eyes. Take it away from the computer. Change seats, go outside... [Read the rest of this article]

World Read Aloud Day: A Message for Writers and Readers

When I was growing up as a small tot, a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Hunt’s always meant read-aloud time. The first thing I did after taking off my coat, hat and mittens was run for the book basket, grab a favorite, then settle into the nest of Grandma’s lap. I never tired of the once upon a time stories. I may have selected Runaway Kitty, Tom and Jerry, Peter Pan or Heidi from the selection of children’s story books, GoldenBooks, cloth books, and board books. I wasn’t the only one who loved the books at Grandma and Grandpa’s. My cousins each had their favorites as... [Read the rest of this article]

Change Your World with Two Powerful Mindset Shifts

Today’s article comes to us from guest author Vicky White of Life Design Strategies. Is it time to step more fully into your power? Two of your divine feminine gifts will help you do just that. Here they are and you’ll find a powerful mindset shift to make for each. First: Owning your own authority. Instead of trusting ourselves, we’ve been conditioned to question our own judgment. This is a huge energy drain. When you trust yourself you don’t need to look outside of yourself for validation. When you do not trust yourself you start to question everything you do. You make... [Read the rest of this article]

LEAP Day 2012 – What Will You Do For You & Your Writing This Year?

It’s Leap Year! And that means you’ve been given the opportunity of an extra day to do something extra special for yourself and your writing. Four years ago, on Leap Day 2008, I hosted an all-day writing workshop/retreat. We used the acronym L.E.A.P. to leap (L.earn, E.xplore, A.ctivate, P.lan) our writing forward with a series of experiential exercises and activities. I called upon writers to follow my step-by-step process for mapping out their writing goals for the year. That one extra day in 2008 gave the writers who attended a mega-boost of inspiration and productivity. Not only did we... [Read the rest of this article]

Call for Submissions: Bylines Writer’s Desk Calendar 2013

“Bylines is for, by, and about writers,” reads the opening call for submissions for the 2013 edition of Bylines Writer’s Desk Calendar. More than a weekly calendar, this annual journal is full of inspiration, humor, and passion. There’s space for setting your writing goals and tracking them. The calendar includes logs, lists, and writer resources that help you record your writing milestones.  Associated with all 52 weeks of the year, writers share their joys, their aggravations, their fears and moments of triumph in succinct personal stories about the writing life. Every... [Read the rest of this article]

3 Easy Creativity Tips You Can Use Every Day

We welcome Guest Blogger Heather Bestel to Your Write Life. Heather shares her personal approach to stress free writing. Learn how to make your ideas come more easily and watch your creativity flow. From one writer to another, I’d like to offer you tools that have helped me be more creative and productive.  They are very simple techniques that you can use every day.  It’s something that I’ve been doing over the past twenty years and it has served me well. Step One ~ Every day I take just ten minutes at the beginning of the day to meditate. This involves me sitting quietly and focusing... [Read the rest of this article]

It’s True: I’m A Co-Author, The Gratitude Book Project: Celebrating 365 Days of Gratitude

It’s here!  As a proud co-author of The Gratitude Book Project: Celebrating 365 Days of Gratitude, I’m writing to share my appreciation and happiness for the opportunity to participate in The Gratitude Book Project® series. This book is full of inspirational stories and appreciation, not only for the things and people we sometimes take for granted, but for challenging circumstances and often less than desirable events. I have two entries in the book, and hope you enjoy them: - WHY THE SKY DESERVES OUR GRATITUDE - THE TYPING TEST  The Gratitude Book Project: Celebrating 365 Days of Gratitude... [Read the rest of this article]

FREE TELESEMINAR – Learn How To Write Your Personal Holiday Stories – FAST!

