Music Monday: The Return of the Prompts

Now that you've seen an example of how to go about using these Monday prompts, how about I give you a few more?

1) It gets harder everyday, and I love you more than I did before. (Stay - Miley Cyrus)
2) My heart is so jet lagged. (Jet Lag - Simple Plan)
3) Today, you walked out of my life. Today, your words felt like a knife. (Like a Knife - Secondhand Serenade)

Write away right away! It takes five minutes! Give me your stories of what happens with these prompts!

Fun Friday: Comic by Grant Snider

I do not own this comic! However, I happen to think it's hilarious, so enjoy. (I think my favorite one is the ghost writing one.)

Truth Thursday: The Horrors and Joys of Reading Your Old Stuff

Sometimes, I dig out pieces of my old writing. Usually, I instantly regret it, for obvious reasons. But there are things to be learned from burning out my own eyeballs with my own writing, which I will share.

• I could dwell on how awful my writing used to be, how shallow my characters were and how flat everything sounded. Or I can compare it to how I write now, smile, laugh, and move on. Without writing like I did before, I would never be able to write like I do now. I finished writing 40 first drafts of novels, and it's my 40th novel that's getting published. So lesson is, try, try, and try again, and after using a fistful of pens, you'll probably get somewhere.
• People's opinions are valuable. I grew most when I had feedback from people so I knew what I was doing wrong and what I needed to fix. Now I remember what people said, especially if multiple people said the same thing about the same piece, and make those mistakes much less often. It shows because my writing now flows so much better.

Wacky Wednesday: Edit Minion

Edit Minion is a resource for cleaning up writing in terms of looking for repeated words, phrases, and even things that may come off as cliche. For example, I asked Edit Minion to help clean up the first chapter of my novel, Facades, and received this screenshot.

(Yes, "toilet" made it onto the list.)

As needed, the user can ask Edit Minion to look for certain things such as possible homonym issues, passive voice, adverbs, weak words, etc. An example of what that looks like in my own writing is below.

Personally, I find the color coding really helpful, and I'm definitely going to be using Edit Minion for final cleaning up before publication! I definitely recommend it. It's a wonderful resource. Nothing is saved on the website, so it's safe for use without copyright infringement worries!

And, as proof that I have improved as a writer, I dug out some writing from when I was 13 and stuck it into Edit Minion. Excuse me while I cringe.

I would say that Edit Minion accurately reflects how much I've put into a project and refined it, so why not use it to your own advantage? It'll really clean up your work, and you'll feel happier once you play around with it as well.

Happy writing, everyone!

Toolbox Tuesday: Writer's Block

*Adapted from when I guest posted on my friend's blog a few years ago.

-Title trouble: Where you want to name your project, but you just don’t know how!

Tip #1:

Try not to use a character’s name in the title. Part of the fun in opening up a book is figuring out the main character’s name! What’s the fun in that if you give it straight up? (This is not to say that it's wrong to use the main character's name in a title once in a while, but it's best to not have it in the title every time. If the character's name is going to go into the title, at least make sure the name doesn't stand alone, so it will stand out from other characters with the same name.) For example, I have a project titled Dear Eric. It tells the reader Eric is a character (actually not the main character), but not much else. That may spark some people's interest, or it may not. (I feel like the project could have a better title, but seeing as I haven't come up with one, it'll stay as it is for now.)

Tip #2:

If you don’t have a title in mind and you think you absolutely have to have one, guess what? You don’t. Keep writing. A title might restrict your writing to narrow-mindedly follow certain ideas. Write as much as you can before naming a project, or just give it a temporary one. Sometimes, you may like it enough to make it your actual one.

-General writer’s block trouble: Where you need to finish the story, but you don’t know how to.

Tip #1:

Read everything you’ve written so far. Thoroughly read it and refresh yourself of what has already been established. Move forward from there.

Tip #2:

If that doesn’t work, maybe one of your characters is causing a problem because you don’t know enough about him/her yet. Fill out a character chart for him/her. There are lots of them out there! Force yourself to fill out every single blank. Don’t hesitate. If you don’t know the answer, make one up. If you really have to, change it later. But if you can, fill the chart out and stick to it.

Tip #3:

This is actually the best one. Get in the shower. Forget everything else. Just take a nice, hot, long shower. Showers are the best places to come up with ideas. Usually, this is a great way to figure out how to continue with rising action, climax, and falling action business. If anything, it gives you a break and allows you time to think and release some stress, so it won’t harm you in any way to try this.

Tip #4:

Sometimes what you really need to cure writer’s block is a break from that particular project. Maybe not from writing itself, but sometimes it’s best to leave a story alone for a while. It could be a day, a week, a month, or even six months. It all depends on the story itself. Trust yourself to finish it eventually. Leave it somewhere where you’ll still see it once in a while, but don’t touch it. You might be surprised what you go through during that time and subconscious ideas that may come to you.

Tip #5:

Save this for last resort. If you really have absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what to do, find someone you trust and ask him/her to read everything you have so far and give you their opinion on what you should do next. Then find several other people and do the same. Maybe they’ll suggest something you like, maybe they won’t. But if they don’t suggest something you like, this might be a good time to figure out where you really want to go and to go with it.

In all honesty, no one can tell you how to write your story. Everyone has their own ways to overcome writer’s block. These are just little things you can do instead of throwing everything in the trash can like every writer wants to sometimes. Save everything, even the junk. You may get to use it someday!