eWriteLife Blog

Write a poem, a vignette, an essay, or a short filler on any of the following:

1) Write a short tip for writers (or yourself) who want to have more time for writing.

2) If you have all the time in the world, what would you like to accomplish in the next five years?

3) List down 5 time wasters; 5 time savers.

4) What is time to you?

Ramblings don’t make good writing. Substance is what counts. But, what is writing with a substance?

“The scenes, statements, and dialogues provide the framework for what you are saying.” Nancy Kelton shares. “And… you must say something.”

“You cannot just let off steam. You can’t just whine or kvetch. No one is in the market for your complaints except for psychotherapists.”

— From “Writing from Personal Experience: How to Turn Your Life into Salable Prose” by Nancy Davidoff Kelton

Maybe all I wanted was significance. To be a Teacher’s Pet for the Day. I have never been, you see. And, I didn’t know how to be one. I was clearly not the smartest or most popular student in class, like Anna or Abigail. My parents didn’t visit the school or give Christmas and birthday gifts to my teachers, like the moms and dads of Jenny and Grace.

But one Valentine’s-cum-Teacher’s-Day, I found myself scribbling an appreciation poem for my grade four homeroom advisor and English teacher, Ms. Nelia Jose. She smiled and said “Thank you.” Then, she sat by her small yellow desk and started to read the poem. She nodded and smiled as she read.

“Do you have any other poems?” she asked afterwards.

“Yes!” I didn’t. But I had to say yes. And, she smiled once more and asked to see them the next day.

Continue reading ‘The Art of Teaching Writing’

(?) NW asked:

I’m a new at freelance writing and I’m somewhat weary about sending out my work without a formal contract and all. I want to know if sending out works like this is the usual case in this business? Should I simply trust that the publication company will pay me without anything in writing?

Continue reading ‘Freelance Writing and Contracts’

“Life isn’t a support system for art.
It’s the other way around.”
- Stephen King,
from his book ON WRITING: A Memoir of the Craft

According to bestselling author, Stephen King, there are a few things that you must do in order to become a good writer:

a) You must read, read, read.

b) You must write, write, write.

There are no shortcuts. No other way around.

Writing workshops and classes may help. Conferences and critique groups may help. But if these things don’t get you reading and writing - then they do you no good.

Read a lot and write a lot. That’s how you can become a writer.

Some time ago, Aileen Santos, a good friend of mine shared a creative writing prompt about what writing feels like. People started writing in to share their thoughts and words:

Writing is like a balloon in your head, and someone
starts squeezing it and squeezing it, and when it
finally pops all that pressure is gone and a
beautiful story is left.

— Shaun O’Brien

Writing is a river flowing in an undetermined
direction, yet in one path. The river picks up
everything it can carry, as a writer writes all the
thoughts that come to him.

— Yared Negussie

Writing is like having a carrot in front of you,
dangling at the end of a long stick — the carrot
is your book; the stick, the obstacles you go
through to write that book. If you are a writer,
you don’t just chase the carrot and give up.
Instead, you chew the stick to reach the carrot.
And you’ve got your book.

— Shery Ma Belle Arrieta

Writing is like my therapist,
I can tell everything.

— Elizabeth Schmidt

Writing is like opening the gates of a huge ancient
dam, and letting the water, penned up for ages, full
of potential but having no outlet, loose, to roar
over the spillways and down through the valley, a
force of nature, irresistable, sweeping great rocks
of ego and resistance before it.

— Mark Ray

Writing is like putting all my eggs, scrambled of
course, into one basket, and serving them to you on
a plate for digestion.

— Judith Lantz

Continue reading ‘What Does Writing Feel Like?’

David B. Woodward says, “It is tremendous when someone kindles a spark of hope in our hearts about writing. It is then that we begin to make progress.”

Who has inspired, taught, and/or given you hope when it comes to writing? Write a tribute to this person (or at least 1-2 people from a list of people, if you have one) today.

In writing and in life, we tend to expect and hope to ‘be there’ - but we’re not too concerned about ‘how to get there.’

We like the feeling of having written - but not the act of sitting down to write. We like the product, not the process.

Nancy Sloam Aronie, author of WRITING FROM THE HEART, says: “Process is intangible and unteachable. It happens all by itself, but you have to start somewhere.

“Process doesn’t have to come from some high-minded, God-inspired epiphany. It can come from as simple a place as I want to do this.“

“For many Christian writers, telling a good story doesn’t seem to be enough. They want to evangelize, to teach and to fill their fiction with high moral purport, doctrine and direction. This all sounds quite noble, of course, except the purpose of fiction is not propaganda. The proper place for preaching is the pulpit, the evangelistic crusade or even the pages of the nonfiction book. Fiction is different. Fiction is story.”

– excerpt from THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WRITING AND SELLING THE CHRISTIAN NOVEL by Penelope J. Stokes, p. 55

“It is an illusion that writers live more significant lives than non-writers;
the truth is,
writers are just more in the habit of finding the significance
that is in their lives.”

- Vicki Vinton