Monday, August 30, 2010

Summer Hiatus Week Seven

Self Care:

Find an inexpensive notebook and start a word collection. It can be names, verbs, actions, words to describe something you talk about a lot in your book (the sensation of fear or apprehension or loneliness. Handing actions to use instead of having your characters look and gaze at each other all the time, like mine do. )


Writing Prompt:

Are there at least two moments in your book where your protagonist makes things worse?

Monday, August 23, 2010

Summer Hiatus Week Six

Self care:

Next time you are out running errands, take $10 and spend it on something for your writing. It can be a cute little notebook, colorful paperclips, unusual post-it-notes, colored index cards, a big piece of foam core board for that collage you keep meaning to do.


Writing prompt:

To jiggle loose scene ideas: Pick a point in your novel that feels flat. Divide a piece of blank paper in two. On one side, write down everything your character knows right now. On the other side, right everything your character will need to know by the end. These can be either external plot point type things or internal realizations the character will need to come to.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Summer Hiatus Week Five

Self Care:

Make a list of the five obstacles you run into time and again when it comes to your writing. Depending on where you are in your writing journey, this could be logistical (time, family’s acceptance) or mental and emotional blocks. For the next five days, take one obstacle each day and brainstorm as many ways as you can to work around that obstacle.

Writing Prompt:

Draw a rudimentary map of your character’s house, neighborhood, country or any significant place where they spend their days. Does it in any way alter how you view their world and how they move around in it? Are you taking full advantage of the physical world of your novel? Is there some inherent potential for conflict you could use or heighten in the book, based on this map?

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Summer Hiatus Week Four

Self Care:

Quick, before summer is over, can you pick a week and arrange it so that you give yourself one day off from everything but writing and your immediate family? Cook meals ahead of time, assign the kids to fix an easy breakfast, have your spouse take the kids to the beach alone? 


Writing Prompt:

Not everyone grows up poor, but can you remember a moment when you felt deprived? Write for ten minutes on what you were deprived of and how that felt. How did it shape you? Is there a place in your story where your protagonist feels deprived?

Monday, August 2, 2010

Summer Hiatus Week Three

Self Care Prompt:

What are the five coolest things people have said about your writing? Write them down, then print them out and put them someplace where you can see them every day.


Writing Prompt:

What parts of yourself shamed or embarrassed you the most when you were your character’s age? Can you think of any situation where those same attributes would be a strength?