Sparks to Light Your Fire!

If you need help getting started with a new story, try my webpage, “Writing Prompts.” There are a few writing prompts of my own listed there, but you may also access the web for more ideas. Just a couple to name:

• Creative Writing Prompts http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

• Creative Writing Solutions http://www.creative-writing-solutions.com/creative-writing-prompts.html

One of the creative writing books I studied in the past suggested playing a game called, “What If.” It is a game one can play most any time of the day, depending on circumstances that arise. You’re driving your car and someone pulls out with their car onto the same street, almost hitting them. If you had been looking down, fiddling with the radio or your CD player, looking up into your rear view mirror or watching a person jogging down the sidewalk, you might have hit the car. With the “What If” game, you visualize what might have happened. Playing the “What If” game is easy, but writing your ideas down soon after you think of them is just as important!

• The newspapers or magazines are full of stories that you can alter and use to your advantage.

• Write a quick description of something. Now play the “What If” game, what if this should happen to the item, or that.

• Don’t try for something too bizarre that has never been done before! Readers like to relate to the stories they read, but if they can’t find a niche or a little scratch of something similar with it, they may bypass your novel and bring back their old favorites. Yes, it’s true there are many popular sci-fi reads out there, but first plant the idea in your head so it rings of a sensible tone before attempting it in front of the populace.

If you have any other ideas on ways to prompt your writing adventure, please feel free to promote them here! - Linda

The Writing Marathon Guidelines!

What’s a small contest without a few rules (the nasty word)? Remember that the whole point of this marathon is for YOUR novel to be written in the next three months! Unlike National Novel Writing Month’s (November) goal in 30 days is 50,000 words with the average daily word count at 1,666, pen-n-quill’s average daily word count is only 815! This leaves a few of us who have extra time to polish some of those words, embellish the blasé areas, plop in descriptions where needed. You can also try an outline this week while real writing the rest of the time, or highlight in color those words you must not forget (like where did Sam hide the skeleton key to the attic door?).

Without further ado, here are the guidelines:

1. Sign up as a Follower to this blog, and bookmark it or send it to your desktop for easier access.

2. Write at the minimum 815 words per day, adding up to over 5,705 words per week.

3. At the end of the week, I will post on the blog my word count before 11:00 p.m. (2300 hrs) Pacific Savings Time (PST), encouraging you to do the same. Please reply as a comment to my post your word count before midnight. Always reply with the same name you gave when you signed up as a follower. The additional word count in subsequent weeks will be the minimum total count for all preceding weeks.

4. The contest will end on September 30, 2010, and writers with a minimum of 75,000 words will be given the chance to elevator pitch their story on my blog the following week!

During this time I will interject posts about writing. If anyone would like to add comments about your own writing or my posts, feel free to do so.

After the contest, the next three months work hard at chiseling your story just right for an agent’s eyes. If you need help editing your work, try joining a critique group to get feedback for your work. An excellent grammar book is “Rules for Writers” by Diana Hacker. Googling dictionary.com can reach you definitions, synonyms and antonyms of words. Although I have a “Chicago Manual of Style,” it is somewhat difficult to find answers to grammar problems, but a few of you may be picky writers and this is a good one for that! Writer’s Digest has a simple “Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript” book to assist you further before submission to an agent. Writer's Digest puts out a “Writer’s Market” book, which lists most of the publishing houses and some agents’ listings, to address your queries. You can find this book at your local book store.

I wish you all the best in your writing days to follow. Now, sit down and tap away at those keys!

- Linda