Month: April 2015

Writing Challenge Update–And Some Writerly Links

inspirationToday is day 16 of the 30-day writing challenge. We’re over half-way to our goal, and it’s feeling pretty good. Have I written every day? All but one, when a migraine flattened me, and I there was no way I could face the page. The other days I managed to pound out some words on my new project–some days more than others–but I’ve made steady progress. My focus is to write every day, not to worry about word or page count, but to get something written every day that will get me closer to my goal. I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, and look forward to the next two weeks.

On the way, I’ve found some blog posts to pass along to my fellow writers to help keep them (and me!) focused on writing every day. Here are three of them. Hope they help you on your writing road, too.

How to Always have a Bagful of Exciting Writing Ideas  by Tal Valante

“Whether you write a blog, fiction, or non-fiction, inspiration is all around you. Here are some ways to make your daily life an endless source of writing ideas.”
http://writetodone.com/always-bagful-exciting-writing-ideas/

Mastering Mood-Dependent  Writing Stages by Kristi Holl (This one was particularly timely for me during the writing challenge.)

“… I found a chapter in The Write Type by Karen E. Peterson very encouraging. The author said that not all the stages of producing a story or book involve heavy-duty creative thinking. If you’re not feeling the best some days, use that time for a writing job that requires less energy–but still has to be done sometime.” http://kristiholl.net/writers-blog/2015/04/mastering-mood-dependent-writing-stages/

Anne Lamott on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity by Maria Popova

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.” http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/22/bird-by-bird-anne-lamott/

Good luck with your own writing challenges, and I wish you every success in reaching your goals!

 

Writing Prompts for April 2015

Hoping to see these in my garden soon.
Hoping to see these in my garden soon.

Okay, better late than never. Here are the writing prompts for April. Enjoy!

1. Use one, some, or all of these words in a story or poem:

  • bowl, blue, bicycle, branch, break
  • time, book, window, sword, lane, tree

2. See where one of these opening sentences leads you.

  • You should enter the contest.
  • Snow in April? No thanks!
  • Branches, black with rain, beat against the window.
  • Sam’s car raced around the corner.
  • I loved the sound of birds singing in the trees. Today, at 5 a.m.–not so much.
  • There was no need to get close to the man to see if he were dead. I’d had too much experience to be wrong now.
  • A red light flashing on the control panel wasn’t usually a major problem. This time, it was different.
  • Josie looked different today.

3. Here are some titles to play with: Broken, Spring Promise, Murder on Wednesday, The April Fool, Through the Window, Dog’s Day, Sadly Ever After.

4. What scenes can you image with these lines of dialogue?

  • Look out!
  • What’s your problem?
  • It’s not my problem, but it will be yours if you run into that.

 

  • Have you told Jim,yet?
  • No.
  • Why not?
  • I’m not sure that he needs to know.

 

  • Well, that’s the last time I do that.
  • How can you be so sure?

 

  • Hey, that’s mine!
  • Can you prove it?

 

  • I quit!
  • What’s the matter?
  • Look. It’s a mess.
  • You have a point.

5. Spring seems to be taking its sweet time showing up where I live. It was a long and hard winter, and, certainly, other parts of Canada had it a lot worse. Nonetheless, I’m impatient with how long it’s taking to finally have some warm days. What makes you impatient? Especially something over which you have no control. How do you cope? How does your character cope with impatience?

6. Negative thoughts can sometimes be the only ones you hear. Kick them aside for a while and write a list of 10 things about yourself that you like or are proud of. Do the same for your family and your characters.

Have a writerly month, and if you want a boost to your productivity, don’t forget about the 30-day writing challenge starting on Tuesday.

 

 

 

30-Day Writing Challenge Starting April 7

IMG-20130709-00210If you’re looking for a way to get your writing back on track, I’m running a writing challenge for 30 days on my Facebook author page. Participants don’t have to do anything more than post “I did my writing today” or words to that effect in the comments of my daily post. Join me and other writers who want to get back to writing every day and need a little boost to keep going. I’ve participated in similar challenges before. Having someone waiting to hear that I’ve done my daily writing has been an effective incentive to help me reach my goal.

My role is cheerleader–and some days, fellow sufferer–to help you stick to your daily writing by offering you a place to check in every day. You decide how much you want to write. Set a time limit or a page limit or just be glad that some days you wrote a couple of sentences. It’s the sticking with it that counts.

If you’re interested, just drop by https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Wright-Writer/336470796443870 to let me know you want to join the challenge on Tuesday. Love to have you on board!

And now, I need to get down to writing April’s writing prompts (a few days late), having been very distracted by the hacking of my writing prompts’ page for a ciallis ad. Yikes! Just a mild panic here, but my web host took care of it, so, back to work!

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