Elizabeth Beechwood shows how to create animal characters on her Blog, “When I write, strange things happen.” Here’s an excerpt: Anyone who knows me knows that I love animals. When I was a kid, I was always bringing home stray dogs and baby birds. After I got married, my husband had to deal with opossums in the backyard, baby goats running through the kitchen, and let’s not forget the epic night he came home to find a loon in the bathtub! It seemed natural, then, that when I began to write, I included animal characters in my stories. I quickly realized, however, that writing from an animal’s perspective had its own particular challenges, whether my characters were cats or pigeons or griffins or giant moths. I discovered that, by focusing on four main elements, I could portray all sorts of animals – from the realistic wolf surviving in the cold north…
You can build a career as an author. — David Sedaris
You can build a career as an author by playing to your strengths, following your true passion, going at your own pace and never shying away from your unique voice. — David Sedaris Writers Digest Magazine, October 2013
Things you fear. Prompt #47
Make a list of things you fear or have feared. Using items from your list, write a story, poem or essay.
What is the point of your essay?
“Personal essays represent what you think, what you feel . . . your effort to communicate those thoughts and feelings to others . . . What is the point of your essay? Don’t belabor the point too much; let the point grow out of the experience of the essay. It might be true, in fact, that you didn’t even have a point to make when you started writing your essay. Go ahead and write it and see if a point develops.” — Essay.Grammar.com
Yellow Submarine – Prompt #46
The Beatles were a hit sensation on the Ed Sullivan show 50 years ago, 1964. Write about The Beatles, a band you like, a catchy tune, 50 years ago, 50 years from now or 1964. Or write about Yellow Submarine.
Emerging Voices wanted — Florida Review
“The Florida Review wants emerging voices to transport editors and readers.” —January 2014 issue of The Writer Magazine. ” Our artistic mission is to publish the best poetry and prose written by the world’s most exciting emerging and established writers.” 2014 Editors’ Awards submissions accepted until Monday, March 17, 2014 Sonoma County author, Stephanie Freele, was published in the summer 2011 issue of The Florida Review.
Guest Blogger Marie Judson-Rosier writes about Fantasy Fiction as an Ancient Way of Mythmaking.
Guest Blogger Marie Judson-Rosier writes about Fantasy Fiction as an Ancient Way of Mythmaking. Clarissa Pinkola Estes invites our voices: “We have a reason for being. Blow away the over-culture that says we weren’t longed for,” (heard at a Mysterium workshop with Dr. Estes). Many of us do not think our words are awaited or even welcome. We have to deconstruct messages we absorbed subliminally through our early lives just to allow ourselves to be creative. There’s an invisible hand at our ankle, holding us back. One of the most common blocks to taking our writer selves seriously is our need to extricate ourselves from a sense of judgment, believing that our contribution is not worthwhile. The doubt of our personal voice runs deep. Many if not most of us are acculturated to believe that true authority lies with someone else. Yet we crave creative expression. We owe it to…
Dispute the thoughts that don’t serve you.
Listen closely to yourself and dispute the thoughts that don’t serve you – even if those are true. For example, you might think, “Writing a novel is hard. Selling a novel is hard.” Yes, both thoughts are true, but they don’t serve you. The only thought that serves you is, “I’m off to write a novel.” — Eric Maisel, January 2014 issue of The Writer magazine.
Essence of you. Prompt #45
Step 1. Make a list of significant events that have happened in your life. Start with the year you were born . You can list important dates such as the year you graduated, got married, started jobs, vacations. Also, list emotional highs and lows: betrayals, losses, inspirations, revelations, epiphanies. Step 2. Choose specific years from this list and research historical events that happened during those years. Step 3. From your lists: Choose an event that you think people would want to know more about. Or, choose events that capture the essence of you. Step 4: Write about the event. Include specific details and use anecdotes.* Tie in your personal events with historical events. For example: My junior high friends and I swiveled on cherry-red stools at Woolworth’s in 1962 in San Francisco, not realizing that folks with certain colored skin were not allowed the same privileges in other parts of the…
We read and write personal essays for the same reasons. — Barbara Abercrombie
“We read personal essays to understand our lives, to find humor, to discover a new way of looking at the world. We write them for the same reasons. the short personal essay (about 500 to 1200 words) is your journey through a specific experience, whether commonplace or one of life’s milestones, and ranges from the personal to something more universal, something your readers can connect with.” — Barbara Abercrombie, “On Writing Personal Essays,” The Writer, January 2003.