Author: Stephanie Orges

Stephanie is an award-winning copywriter, aspiring novelist, and barely passable ukulele player. Here, she offers writing prompts, tips, and moderate-to-deep philosophical discussions. You can also find her on and Pinterest.

Holiday Archives: How to Get Writing Done When You’re Blocked

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Less than a week till Christmas. Are you ready?

Just an FYI: There are going to be some changes at BeKindRewrite in 2014! For these changes, I need to do some technical experimentation, so next week I’ll be taking the site down temporarily while I piddle around with it. This could be any time between the 24th and the 29th. To keep things simple, Inspiration Monday will be postponed for the week of Christmas (which gives you an extra week for the prompts from the 16th!).

I’ll give another alert about this before then. In the meantime, here’s the go-to article for whenever you’re feeling uninspired.

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23 FUN WAYS TO BE PRODUCTIVE DESPITE WRITER’S BLOCK

Image by Drew Coffman

After waiting for it all week, you’re finally settling in at your computer with a giant mug of tea. You open your novel-in-progress. You scroll to the blank space at the end. You stretch your fingers.

And nothing happens.

Here’s what you should do.

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Inspiration Monday: A History in Scars

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Posting late – computer’s acting up again. Gar! You’d think a complete system wipe would’ve got rid of whatever it had last month. Hopefully I can fix it without doing that again. Wish me luck!

And go read some prisoner/pirate/detective/soldier/rebel stories!

ARNeal

SAM

PrincessDeloso

TheImaginator

Evan

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The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

A HISTORY IN SCARS

SAY NO MORE

INDIVISIBLE

BETWEEN THE TEETH

A CRASH AGAIN

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

Holiday Archives: Your Most Important Sentence

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I’m out of the ice at last! Have been free since Tuesday. Now to finish up the Christmas shopping. Thanksgiving came so late this year, it’s hard to believe Christmas is in less than two weeks.

Hey. Wanna know what the most important sentence in your book is?

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THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCE IN YOUR BOOK

crying boy
Photo by David Shankbone

You know the feeling. The book you’ve spent the last couple of weeks reading has become a dear friend. You must keep reading it, but the more you do, the closer you get to the end…and suddenly it’s over. It is no longer a companion, but a memory. You enter into mourning.

Sequels aside, only one thing can ease pain of the ending of a great book:

Find out what

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Inspiration Monday: Confined to Quarters

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Dug my car out of three inches of solid ice this morning, but still didn’t go anywhere today. Generally, not leaving the house all day is one of my favorite pastimes, but after four days, I’m ready to breathe the free air again. Here’s hoping the roads are clear tomorrow!

Meanwhile, you can always cozy up with some InMon stories:

DJMatticus and another

SAM

Chris

Elmo

Evan

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The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

CONFINED TO QUARTERS

KNIT TOGETHER

SPILLED PAINT

ECHO

DELIBERATE

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

Holiday Archives: How to Handle Rejection

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In the South, a few centimeters of snow, sleet or freezing rain means all the schools close down. For me, it means I’m working from home today. It looks like Christmas outside my window! I hope you all stay safe, whatever the weather may bring you.

How ’bout you warm up with a little encouragement from yesteryear:

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HOW TO HANDLE DISCOURAGEMENT, REJECTION, AND BAD REVIEWS

Image by Binu Kumar
Image by Binu Kumar

You write something brilliant at three in the morning, but by the next afternoon you want to burn it. You query a dozen agents and no one asks for pages. Your agent has submitted to 50 publishers and no one is interested. Your novel is getting awful reviews left and right.

At every stage of your writing career, no matter how successful you are, you are going to get discouraged.

Read the rest

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