 The end of year holidays are fast approaching, and there’s a good chance you’ll soon be gathered with friends and family, sharing memories. Someone will say, “Remember when…” And next thing you know, you’ll be laughing, perhaps crying, over memories of holiday or family fun. What if you had a way to capture those memories easily? What would it mean to you to be able to share some of your personal memories with those who weren’t there? How would it feel to collect your personal holiday stories to leave as your legacy? Join me, Debra Marrs, The Write Your Story Coach, for... [Read the rest of this article]

Working Table of Contents – A Way to Organize Your Writing

Create a working table of contents (WTOC) for all your writings.  Think of the WTOC as an idea list.  The working table of contents lists not only the vignettes or articles you’ve written, but also the vignettes or articles you plan to write.  Use actual or working titles for each vignette, chapter, blog post idea or article. #  HOT TIP – Create a Working Table of Contents document in a table in your word processing software or use spreadsheet software, such as Excel. In your WTOC, next to the titles you’ve written, record the current word count.  Also, create a column to notate... [Read the rest of this article]

Anne Lamott’s Perfect Writing Space

I recently wrote about creating a space for your writing,  And I saved the BEST for this article because these are my personal faves. My Favorite Creative Writing Space Even though the desk is small, the feature I like about this space is the colorful clothesline draped  above the desk. A dozen years ago when I attended a writing workshop with famed author Anne Lamott (known for her awesome book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life), she shared how a similar clothesline effect keeps her work-in-process organized. She suggests hanging chapters of your manuscript above your writing... [Read the rest of this article]

A Creative Space for Your Writing

When I’m not writing, teaching writing or editing other people’s writing, you’ll most likely find me watching HGTV (House and Garden TV). I’m really not much of a do-it-yourselfer around the house but I get really, really inspired by all the wonderful decorative organizing ideas I see in magazines, on TV shows, and via blogs. Creating a writing space is much like writing itself. Start with what you have. Expand what you have with what you know. Ask for help when you don’t know what to do next. Do a little here and a bit more there; small steps lead to great results. The... [Read the rest of this article]

National Get Organized Week – 1st Week in October

National Get Organized Week is celebrated each year during the first full week of October–or at least it used to be. Started by the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) in 1992, Get Organized (GO) Week “was created to focus on the benefits of getting organized and the tools and techniques necessary to achieve that goal. This week is an opportunity to streamline your life, create more time, lower your stress and increase your profit. Simplify your situation and make it more manageable by taking advantage of this time to get organized.” Call me old school but I... [Read the rest of this article]

How Struggle Makes Your Writing Better

Whether you’re writing fiction or creative non-fiction (memoir or essays) your story will benefit from the use of struggle as part of the dramatic tension. There are three basic types of struggle: 1.  Man against self. 2.  Man against others. 3.  Man against nature. What creates tension is man’s struggle against any or all of these elements.  A writer uses some of all three, but maybe not all three at the same time, except toward the end when your protagonist (or narrator in memoir) has to fight against all the evils in order to win. The struggle in the early chapters ought to be more... [Read the rest of this article]

Writers: Reach Your Goals – Stop, Start, Keep Doing

Writers, are you aware of all the things that keep you from your goals? What will you stop doing, start doing, keep doing during the next 30 days? This is a question I ask my coaching clients at the end of every month. If you’re not taking time periodically to evaluate how you spend your time, then you’re probably stuck on autopilot, doing the same things you did last week, last month, or even last year without thinking about them. It’s not as simple as 1-2-3, what do you stop doing. I encourage you to go deeper than that and look at what you’re already doing really well.... [Read the rest of this article]

Before You Write, Declutter!

Have you ever noticed that clutter of any kind, whether physical, emotional, or mental, shouts out, “Hey, do me… don’t forget about… me… what about me?” Clutter is stuck energy.  Clear your clutter and you will remove stagnant energy, free up space, and open up the channels to your creativity. Clutter is defined as anything: unfinished unused unresolved tolerated disorganized When we begin a weekly decluttering regimen, we begin to clear out the old and make room for the new.  We cast off old projects, broken promises, and forgotten sidetracks.  We get rid of what we’ve been... [Read the rest of this article]

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