My Passion's Pen

Helping to polish what your passion pens.

Archive for the tag “Writing”

27 Jul 2018

The First Book: Six Lessons from a Debut Author

Here are my favorite of the 6:

TIP #4: FEELINGS SCHMEELINGS!

Your work ethic should have nothing to do with how you feel, or whatever else is going on in your life. Feelings come and go. Situations change. You work ethic, however, is a constant because it is an attitude. A good work ethic is one that commits you to a realistic routine suited to your goals and situation. …

TIP #5: WAITING TIME IS WASTED TIME

Don’t have time to write? Waiting for inspiration – or an ideal situation? Well, as the saying goes, time is not something that you have – it’s something that you make. Likewise, situations don’t write – people do. …

TIP #6: CONFIDENCE IS A VERB

Like time, confidence is not necessarily something that you have. To avoid crippling self-doubt, pretend confidence is a verb – something that you do. Understand that confidence doesn’t come from self-regard (that’s arrogance). It comes from showing yourself what you’re capable of by trying things. Hence the age-old advice: ‘Fake it till you make it.’ …

Try again. Fail again. Fail better. –Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett

Read all of the tips here:

https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2018/06/12/the-first-book-six-lessons-from-a-debut-author/

Posted in Blog and tagged Advice, authenticity, creative life, publishing, quality, Writing, writing craft, writing life, writing tips | Leave a comment

21 Jul 2014

Don’t Fake It—Learn the Craft

If you want to write a novel or other fiction, learn the craft. Don’t fake it. You can learn how to write, learn the rules and the elements of fiction.

via Don’t Fake It—Learn the Craft.

Posted in Blog, indie publishing, Refining Your Story, Storytelling, Style and tagged Advice, craft, fiction, quality, rules, Writing | Leave a comment

01 Jul 2014

Description—How to Make Readers Fall In & Never Escape

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Sidewalk chalk art near Regent’s Canal in London.

Today we’re going to address a topic that—GASP—I don’t believe we’ve ever covered in almost 800 blogs. Namely because it is a tricky one to address. We’re going to talk about description. For those who never use description or very sparse description? Don’t fret. That’s just your voice. Readers like me who looooove description will probably gravitate to other books and that is OKAY.

Personally, I’m not a fan of austere modern houses with stainless steel everything and weird chairs no human could sit in and most cats would avoid, but? There are plenty of people who dig it. I also don’t like a lot of knick-knacks and clutter. Makes me want to start cleaning.

Same with books. Not too little or too much. Yeah, I’m Literary Goldilocks.

Plain fact? We can’t please everyone. Description (or lack thereof) is a component of…

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Posted in Blog, Character Development, How-Tos / Writers Toolbox, Storytelling, Style and tagged description, revision, Writing | Leave a comment

13 Jun 2014

Revise vs Edit

http://thatbooksmell.tumblr.com/image/88693892455

Posted in How-Tos / Writers Toolbox, Refining Your Story and tagged edit, revise, Writing | Leave a comment

13 Jun 2014

35 Links To Help You Research Your Novel

This is a super handy list. Thanks, Darla!

Darla G. Denton

For some writers, research is a nasty 8 letter word that should not be uttered in their presence.

For others, research is one of the most exciting parts of writing a book.

For most, whether you like to do research or not, it can drain hours of your writing time leaving you to wonder if you are ever going to get some actual writing done.

What does it mean to “research a book”?

There are a hundred different ways to answer that question with even more methods to do it in. Researching a book is basically taking the time to learn about:

A place/location you are writing about
A period in time you are writing about
A culture you are writing about

It can be as simple as:

Looking up the location on the internet to get a basic idea or traveling to that location to get a real sense of the…

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Posted in Blog, How-Tos / Writers Toolbox, Refining Your Story and tagged helpful links, research, resources, Writing | Leave a comment

13 Jun 2014

Sentence clauses and where to put the comma. With gratuitous nudity.

Eric the Gray

Warning: The naked monster in this picture has nothing to do with the content below and is therefore gratuitous.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to think up an enticing blog post title when your topic is sentence clauses? That’s about as unsexy a thing as can be discussed. My other options were Full Frontal Commas and When Punctuation Marks Hook Up, but I ultimately decided “sentences clauses” and “comma” both belonged because the union of those two language elements is what we’re talking about today.

I’m willing to bet that when writers express worry about their punctuation skills, their chief grief is commas. Like, when to use one and where to put it (by the way, if you block out the rest of this post, you have to admit what I just wrote could be sexy). Today I shall discuss one aspect of comma…

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Posted in Blog, Grammar, How-Tos / Writers Toolbox, Style, Words and tagged commas, grammar, punctuation, Writing | Leave a comment

28 Apr 2014

The Hidden EVIL of Flashbacks

I’m especially loving these latest posts, it’s as if Kristen is speaking directly to my present struggles. Excellent advice, as always.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

So you want to be a writer. Okay. I’ll be blunt because that’s my superpower. Check your conscience at the ~~door~~ keyboard. Writers are not civilized humans. In fact, we are the opposite. We are the reptilian brain to the power of a million. We probe and prod and poke the weak places. Great storytellers are nothing short of sadists. We take a perfectly empathetic/likable person, toss their life in a Vita-Mix and blend, churning that mixture from Level 1-1000.

That is called conflict.

Stories are about people with problems to be solved. Everything else is a travel brochure.

One of the reasons I LOVE teaching craft is I get to see the work/stories of other writers. Recently, I held my First Five Pages class and could hear the collective groans when I said, “NO FLASHBACKS. EVER.” But I am a benevolent dictator and instructed those submitting pages, that if…

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Posted in How-Tos / Writers Toolbox, Refining Your Story, Storytelling and tagged flashbacks, Writing | Leave a comment

26 Apr 2014