Blogs about: Writing

It’s rumored that Ernest Hemingway considered his best work a simple six-word quip: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Clever, huh? Few of us will match his greatness, but that doesn’t stop us. Writing — like all forms of communicating — is a universal urge. We write because we must, even if it hurts.

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Don’t Hold on to Old Raisins
The HeSo Project

“What happens to a dream deferred?” Langston Hughes‘ iconic words have stuck with me since I first read this poem in high school. I thought about his question the other day, when an acquaintance of mine was telling me that she decided to give up on her dreams. Normally my first reaction would be to say, “noooo,” but instead I just listened. “I feel guilty giving up because this has been my dream since I was a little girl,” she said to me. “But I have so many other things I want to pursue now.” I thought for a moment then asked, “When was the last time this was still your dream?” She laughed. “Probably back when I was a little girl.” In that moment I realized that we do not betray our dreams by pursuing something different, we betray our dreams when we ignore ourselves and forget to ask, “Hey, I’ve grown, I’ve changed, have my dreams changed too?” We are not the same person we were ten,

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Beat Generation Rollover of 1965
Crows Dream

It’s one of the lesser cosmic mysteries but still an interesting one. When did the San Francisco Beat Generation disappear? Beat G was going strong in 1963. That was self-evident. By 1967, the hippie counterculture movement was everywhere in the City and the Beats were gone. So, when did this rollover really happen? It wasn’t a light-switch deal. But it also wasn’t a slow morphing. The change was farily swift by usual social standards, and the Beats were forever scattered, absorbed, whatever. Many of us geezers who are still around like to think of 1965 as the year the world changed. In fact, we can even pinpoint the month and the day. It was Friday, December 3, 1965. The event was Bob Dylan’s San Francisco press conference at the KQED studio just prior to his five concert tour of the Bay Area. Well, maybe this is a bit too precise for anal-retentive historians. But many of my fellow geezers will tell you that Dylan’s press conference was an hour of transi

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The Lateness and Sorry-ness, and … … … Other-ness?
Josh Blogs

Well, this HAS been a while now hasn’t it… How does one blog again? Well I suppose you start by writing stuffs. So here is me writing stuffs…. Actually I suppose I do know where to begin… With an apology…. That I haven’t writting or blogged or blooged for that matter in a long time! I have been VERY busy though! I promise! Two weeks ago was the start of my directorial career (And acting career but more about that soon) making the upcoming web series InterLife! Written and directed by yours truly, InterLife is a cool Youtube series coming out soon! Oh… Just to prove I wasn’t lying, here is some behind the scenes! So yeah, Like i said… NOT LYING! But yeah… Expect to hear more about this amazing, and wonderful, and awe-inspiring, and other good adjectives that make you want to watch it more, web series!  

Environment/Nature/Wilderness Quotes
Reflections On The Outdoors Naturally

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth … the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see. — Edward Abbey (controversial American writer and naturalist) A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself. — Edward Abbey (controversial American writer and naturalist) The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone — and to no one. — Edward Abbey (controversial American writer and naturalist) Why wilderness? Because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger. – Edward Abbey, Beyond the Wall We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there…. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope. – Edward Abbey We who are ga

Amazing Archives
Bluestocking in the Broads

James I seal on Raleigh’s trial record The fun part of writing a novel is doing the research. Much my novel is inspired by long walks around London and Kent, and from reading biographies of Christopher Marlowe, the Lords of Cobham Hall, and Charles Dickens. I was thrilled last week to do some first hand research, at the National Archives in Kew. And what an amazing institution it is. My heroine is an historian and poet, uncovering secrets that date back to the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of Thomas Beckett’s tomb in Canterbury Cathedral (see the preface here). At one point she has to go to the National Archives, to consult the historical records of the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh for treason, in 1603. (Trust me – it all fits together in the end). I’d read a translation of the trial record online, but what does the actual court document look like? How do you get to see documents at Kew? I thought I’d better find out. To my astonishment

Emerald Isle Fantasies
Rea Thomas

Several of my gorgeous writing friends and I have been working – for over a year now – on a series of sexy paranormal books set in Ireland. The stories feature a whole range of paranormal creatures from ghosts to werewolves to vampires, selkies and witches – and all are set in the beautiful, mystical backdrop of an ancient castle turned hotel.  I am delighted to tell you that these books are nearing publication, with many already given their up and coming release dates. To give you a little teaser, here are some super-sexy covers for you to look at. There will be plenty of blog posts later as each book releases – hopefully with a little interview with the author.  Join me in congratulating my very hardworking and talented friends in their new books.                                                                               

