A writing teacher (and multi-published novelist) once told me that to really understand a character you’re writing, you should make a list of the items he carries carry in his pockets. While I hate to disagree with such an august mentor, I’m afraid that I simply have to. You see, if you take a peek…
How to Apply the Pomodoro Technique to Your Writing
Productivity and efficiency are two things we all want more of in our lives, especially when it comes to writing. Fitting writing in whenever you can is great. But what about those longer stretches of time when you can actually sit down to practice your craft for thirty minutes, an hour, or more? Long, uninterrupted…
The Picture Poem: Blend of Image With Words
By Christopher Wood I have been teaching creative writing for twenty-five years, and for class assignments, have always used images to engage the imaginations of class participants. We each see an image differently; when we look at a photograph, we are looking at something literal, but how we interpret an image depends on many factors:…
Sculpting: The Stone Reality
By Gerry Aldridge When I embark on a new sculpture, its inception is usually an accumulation of ideas, and the start of the process may date back many years. As I become more adept, I am able to incorporate more ideas into my work, many of which were first conceived back in my teens.…
The Art of Zentangling: Mindful Meditation
How Zentangling got its start: One day, Maria told Rick what she’d experienced as she’d been drawing background patterns on a manuscript she was writing. She described her feelings of timelessness, freedom, and well-being, as well as her ability to focus without a thought or worry about anything else. “You’re describing meditation,” Rick said. Rick and…
Digital Photography
Experimenting With Free Effects by Lynn Wohlers People can get pretty worked up about how much editing is appropriate to digital photography. There are the purists who perhaps take more time in their actual shooting of the photograph, to avoid having to make unnecessary digital adjustments. Purists have a point; we can be sloppy in our…
Part II: That, Which and Who
In my last post, “The Department of Redundancy Department,” I discussed how I use the Find feature of Microsoft Word to hunt down and eliminate redundant redundancies from my manuscripts as I go through the final edit. I also mentioned how I’ll use Find to ferret out those pesky to be verbs and get rid of as many of those as…
Part I: The Department of Redundancy Department
I’d like to call your attention to an editing tool for the editing of redundant words and redundant word phrases that turn up in rough drafts and not-so-rough drafts (what?). Why is this important? First, good writing is concise. Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” When someone writes past experience, fatally killed, foreign…
Marvel Comics and Film Noir - What They Taught Me About Writing
I knew early what I didn’t want to read. Though I longed for adventure my mother bought me all the usual little girl comics/magazines containing stories about ballerinas in pink tutus, owning a pony, or cute puppies and donkeys. Even at such a tender age I didn’t care for them. I’d rather be out climbing…
Shaking Hands with My Characters: The Physicality of Writing
I hear a voice in my head. She begins speaking when I’m walking, taking a shower, or trying to sleep. She starts to tell me her story. I sit at the computer screen and hope to capture the story, but nothing happens. I’m not blocked exactly. It’s just that she doesn’t want to speak through…