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The 10 Types of Writers' Block (and How to Overcome Them) 25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer. When George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what the best training for an aspiring writer would be in a 1954 interview, Hem replied, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult.

25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer

Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.” Today, writing well is more important than ever. Far from being the province of a select few as it was in Hemingway’s day, writing is a daily occupation for all of us — in email, on blogs, and through social media. It is also a primary means for documenting, communicating, and refining our ideas. So what can we do to improve our writing short of hanging ourselves? 1. Don’t just plan to write—write. 2. Writers block.

Writing poetry

Writing Worth Reading. Locus Online Features: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction. From Locus Magazine, January 2009 We know that our readers are distracted and sometimes even overwhelmed by the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the Internet, but of course writers face the same glorious problem: the delirious world of information and communication and community that lurks behind your screen, one alt-tab away from your word-processor.

Locus Online Features: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

The single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from the Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn't help my writing. This advice was wrong creatively, professionally, artistically, and personally, but I know where the writer who doled it out was coming from. NANOWRIMO! Cure writer's block with writing prompts - writing tips character name generator. WriteSomething. Procrastinating Writers.

Resolve to Be a More Productive Writer (Happy New Year) Internet Resources - Writers Resources - Writing Links & Writers Links for Writers - Word Stuff. Unsorted [/writers] James Patrick Kelly - Murder Your Darlings - "When time comes to make that final revision, however, you must harden your heart, sharpen the ax and murder your darlings.

Internet Resources - Writers Resources - Writing Links & Writers Links for Writers - Word Stuff

" Greda Vaso - Determining the Readability of a Book - includes formulas for Gunning's Fog Index, Flesch Formula, Powers Sumner Kearl L. Kip Wheeler - Literary Terms and Definitions L. 5 Freewriting Secrets for Being a &Genius&. You've heard of freewriting, certainly. At its most basic, it's about forcing your internal editor to stay away while you splash your most raw and unusual thoughts onto the page. Five Creative Writing Projects You Can Do Today. These creative writing projects only require you to write based on your own experiences or the wondering and fantasies of your constantly working brain.

Five Creative Writing Projects You Can Do Today

Let’s check them out. Six Word Memoirs By far the easiest and most interesting short form writing site is Six Word Memoirs. Thirty Tools for Writers. [Author’s note: Of the many things I’ve written for the Poynter website, none has been as popular as my "Twenty Tools for Writers.

Thirty Tools for Writers

" This list has been quoted, cited, praised, debated, and repurposed by writers, editors, teachers, and other professionals who care about the craft. That folks find these tools useful gives me courage. So I’m adding ten more to my workbench, and sharpening up several others. As you can see, I’m very impressed with myself. Thirty writing tools requires a big workbench.

Writing tools

Fifty (50!) Tools which can help you in Writing. 7 FREE Tools for Writers. Unmissable articles on writing. Writers: How to Avoid Stagnation. A Guest Post by Meredith Resnick of The Writer’s [Inner] Journey When my kids were in middle school they got a lot of make-work for homework and classwork, stuff that kept them very busy but that steered them away from real creativity and by proxy, real learning.

Writers: How to Avoid Stagnation

This make-work gave the illusion that students were busy and oh so productive. Wrong. What they were really doing was chasing their tail—in other words: stagnating. Brainpickings.com. AdviceToWriters - Advice to Writers. Suite101.com: Online Magazine and Writers' Network. Henry Miller's 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine. After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from the prolific writer and painter Henry Miller (December 26, 1891–June 7, 1980) COMMANDMENTSWork on one thing at a time until finished.Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’Don’t be nervous.

Henry Miller's 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine

Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! When you can’t create you can work.Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.Don’t be a draught-horse! Under a part titled Daily Program, his routine also featured the following wonderful blueprint for productivity, inspiration, and mental health: MORNINGS: If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.If in fine fettle, write.AFTERNOONS:Work of section in hand, following plan of section scrupulously. HT Lists of Note. WRITING. 4 Ways to Add Caffeine to Your Story. After the release of The Doctor’s Lady, I’m beginning to realize readers are branding my stories as page-turners.

4 Ways to Add Caffeine to Your Story

I’m always flattered when a reader classifies one of my books that way. I like knowing readers had a hard time putting one of my books down (as opposed to being unable to pick it back up!). That doesn’t mean my books are better than another author whose voice and story is slower and more flowing. Because there are stories you savor and read languidly much the same way you sip a rich creamy mug of hot cocoa.

However, my stories are more like an iced coffee that you guzzle on a hot summer day. One reader, Christy Janes said this about The Doctor’s Lady: “Wagon train stories are not my thing as there are usually several portions that lag and I find my attention drifting. Another reader, Jill Kemerer said: “I had no idea this (The Doctor’s Lady) was going to be such an adventure. Not every writer will want or need to have an iced-coffee story. 1. 2. 3. 4. Academic Coaching & Writing.

Feb 07, 2011 by Caroline Eisner To become a good writer in your field or discipline, as Ken Hyland writes, is to pay close attention to your audience.

Academic Coaching & Writing

Think about your rhetorical purpose and the academic standards of the genre in which you are writing. Are you clear about how to meet the expectations of your audience, to explain the purpose of why you are writing, and to both meet the needs of your audience and your purpose within the genre you are writing? When thinking about your academic audience, remember that academic writing is devoted to topics and questions that are of interest to this audience.

You must find a topic or a question that is relevant and appropriate to this audience. Outlines: channeling your writing flow. Outlines are an old-fashioned but very useful tool of writing. Unfortunately, they are nowadays somewhat out of fashion, replaced by “spontaneous writing”, encouraging writers to go with the flow rather than to follow a pre-defined structure. Though I practice and recommend “spontaneous writing” as a way to overcome “the writer’s block”, I have recently re-assessed the indispensable role of outlines in producing good writing. Why do we need writing outlines? Because the old truth that we cannot simultaneously something and also applies to writing. Normally you cannot write and decide to write about (not only in your text in general, but also in a particular section or paragraph).

I usually prepare an outline for any substantial (i.e. more than a couple of paragraphs) piece of writing that requires any prior thought. The book “ Professors as writers ” changed the way I view and use outlines.

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Review/Art; 'Andy Warhol, Cars': Last Works of the Artist. ''Andy Warhol, Cars,'' an exhibition that opens today at the Solomon R.

Review/Art; 'Andy Warhol, Cars': Last Works of the Artist

Guggenheim Museum, is an unusually seamless instance of corporate sponsorship. The 47 paintings and drawings in this show constitute a series commissioned by Daimler-Benz, the West German car manufacturer, to celebrate 100 years of automotive design using images of Daimler-Benz cars. What's more, the Guggenheim stop of this exhibition, which originated at the Kunsthalle Tubingen in West Germany, has been sponsored by Daimler-Benz. How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One (9780061840548): Stanley Fish.