If you can write beginnings and ends, you can make a nice living as a writer. If you write middles, you win Pulitzers and Nobel Prizes and stuff. But with beginnings and ends, you’re going to do okay.
— James Patterson
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Posts Tagged ‘writing’
Write What You Like
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, Writers, writing on January 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
A Typical Day
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »
On a typical day, I usually have X number of words in me. On days when I use those words for, say, an epic treatise to friends on the efficacy of my experimental new toothpaste, I turn to the words of others. Time to make a start on 2023’s to-be-read list.
“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”
― Harvey Pekar
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Handy Writing Tool
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, reference tools, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Today, an old tool with a twist I find useful: the visual thesaurus. My Writers of the Future editor asked for some last updates, and I got stuck on one that should have been simple but was not.
The problem was that beta readers didn’t quite understand the meaning of the phrase I used, and I had to replace it with a completely different word that still captured a complicated feeling. I don’t usually use a thesaurus, but sometimes needs must. My computer’s built-in options don’t handle phrases well, so online I went.
A quick search led me to stumble on one with a visual, as well as a list, interface. (Has this been around forever? Probably, but it was new to me. Perhaps to you too?) Here’s an example:
Care synonyms, care antonyms – FreeThesaurus.com
Each word’s multiple meanings are clustered with related words, antonyms and links. I can always read the options as a list, of course, but I found this presentation surprisingly helpful when it came to brainstorming options.
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On the Road
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, Thoughts, writing on January 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »
On the road again today. Strangely, I find I come up with some of my best ideas while distracted by traveling.
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In All Its Glory
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?… If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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A Beginning
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
So there I was, wading through old backups and oddly named files and all the other detritus that accumulates on the drives of most computers, when I stumbled across a story start. At some point in the hazy past, I was writing/still half-dreaming/avoiding other work when I came up with a snippet. (I do this a lot. Most of my story starters are corralled into a central file, but apparently this one escaped.)
Does the idea still speak to me? Maybe. Here is its beginning.
The room was twenty feet wide by fifty or so deep, and high enough to stash a semi trailer. The basement warehouse hid inside a larger complex designed to cloak all manner of shady dealings. The walls were concrete, bare in some spots and painted a dull grey in others. Dim afternoon light filtered in through a series of filthy windows set just below the ceiling. The west wall contained a pile of musty wooden crates stacked head high, and the door sported a series of aging and graffitied corporate memos. Whoever Toby was, I could call him for a good time. Dust bunnies occupied the corners. It was the dullest den of iniquity I’d seen yet.
Still, I wouldn’t have minded the decor so much if it weren’t on fire…
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Internet Is Down
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, Thoughts, winter, writing on December 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »
One of the secrets, and pleasures, of [creating] is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.
— Julia Child
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Glorious Success Awaits
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”
– Elbert Hubbard
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I Could Read This All Day
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, genre fiction, inspiration, Writers, writing on December 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I could read these Starfleet job postings all day:
The Best Jobs in Starfleet! Shares a new Starfleet job posting every half hour.
Users may request a job by using keywords “engineering”, “arts”, “counseling”, “trombone” or “user research”.
But of course it’s Monday, so I won’t.
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Cleaning Up
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, haiku, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I’m still working through my tech to-do list, and while there are still a few issues popping up, I’m close to being back on track. So no, I have not spent the weekend working on writing projects as planned, but I am ready to hit the ground running, swing into action, get cracking, or your preferred cliché here, etc. etc.
I also ran across a stack of notes that contained to-do lists from before we bought house. A decade ago. The pile also included story ideas, the lifetime warranty for my lucky fishing hat, and a random page of haiku. The poetry ranged from bright and sunny to, well, I’ll let you be the judge.
One cold, dark night.
Knee-deep mud and a shovel.
But that’s love for you.
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