Tag: inspiration

Inspiration Monday: mirror mask

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I re-watched Mirror Mask last week. Neil Gaiman. Jim Henson. The really useful book. Does it get any better than that? So anyway, all the prompts are from Mirror Mask this week. : )

Lots of great work this week. But you may need to read some of these with a tissue. 

Kayla

Mr. Perfect (MC)*

Rebekah

WritingSprint

Craig

Chris

Chelle

Kim

Siggi

TheShortPages

Bryant

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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:

Mirror mask
Remember what your mother told you
Look out the window
Don’t let them see you’re afraid
I’ve got a tower
 

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); 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.

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

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*MC – mature content

Inspiration Monday: things you can’t hide

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Today I shopped for felt picks and sugar packets, for a new friend and an old one.

Brilliant work this week:

T.K.

Chris and another

Bryant

Craig

LadyWhispers

Elmo

Parul wrote a piece for each of three prompts, and will hopefully complete the story with the remaining prompts this week: Fishing for Insults, Time Crunch, Extra Wishes

Kate

Mike

Bryant

WritingSprint

I actually wrote one – yes, really.

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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:

Things you can’t hide
Slippery when dry
Mountain of sugar
Astro plane
The monster saved me

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); 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.

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

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Inspiration Monday: fishing for insults

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A couple of exciting announcements this week. Two veteran InMonsters, whom we haven’t seen in awhile, just revealed a reason for their absences: they’ve both self-published books! Be sure to drop a congratulations to Eric and Marantha – and if possible, buy some copies and support indie literature.

Other unrelated notes:

1. Sometimes your links/pingbacks don’t show up in my comments. I don’t know why, but to be safe, please post a link to your InMon piece in my comments so you know I’ll get it. If I missed you this week, please let me know.

2. I’ll be marking pieces that have mature content with MC from now on. Most of the bloggers in question have advisories on their blogs anyway (thanks guys!), but I wanted to add an extra warning for our younger readers.

Now go read some genius!

Kayla  (MC)

PMAOAudio (MC)

UnhealthyObsessionWithWords

T.K.

Chris

Kate

Craig

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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:

fishing for insults
what are you going to do with it?
time crunch
extra wishes
out there somewhere

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); 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.

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

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*MC : Mature Content

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Inspiration Monday: the books conspired against us

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Sometimes I feel sorry for the prompts that don’t get used. Much as I used to feel sorry for the stuffed animals that couldn’t fit on my bed when I was a child. But my mother told me they got to have a party in the closet. Maybe the unused prompts get to have a party in cyberspace. And they wear tin foil hats and listen to techno and throw glowing paint at each other.

Read up! /

Kayla (under 18 not admitted)

Tkhuynhtdi

Craig

Chris

Kate

Mike

Bryant

Elmo

Kim

Woops! I missed Marian

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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:

the books conspired against us
The best things in life cost everything
kind lie
earth rise
don’t tell me

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); 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.

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

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23 fun ways to be productive despite writer’s block

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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.

You don’t feel like writing. You’re still tired from the mad work week. Your brain hasn’t woken up yet. You need to start the laundry, balance the checkbook and scrub out the tub. And this scene is boring. And you’re not really sure what happens next. Well, you know what happens next, but you don’t know how to get from here to there and it’s just not coming!

No use in wasting time staring at your computer (or, more likely watching YouTube videos and checking Pinterest). Here are 23 fun things you can experiment with to make your novel better while you wait for inspiration to strike.

  1. Cut 50 words from the previous page.
  2. Find creative ways to eliminate five adverbs (seach “ly” using the Find tool to find them).
  3. Go back to the previous scene and add a detail that reveals something about a character.
  4. Outline your villain’s evil plan.
  5. Jot down five alternate titles for the book.
  6. Write five alternate first sentences.
  7. Try moving chapter breaks around. See if every chapter can end in a cliffhanger.
  8. Go back to the previous action scene (fight, chase, whatever) and experiment with shortening all the sentences. Try using more incomplete sentences.
  9. Find a place where you use a color to describe something (brown, grey, green, yellow) and replace/supplement the name of the color with the name of an item (e.g. chocolate, dust, moss, straw).
  10. In the scene in which you are stuck, think of the most ridiculous thing that could happen next.
  11. Think of the most surprising (but plausible) thing that could happen next.
  12. Have a chat with your protagonist. Ask if he would rather do something else.
  13. Turn on some music that matches the feel of the scene you are trying to write (heavy metal for a battle scene, classical violin for a death scene, etc.) and free write whatever comes into your head.
  14. Write a scene that comes much later but that you’ve been dying to get to.
  15. Find your longest paragraph so far and shorten it by a third.
  16. Pick a minor character (even one you haven’t named) and write a short story about them.
  17. Add scents to two of your scenes (the sweaty corn chip smell of a teenager’s bedroom, the sharp blend of bleach and urine in a public restroom, etc.).
  18. Pick another scene and remove all visual description, supplementing with only sound, scent, taste, and touch.
  19. Read a chapter of that book on writing that’s been gathering dust for the last few months.
  20. Find five verbs in the previous chapter and replace them with more descriptive synonyms. Bonus points if you can eliminate some more adverbs, too (“walking quickly” becomes “sneaking”).
  21. Find five places where you can cut out dialogue tags (he said, she said), without sacrificing clarity.
  22. Pick one character and give them a nervous quirk, like biting their nails or smoothing their mustache. Comb your manuscript for good places to add it in.
  23. You know those notes you make when you get a brilliant idea? The ones you hardly ever look at again? Reread them.

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Now you have no excuse. Go play!

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