This lovely depiction of the Spinning Pen Girl is done by Artist and Writer Sarah Kovin Synder. Check that talented girl out here.
As you know, the Spinning Pen Girl always searches for amazing writing resources and loves sharing them with you. Today she wants you to click here for Co-Creator of Author Mentor Match and Author Alexa Donne‘s long list of amazing articles on writing for writers.
Happy Writing!
SP writer, Nova signing off.
“Initially, I was fearful that the motion of life would water-down my passion for writing, but I was, gladly, wrong! Away from the oppressive regime called an institution, I realized that I had the freedom to create in ways that I have never experienced, and Spinning Pen became a platform for my bursts of creativity.
I would read the prompts that are posted and be so excited at the countless possibilities of how stories could continue and end. These prompts took me on terrains and adventures that I only dreamed of. I was reminded that smaller writing projects did not have to compromise on well-constructed dialogues, tension between character relationships; establishing mood and tone; staging movements and setting. I love the process of creating a short story with a powerful punch.”
I haven’t always been a fan of writing prompts. They remind me of school when the teacher gave us “Writing Topics,” thus thwarting my creativity once again. But as I’ve developed my writing technique and matured as a writer, I see their value.
A prompt is a great way to push yourself into doing something that’s not necessarily “your thing.” It’s challenging. And it is in those moments I find inspiration or motivation. When I’ve attempted a prompt that isn’t my genre or has word limits (the flash fictions kill me!) I always come away with some sort of small victory. Whether I’ve completed and submitted something I’m proud of, or only got half way through before realizing this isn’t for me, I’ve still put words to page, I’ve still worked my creative muscles. Almost always I come away with an idea for a WIP or a new project later on. It is these things that I value.
So maybe a prompt isn’t your cup of tea but I encourage you to try. You never know what you might find at the bottom.
Once I was challenged to write a dual POV prompt. What I didn’t know is that it helped me discover how to round out the worlds that I create. I was forced to see everything twice. I noticed—and thus, my characters noticed—more details, creating a more believable space for the reader to inhabit.
The dual P.O.V. prompt could have been my worst nightmare as a writer, or it could be the most fun I’ve ever had with a prompt: Think about exploring your world from two angles: a complete stranger, only just arrived; or as someone who has lived there, breathing the air their entire life. How would you see things?
Perhaps, as a visitor, you would see everything in great detail. Or maybe you would be so overwhelmed that everything was a blur. As a longtime resident, perhaps there are familiar details that you always notice, while other things, like the street you live on, or the color of the sky have faded to the background.
This prompt led to my very first completed manuscript, which I’m about to query. Sometimes, writers just need a bit of a kick start to get going!
Nova, signing off.
We all have them. They’re those days when it’s hard to even drag yourself out of bed, much less write all the words you know you need to write.
Sometimes, ‘Mondays’ don’t even show up on Mondays. But you know them when they come creeping up on you. So, how do we fight them? By exercising our creativity, even if it’s against our will at first. Continue reading
This lovely depiction of the Spinning Pen Girl is done by Artist and Writer Wesley O’Bryan. Check that talented guy out here, and some of his SP posts here and here.
As you know, the Spinning Pen Girl always searches for amazing writing resources and loves sharing them with you. Today she wants you to click here for Ally Carter‘s long list of amazing articles on writing for writers.
Happy Weekend Writing!
SP writer, Nova signing off.
Pen Friends ~ Anyone up for a bit more kindness in the world? The SP sure is! My fellow Pitch Wars Mentee, Tamara Girardi‘s awesome #Kindwriters contest is spreading through the virtual writing world on twitter and the blogging community, and well, I just had to share it with you because, you know, kindness changes things, and yeah, it is a superpower. Continue reading
Pen Friends ~ At the Spinning Pen, we take our writing seriously, but all of us are also hopelessly infected with wanderlust. So when we learned that editor and multi-published authors Lorie Langdon and Heather Webb put the two together, (in the dreamy setting of Ireland no less) we couldn’t resist!
A writing workshop and an international adventure with two established authors, you say?
It gets better: Continue reading
Most aspiring authors have been at the point where they have twenty different, brilliant ideas for book plots and try to write every single story all at once.
Or maybe some of you have an idea for one book and start writing without a plot or any sort of idea of where the book is going to end up you just have a few ideas of what you want to include in your book.
and
Or maybe those tactics work for you just fine. In that case you can stop reading this right now.
SP: Hi Carey and Lorie! Thanks for being with us. Can you start out by telling us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?
Lorie: Hi everyone! Thanks for having us on the blog! By way of brief introduction, I’m a wife, mom, Christ-follower, author, and Wonder Woman Wannabe. I’ve wanted to be an author since I read my first Judy Blume novel, but when I entered college that didn’t seem like a practical career choice, so I chose another path. It took many years of working in the business world for me to go back to my true calling.
Carey: Hey there! *waves* I’m Carey, mom, full time corporate marketer, pet lover, Believer, and Hamilton enthusiast (uh, that’s the PC way of saying obsessed, right?). I always wanted to be a writer, I just didn’t know it. When I was 7, I wrote a captivating retelling of Star Wars, see it here Lucas—shmookas! I wrote Star Wars. I spent the summer after 6th grade writing a hundred pages of soap opera that was a Santa Barbara knockoff. Then I forgot about writing until several lifetimes later when I had a crazy dream after watching the PJ Hogan live action version of Peter Pan. The next morning I wrote what would before the first chapter in my novel Shades of Neverland. From that day on, I was hooked (oh ya, pun intended). But it would still be another lifetime before getting published. Continue reading
Currently, I am enrolled at Edmonds Community College as a Running Start Student, which means I’ve been doing a lot of writing. Sadly not the fun kind of writing I wish I was doing, just a bunch of boring academic essays. I know, gross. Word of advice, when signing up for your first quarter of college classes, don’t pick two five credit English classes; since nobody told me that, that is exactly what I did. I picked the basic English 101 course, and English 161, or a Writing Fiction class. Needless to say I was excited to have an excuse to write fiction for school, but the class I got was much different than I expected. Here’s some things I gleaned from my experience. Continue reading
…there was a group of young and promising writers. They had great ideas, finished manuscripts, and starry eyes filled with hope of Bestseller’s Lists. The only question was, what should they do next?
Our intrepid writers set out to explore their options: should they go indie and self-publish, or try the traditional publishing route? While a couple members of the group chose to investigate the self-publishing path, this narrator decided to follow the group who went toward the traditional path first. (Check in with the indie group here!)
The Spinning Pen 