The number one action you can take to improve your writing is to read more. Fair enough, reading improves your vocabulary, grammar, and eye for mistakes. The number two action you can take is to always use your lucky pencil. Or make that always wear your favorite cardigan and if it's green, all the better. On the other hand, the second sure-fire action to improve your writing is to network on facebook. That's it! Network! Or, maybe it's ...
...buy a better dictionary? Let's face it. Everyone has his or her own method for writing. Some of us write dutifully each day (I do) and others write haphazardly on weekends when they can manage it. Some of us write for publication and others for our own benefit. Some write longhand, others use the computer.Â
But one thing all good writers have in common is a strong reading ethic. Across the board, reading stimulates one's mind with individual words and phrases and with thematic ideas and situations. Len Maxwell has been teaching us about myriad genres, encouraging us to try writing in other styles. This week it's war.Â
In your writing toolbox, besides good books, what's the first thing you grab? I need adventure in order for me to write. Not necessarily high adventure, but I need something tactile and pronounced to clunk me over the head. Often I'll say, "Ouch! I'm going to write about that." In the comment section, tell us your must-have/must-be-present in order for you to write.
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Last week's prompt had some silence built into it. Read what these writers did with that aspect:
Football Season's End by Sheila Deeth
Blistering Summer by Janice F.
Spring Springs by Elsie Duggan
The Rendezvous by subroto
Serendipity Falls by Abbie H.
A Busy Morning by Len Maxwell
Sudden Weather by Susan Budig
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Prompts for May 19th, due by May 25:
- Use the idea of an eponym or eponymous
- A child's toy or game should appear randomly in the story/article
- Use the phrase:Â That'll be enough. (adjusted for tense)
- Use the words: camp, trivial, & toothpick
- tag with gwwe
Remember that I'll read all submissions to gwwe and comment. I know I've forgotten here and there in the past so don't be shy, tell me if I've missed you. I am privileged to read your work so be a mensch and bring my oversight to light.
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Comments: 44
I write without a computer, paper, or pen in my head as I drive, run, do dishes, sleep and it comes to me and I wake up.
Correction: I never use longhand.
science = written while wide awake, but with plenty of time to sleep on what I've written.
creative = written while half-asleep, edited while awake.
Thanks for sharing with Gather's Best. Now featured.
Thanks for stopping by, hope you are enroute to recovery, dear.
I read a lot! I write nearly every day, but do not believe that is a necessity to consider myself a good writer. Sometimes writing is not on the day's top priority of life list.
Thanks for adding Nuttin' But Sunshine to -- Sun Bespeckled Ink!
This is now Featured!
I have an OCD thing about pulling all the hairs out of my hairbrush after each use. LOL
Really, my kids love watching me squick out about it--I always have.
Love that word, squick!
@ Barbary
That is a cool word, huh? I've been trying to use it in a sentence since Susan first used it. LOL
Insight is a poet's tool-in-stock. But we must pay for our empathy sometimes with melancholy.
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Four Women Contemplating (a cento)
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Write it right onto the Gather form for posting? (You can still save it and edit.)
Busy, busy, busy. Keep writing, all!
Reading, music, films, real people foibles inspire me.
Then I sit quietly and dream.
Recently I used the words of T-Bone Burdette's song in the film, Crazy Heart, to indicate my character's outlook in a poem:
"I used to be somebody,
Now I’m someone else,"
Plenty of mechanical pencils, paper, scraps of paper, tissues, napkins, pretty much anything I can use to write on at the moment. Computers are quite handy too.
Moodyblues