Hardest part of writing
itsyouandeverything

In one of my previous posts I talked about the First Stage of Writing. Today, I want to talk to you about the editing process. The editing process is, for me, by far, the hardest part of writing. The reason is very simple. I am a perfectionist, and whenever I re-read something I have written, well, I end up changing it completely. The structure, the grammar, the vocabulary, everything changes when you are editing.Even some parts of the story change completely.  And it so hard, to re-read and re-write everything. But it is a process every writer must go through. You will never be able to sell your first draft, no matter how good you are. Only if you edit your text thoroughly , you will be able to find someone to publish your book. That is why this summer my goal is to edit every single short story I have written. I hope I will manage to do that, although it will be tough, and tiring. What are your writing goals for this summer? (Finishing a First Draft, an outline, or editing your writi

Kodama – a String City micro-story
Graham Edwards

Last summer, I live-tweeted a piece of micro-fiction called Kodama. It’s an ultra-condensed story set in the twisted world of String City. The Twitter account I used to broadcast the story – @stringcitizen – never picked up many followers so I’ve collated all the tweets and run them together here as a single narrative. There are plenty of folk out there experimenting with Twitter fiction. One of my favourites is @jeffnoon. Kodama was my first attempt at presenting a coherent story in bite-sized chunks, and I’m not really sure how effective it is, especially having lost its ‘live broadcast’ gimmick. It may also too much on familiarity with the String City universe – which is a weird place at the best of times. If you think it works, let me know with a comment below. And don’t hold back if you think the story stinks – I can take it. Kodama 3.01pm Isembard Farthing’s in the office. String City’s shadiest lawyer. Hired

Tip Six
gossip and solitude

I need to be more consistent, more focused on following through with a theme until I’ve exhausted everything I know to say about it. But then, things come up. Interesting things that catch my fancy like beautiful sunrises on the beach, orangey pink flamingoes at Zoo Atlanta, classes to teach, and marvelous books. About the latter, have you ever read Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train? I know, I know. Those are all just excuses. This time I’m going to follow through with the writing tips that I began a couple of weeks ago. I’m not a writer of any renown. No fame and fortune have come my way. Still, that doesn’t mean that my tips aren’t beneficial. They’re all either borrowed from the pen (or computer) of a famous writer, picked up from members of my writing group, or learned from personal experience. Since it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted the last tip, here’s a brief recap of the first five: Read. Good readers make good writers. To quote Stephen King, “Can I be blunt on

Life in the Fast Lane
Kids, Coffee & Chaos

Time flies when you are busy with all kinds of crap! It’s hard to believe that it is summer already and we’re in the middle of the sixth month of the year. There have been all sorts of things going on around here, from successes to more illness. I am hoping the warm weather and the sunshine put an end to all this nasty germs. The oldest finished her year of first grade by winning all the awards except attendance. She won the President’s Physical Fitness award, made High Honor Roll for the entire school year, made her Marathon Reader goal, and made her AR reading goals for the entire year. I am so proud of her hard work for all her accomplishments for this year! Middle child finished her second year of preschool. She goes back for one more year before she begins kindergarten. I sometimes worry that another year of preschool and then kindergarten will bore her to pieces because she is so smart already, but I fear her social skills need the extra time to develop before s

What’s the sexiest thing about erotica?
One Handed Writers

I love erotica.  I love writing it, I love reading it, I love talking about it.  For a genre that rotates around one central theme, there’s a lot of variety out there, and although I’m not into absolutely everything, I can usually find something I like about almost any story.  It took me some time to realize, however, just what I find most arousing about erotica. For me, it depends.  There are several different things that have touched me at one time or another, and just because a writer does one thing well, that doesn’t necessarily translate to every aspect of a work.  Thus there have been times when an otherwise forgettable title sticks with me for a while simply due to one or two standout touches. Let’s start with perhaps the one thing that ties all erotica titles together, regardless of genre: the “dirty parts”.  Sometimes the actual description of the sex act itself is the most arousing part of a story.  You know, the play-by-play. telling us how so-and-so grasps his or her lover,

