Month: January 2016

Get Organized. Get Writing.

~ The Spinning Pen ~ 6 Comments
neourban hipster office desktop
stunning lifestyle imagery for modern creatives… check out another scenery / perspective

Quick poll.

How many of you when you roll out of bed in the morning find your house and writing project in perfect order?

There’s a rich aroma of rainforest coffee wafting through the quiet and dark house as you sit down to your clean desk and boot up your laptop. You pull up your documents and immediately your fingers start flying over the keyboard. No hunting around for your charger, no searching for that character chart you filled out yesterday, or your hand drawn map—it’s all there and ready to go.

If “that’ll be the day…” is your response, this post is for you.

Getting organized is often the bane of a writer’s existence. But it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few helpful tips I’ve picked up along the bumpy writer’s road.
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A Guide to the Forgotten Sense

~ The Spinning Pen ~ 5 Comments

We often overlook scent in our writing, opting to create our characters and worlds through sight alone, but that’s a cheap version of the human experience.

Scent 2

Have you ever passed a stranger in the airport and been slammed with homesickness because they’re wearing the same cologne as your husband? Cried because that shirt still smells like the loved one who’s now gone? Felt like you were home despite the miles just because a certain candle was lit?

Scents are tied to memories and memories are inextricably linked to emotions. Good stories elicit emotion in their readers by making the characters and the world real in the same way that readers experience their own world– through their five senses.

Here are some words to help you incorporate scent into your writing.

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A Protagonist Worth Reckoning With

~ The Spinning Pen ~ 5 Comments

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Let’s do one of those little exercises you might expect to do at a psychologist’s office. Don’t worry, we won’t go too far back into your childhood or keep asking you “why do you think that is?”. I want you to think back to someone you’ve been attracted to at one point in your life.

Why were you attracted to begin with? Was it her status in the corporate world, his personality, the way she made you laugh, or his aura of mystery?

Someone worth spending time with pulls you in. They’re interesting.

For different reasons, albeit, but if s/he doesn’t interest you, that person is doomed to the inescapable dreaded pit we call the friend zone.  Readers have a similar relationship with the protagonist in a book.

Sure magical lands, mythical creatures, or witty dialog can intrigue us, but story ultimately centers on people. If the protagonist can’t pull you in, it’s time to say “bye bye Felisha”.

So what to do about the predicament of your protagonist?

How do you prove to your reader your protagonist is worth reading about? First things first…
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