Tag Archive - Writing Inspiration

Creative Storytelling Options for Those Who Don’t Like to Write

Today’s guest post is by Jacqui Murray.

When people hear the word “writing”, most think typing, maybe aching hands, but that’s the process. Not the product. In writing classes and seminars, experts told you to “write narratives using effective technique, pithy details, and well-structured event sequences.” Nowhere did they specify the tool to be used. Traditionally, writers accomplished these worthy goals with words, paragraphs, pages, and chapters.

But why?

Consider this scenario: You are required to draw a picture that describes the horrors of war, but you’re a lousy artist. The best you can do is stick figures and red flames. Or you feel a story nibbling at your brain, but your special needs prevent you from typing. You give up, decide you can’t write.

If you found a kernel of truth in this, take one of the free online quizzes that determine your best communication style. You might try the North Carolina State University’s Learning Style Quiz (four pages) based on Howard Gardner’s iconic Theory of Multiple Intelligences, It has become the model for mapping out learning modalities such as linguistic, hands-on, kinesthetic, math, verbal, and art. Understanding which you are informs your best communication method.

I’ll wait.

Done? Surprised your strengths are something other than keyboarding? Now check the options below and see which fits what you learned about your personal storytelling skills: Continue Reading…

5 Creative Ways to Help You Get Writing

Anton Chekhov wrote: “My country house is full of people, they never leave me alone; if only they would go away I could be a good writer.”

I bet you have your own “if only …” sentence that tells why you haven’t reached your writing goals.

Mine change from time to time. “If only I was more knowledgeable about this topic, I would feel confident enough to finish this novel” (my present “if only”). “If only I wasn’t so easily distracted” … “If only I felt more motivated” …

I’ll tell you one thing that does help me break through my “if only” dilemma, and that’s working on something I’m really excited about.

Many prolific writers generate innumerable ideas, and my guess is they’re mostly great ones. Ideas for poems, short stories, plays, screenplays, novels. You have to generate a lot of ideas to get to a few truly great ones. Continue Reading…

A Late Call to Contribute to the Book “October 2020”

All month, nearly one hundred writers have been writing short pieces–prose, poetry, journal entries–that reflect their thoughts and feelings in this time in history.

It is my belief that this month–October of 2020–will be thought of as one of the most consequential and pivotal points of inflection in all of human history.

Maybe to some that’s a bit of a stretch, but I know that years from now I’ll be looking back at this month and recalling what I was thinking and feeling as COVID rages around the world, the US is reeling from accelerated racial injustice and a government on the precipice of collapse, and the planet is on fire and suffering historic flooding and sea levels rising as climate change is wreaking havoc in every arena of human life.

The month is almost over, and while many have been writing daily or every few days, compiling pieces on different topics, I’d like to extend an invitation to you to write something about how you feel in this moment in history. Continue Reading…

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