Wedding to Remember Part 3
A Simple Wordsmith

  Raising his head like it was a lead balloon he looked up. He caught sight of the bus driver who had stopped and pulled the bus over, because he was laughing so hard at the sight of him laying on the floor. Not only him but the all the occupants who had happened to be on the bus were also laughing at his misfortune. “ Hey do you need a hand up? I take credit cards!” shouted the driver He didn’t bother responding, what was the point. He was running late and needed to get to town as quickly as possible. He dusted himself off and rushed off making it to a machine, so he could withdraw some money. Having done that he hailed a cab down. It was the more expensive option but right now he needed speed and to hell with the cost. “ Where too mate?” said the cab driver “Town and make it quick” he replied back Patting down his pockets he just realised that he had not picked up his phone and was not wearing a watch. God knows what time it was, but he didn’t want to be late to his special day.

Mo’ Money
Harold's Garden

One of the challenges when you begin with EA is figuring out how to increase the dividends that you pay each night to your investors. Higher divs will increase your share price and status. Dividends attempt to measure Social Media effectiveness. Think of Dividends a bit like EA’s answer to your Klout score. The three factors that EA considers in evaluating each network are Reach (how many are in your network), Activity (how much you do on the network), Response (how many retweets, likes, comments…your activity gets). The recent changes to EA have made Response more important and Activity less important. You still have to be active, but a few high quality posts that provoke many reactions will score better than many posts that get no replies.  Since EA evaluates activity on every network that you have attached, you should attach as many as possible. Try creating a new account or two. You might even find one that you particularly enjoy. Finally know that time will help grow y

How to Improve Literacy Skills in the ESL Classroom (Part 3)
So You Think You Can Teach ESL?

The “Four Blocks” to improving literacy. My last post discussed how to help improve oral fluency. Your students should be able to speak well enough to have a semi-natural conversation with you. Of course, some students will be better than others at speaking a second language, but there’s always room for improvement. The students who are naturally better are great helpers for those who aren’t as conversational. When you figure out who the more conversational speakers are in your class, use them to help translate for the lower level students. The key thing to remember when helping students improve their oral fluency, is time; developing conversational skills in a second language is not easy, and it won’t happen over night. Most of the time, it will take months if not years for students to speak somewhat conversationally. Don’t get discouraged because the progress is slow, and don’t let your students get discouraged, either. With that being said,

Thanking the stars
Tales From Baggins Bottom

On Monday night it took me nearly 3 hours just to open the post. Straight away I was able to get rid of 3 piles. 1. straight in the rubbish; 2. straight in the recycle bin; 3. shredded and then into the recycle bin. The shredded pile took the remainder of the 3rd hour and filled 4 shredder bins or 1 dustbin liner. I was able to dispatch a 4th pile pretty much straight away too, into an envelope and off to someone else, while pile no 5 went straight into the filing folder. That left pile no 6 for “reading later”, and pile no 7 for “dealing with NOW”. That was the urgent stuff I was looking for. I’ve never had so many piles … It was quite traumatic, I must admit. But it was nice to get my 2 mailing trays back (in and out) and the now-vanished pile of post was good Feng Shui. I really, really need to get into the habit of touching the post just once – whether that means shredding or binning or recycling it straight away or, heaven forbid, actually

Kill the house lights
mandycollinswriter

I’ve been thinking  a lot about audiences recently – not the sort you find in a theatre, but a more general concept of audience: the kind that responds to whatever it is you put out there for public consumption. One of the things I teach my writing students is always to consider their audience, and it’s a very useful tool in transactional writing. But I’ve started wondering recently whether it’s such a good idea to consider your audience when involved with creative pursuits. When I think back on my creative writing history – which includes poetry and songwriting many moons ago, and recently, my first novel – I realise that considering my audience has severely hamstrung me. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I recently wrote my first song after a 14 year hiatus. Part of that was a sense of loss after my songwriting buddy died of cancer. Most of it, however,  was the result of me thinking about the kind of songs I’d like to wri

W Hotels of New York Present ROOM + BOARDS: Cope2
WHAT YOU WRITE .COM

W hotels of New York, in collaboration with STOKED.org present “W Room and Boards”, a charity project inspired by New York City culture. Legendary street artist, Cope2, is one of five artists/designers who have created skateboards inspired by New York’s endless energy and their own personal New York experiences. Cope2 sprayed his board from the rooftop of W New York – Union Square, inspired by the 25th floor views of downtown Manhattan.