writer | coach | consultant
Can you spare five minutes? Great! Five minutes a day, that is what this exercise requires. Five minutes to help you with your writing. To help developing new ideas. To jot down a fleeting thought that someday might grow to become a plot. To help overcoming the menacing ... (*whispers*) Writer's Block. Productivity for Writers… Continue reading The 5 Minutes Writing Exercise
You haven't? Well, neither have I, especially when it comes to English. So, here's another Ted-Ed video, one of a series of Ted-Ed lessons on how to "Perfect your punctuation". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnl1O3NGJk
Usually, I am rather confident about my grammar and spelling skills. But it seems, particularly as a bilingual writer, there is always - ALWAYS - something left for me to learn. And since I figure that I am not the only one: Here is a simple example sentence by Noemi Tasarra-Twigg on freelancewritinggigs.com: I had… Continue reading A Handy Guide to Punctuation Marks
If one works as a ghostwriter or writing mentor (like yours truly), you often get to hear a question - something along the lines of: "I want to tell a story/write about [insert writing topic here] - but would a publisher be interested in that? And if yes: Which publisher?" Ghostwriting and the Search for… Continue reading “Would a Publisher be interested in the Subject of my Manuscript?” Well, let’s have a look …
A TEDx Talk by Nathan Filer ... which reminds me: I DO have some writing to do 😉 So I guess I leave you with this for now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQGa6grfeE
Writing a great dialogue is not that easy! I am not even sure if there is a method (as in a formula one could learn) of how to do this. Granted, there are quite a few writing-related skills and qualities (grammar, structure, plotting devices ...) you can learn from books and courses. But I think,… Continue reading Writers: Do your Dialogues sound natural?
If you like this video, take a closer look at TED-Ed here ... https://youtu.be/j0_u-lourd0
...sometimes it also matters where you place them! "She told him that she loved him." You might want to have a look at this suggestestion from "The Writer's Circle" - it is a great exercise, especially for writers! 🙂
Imagine you are the chef and owner of a rather decent restaurant. One day, you read a post by somebody who is looking for a good meal, a special multi-course meal. This somebody, they have a rough idea about what they want to eat, they even have drafted a recipe but need a pro to… Continue reading All within Reason (aka “The Ripoff-Artist”)
Darren Rowse from Chris Guillebeau on Vimeo.
A great and simple method to test and visualize the tension curve of your novel: Rising Tension.
...and she has written it down over at "Authors Publish", one of my recently discovered "haunts". And in case you are wondering... yes, it seems they accept submissions as well.
What does the fabric consist of that makes a good writer? I daresay, one ingredient is the love of language. Having said that, I really like this article and the way the writer defines (and finds) poetry…
About 15 years ago, as I worked on the final stages of my dissertation, I often got stuck (as people working on dissertations tend to). Sometimes days would pass without my producing anything. But eventually, I would remember my foolproof method for getting unstuck: reading and writing poetry.
Let me note for clarification that poetry had nothing to do with my dissertation subject. I wrote a very social-sciency study of students in a freshman composition class. From a semester of observing, reading papers, and interviewing students, I crafted a set of case studies trying to explain why some of the students gained more than others. My final product reads way more like anthropology than it does like Nikki Giovanni.
Nevertheless, I turned to poetry while I wrote, as I have turned to it many times before and since. And wherever I see brilliance in writing, I find elements of the…
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Hmmm... so an organisation/company/private person establishes a writing contest. And offers prize money. YAY! BUT... in order to participate, you need to pay a participation fee. This seems to have developed into a rather common practice nowadays. Now... ...is this a legitimate way to finance the contest? ...or is this just another way of getting money… Continue reading (Writing) Contests and Participating Fees
I have a confession to make: I can sometimes be verrrrrrrrrrrry slow about my writing. Often... I mean, I find myself in total awe when reading about the supposedly typical working day of other writers, who can write for hours and hours and somehow manage to produce content that is thousands of words worth -… Continue reading The One-Sentence-a-Day-Strategy
a.k.a. "Why No One’s Reading Your Marketing Content" by Jayson DeMers, published by HBR.org So - you've written a great text (and maybe it is even SEO-optimized). But what else can you do to get more people to actually read it? How can you improve the distribution of your content? Well, you might get a… Continue reading Connecting your (Marketing) Content with the right Audience
I found this a while ago on FB and can not seem to find the original FB-poster, or otherwise I'd at least tip my hat to them. Anyway, this is about a very easy idea/way to structure your story: Enter... the Storysaurus! According to blogger Jamie Harrington it is "a dinosaur with spikes on his… Continue reading The “Storysaurus”
...by Kate Messner This is part of the reason why I am (still) on Facebook... not to post selfies, not to tell people that I am bored/sick/hungry/tired... but to find stuff like this in my news feed. *smiles* You can check out their website here.
I looooove what I have just found on Darren Rowse's Problogger website: How to Beat Your Competition Online by Trying this One Thing It is marked as a "guest contribution" - so kudos to whoever you may be! 🙂 Aaaaaaaaaaand: I think I should go now and see about some additional visual content...
susa(nne) wagner 