What creative writing tips would you offer to budding writers?
Yesterday I had the pleasure of introducing my husband (aka Attila the Honey) at the Lake Chapala Society, our local gringo gathering place and library. We were having a book signing party to celebrate the publication of Rob’s first two novels, Die Laughing and Future Schlock.
I’m sharing with you here my speech, because there are some tips for writing creative content not only for novels and fiction. These tips also apply to blog writing.
Content marketing ideas come from many sources, and sometimes you have to go against conventional wisdom and standard trends.
My speech was called:
Rob Krakoff’s Top 10 Tips for Writing 3 Novels in 18 Months…
- Don’t follow your wife’s (or partner’s) advice. Sometimes I call an idea stupid just because it’s too far-fetched to be believable. Wild, crazy ideas will certainly get people’s attention and avoid boredom. If someone says it’s stupid, it just might work…
- Don’t follow your writer’s group advice: Other authors will tell you to only write what you know about. If that were true, then all mystery writers would be murderers. Don’t squelch your imagination.
- Don’t follow your English teachers’ rules: Don’t get hung up on grammar. Write and worry later about the rules, or get someone else to do that. So what if you don’t believe in commas.
- Don’t study how others write, or how books should be written: It’s more important to just get started, get your stories going.
- Don’t worry, be happy: feed your creativity by squelching anxiety and fear. If you’re not happy, then use that energy to write like hell. Either way, you’ve got no excuse.
- Don’t do any housework, just spend time writing. (That’s not entirely true, but it helps not to worry about the ‘other things’ in life.)
- Question everything: Look at life with a big “What if…” Creativity employs a special mindset, one that doesn’t accept things the way they are supposed to be.
- Ask “Why not…?” a lot.
- Get out of your own backyard. Look for unusual juxtapositions in the world. What can we learn from ancient Greece, for example, that can be applied to modern day society? A trip to a museum, an old book, a second-hand store – all contain gems to stimulate the imagination.
- Go to every movie you can, read books and then practice telling and writing stories. Turn everyday anecdotes from life into paragraphs.
They say that even with great talent, you’ve still got to put in hours of practice to become masterful at any craft.
Scientists tell us it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become masterful (that’s like 10 years with 4 hours a day). Blogging may not take that long, but the more you do it, the better you get.
How will you practice your craft and get better?
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