Thursday, February 14, 2008

Cookies and Writing Advice - Wednesday 2/13/2008



Preparation for any holiday, large or small, probably should involve some baking.

Los Angelista tagged me for a meme. I'm to give three pieces of writing advice, even though she has already given up the really good stuff over on her blog. Since it wouldn't be right for me to just cut and paste hers over here...


1) Take Los Angelista's advice. Actually write. You can do it in ten minutes a day (I would have said 15 minutes a day, but if ten works, it works. It's good to keep your hand in.) Avoid writing books (advice I really need to take because some of them have helped but some stop me dead in my tracks.)

2) Treat your writer self kindly. Don't badger and cajole. Establish a discipline of showing up (as noted above) and respect that. Try to accept what you get on paper any given day. This advice is actually hard for me to take because no matter how much I do in writing or in life, I seldom feel I have done enough.

3) Lighten up! Surprise yourself every so often. Do a short timed writing that isn't required to be about whatever major project you are currently working on. Play!

Get some one to give you a prompt. Either a word (like "dread") or a phrase (like "what s/she wanted versus what s/he got" or "The last thing s/he saw before the lights went out was...") Set the timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and go.

This is especially fun if you can get a couple of other writers to play along, and then you read what you wrote aloud.


Hmm. Lookie there. That was easy enough!

I'm tagging the Elegant E over at Lexiconscious to do the same!

1 comment:

the last noel said...

Those cookies look yummy!