Tip #18 Embrace Imperfection Here’s something to consider. Osho, in his book on creativity, said: “Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect, effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying it.” This is really something …
Category Archive: Writing Tips
Play With Yourself
Tip # 17 Play with Yourself Anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of an athlete. However, that is not going to stop me from creating sports analogies. Many years ago, I took a couple of golf lessons with my dad. I still remember the most valuable lesson because it applies not only to …
New Year’s Resolution: READ
This tip isn’t just a New Year’s Resolution for me—but for everyone. Tip #16 READ I don’t know how anyone expects to write well if they don’t like reading. It baffles me. Yet, I know these people exist because I have met them. Some of them have taken my classes and admitted to not reading. …
Find a Writing Group
The next tip in our series is something to consider for the new year. If you aren’t already comfortable sharing your writing with others, this may be just the swift kick to get you moving. Tip #15 Share Your Work I’m a big fan of writing groups. If organized properly, they give budding writers support, …
Getting Help
Mentors, teachers and First Readers are very important in the writing process. So here is the next writing tip. Tip #14 Choose Your Teachers Carefully I once took a writing class from my favorite writer thinking it would be a dream come true. I can tell you, it was not. I held her in such …
Get Out!
As much as I love engaging with people online, sometimes getting out is the best way to help your writing. So here is the next writing tip, from me to you: Tip #13 Get Out One way to focus on the craft of writing without actually writing is to attend literary events. At such events, …
Expose Yourself
No, there is nothing indecent happening here; the blog is family-friendly. Here’s another writing tip from me to you. Tip #12: Expose Yourself Sometimes when my friend, the pastry chef, needs help icing two hundred cupcakes, she calls me because she knows I like to live vicariously through her (and I’m a whiz with a …
Keeping a Writing Journal
A bit of hiatus on the writing tips, but off we go again! I’d love to hear your tips and tricks for keeping your writing flowing. Tip #11: Keep a Journal I’ve kept a journal for nearly twenty years. I write down pleasant conversations, frustrations, dreams, secrets…everything. I’m a non-fiction writer (mostly) with a bad …
Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out
I know it’s not the sixties anymore. I wasn’t even around in the sixties so, unlike the people who were around and who never grow tired of talking about what it was like, I won’t focus on the sixties themselves but instead on the lesson I learned from listening to peoples’ sixties stories: Tip #10: …
Picking Other People’s Brains
Forget what your mother taught you about strangers: go talk to them! People-watching and talking to strangers is the next writing tip in my series. Tip #9: Talk to Strangers There are way more stories that you could possibly even dream of writing in one short lifetime. If you need inspiration, all you have to …
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