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Have You Plotted Your Story Before Writing It?
Creative Writing Tips – The writer, who doesn’t have the time to plot, always finds the time to rewrite. Sound familiar? I’ve been guilty of this too, back in the early days of my writing apprenticeship. I was so eager to get stuck into...
How to Break Into Writing for Newspapers
Besides waking up with a morning coffee, millions of us wake every day to blaring newspaper headlines about police gunning down a suspect, or a fire that leaves a family of four homeless, or a city council that wants to make it illegal to dump...
The $12,500 Copywriting Formula
Have you heard of Brian Keith Voiles? Probably not, but if you have eyes you've seen his ad campaigns and you probably even bought products that he created ad campaigns for. Would you like to have the formula he gets paid $12,500 to put into use...
The Secret Ingredient to Your Writing
Okay, so what do you need to succeed in your writing career? To keep it simple, I would say just five things – the first four are obvious enough but the last one may shock (and comfort) you. Let's go through them in order: Technical ability This...
Using 'Power' Words when Writing Articles
Capturing the attention of your reader is paramount when writing free articles. You can make the greatest impact in capturing your readers’ attention by having a good title. One of the ways to do this is by using what I call ‘Power’ words. By...
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ARE YOU WRITING FOR A CHANGE?
Whenever you reach one of those writer's roadblocks, it helps to take
some time to reexamine what drives you to write in the first place.
I submit, however, that regardless of your reason(s) for being, or
wanting to be, a writer, or what kinds of writing you do, there is
only one, true underlying motivator that will consistently send you
back to your keyboard, or prompt you to pick up a pen, day after day:
through your writing, you must want to change something.
If you don't, I believe you'll remain stuck.
"No, I don't," you might say. "I write because I want to make
money." That might very well be true. But think about it--*why* do
you want to make money as a writer? To leave your unfulfilling day
job? To supplement your income so that you can travel more, or
redecorate your house? To enable you to support your children
through college, or your parents during old age? Note that all of
these purposes for making money provide you with the fiscal ability
to make changes in your life, hopefully for the better. Change is
the goal, not money.
"Well, I write fiction. I write solely to entertain." And what
happens to your readers if you succeed in entertaining them? You
make them feel--you get them to laugh, cry or wonder. You send spine-
tingling shivers of fear through them with your thrillers, warm them
with your romance stories, entice them with your mysteries, leave
indelible imprints on their memories with your characters. You
change your readers; how they think or feel after they have read
something you've written differs from how they thought or felt before.
Perhaps you write technical documents. In that case, you are looking
to improve a process
by clarifying it. This means change.
Or maybe you write articles that provide readers with information
they did not previously possess. More change. Copywriters want to
change lookers into buyers. Grantwriters want to persuade people or
organizations to support an endeavor they may have never heard of
before. Business proposals are written with the hope of fostering
improvements within companies.
Do you confine your writing solely to your journal, or specialize in
first-person essays? What are you looking for when you write about
yourself, your experiences, your observations? My guess is that you
want to arrive at a more complete understanding of what you saw,
lived through and felt. You want to grow from the experience, or you
want your readers to think about something in a way they might never
have done before. Change.
This applies even to this article. I want to help writers discover
the real reason for writing, enable you to refocus your energies and
perhaps become more prolific and successful by understanding why you
do what you do. I hope I've succeeded in doing just that.
As a writer, you've got a talent that many do not possess, and many
admire. So don't just sit there. Write for a change.
About the Author
Mary Anne Hahn is editor and publisher of WriteSuccess, the
free biweekly ezine of ideas, information and inspiration for writers. To
subscribe, mail to writesuccess-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Learn how to
market your writing services to businesses and professionals right in your
own hometown. For more information, mail to local@writesuccess.org
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| www.writing.com |
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| grammar.ccc.commnet.edu |
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| Purdue University's Online Writing Lab - The OWL Family of Sites |
| Writing lab and resources. Email newsletter available. |
| owl.english.purdue.edu |
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| OWL at Purdue University: General Writing Concerns Handouts |
| This page contains important links to the writing: planning/writing/revising aspects of the OWL website. |
| owl.english.purdue.edu |
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| en.wikipedia.org |
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| www.writing.org |
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| www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu |
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| National Novel Writing Month - National Novel Writing Month |
| NaNoWriMo is an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world. |
| www.nanowrimo.org |
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| Poynter Online |
| Apply by Dec. 11 Reporting and Writing the Untold Stories Apply by Dec. 11 ... Reporting & Writing for Multi-Platform Newsrooms. Apply by Jan. 10 ... |
| www.poynter.org |
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| Pages tagged with "writing" on del.icio.us |
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| del.icio.us |
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| BBC Get Writing |
| The BBC's online resource for writing drama and comedy for television, radio and film. |
| www.bbc.co.uk |
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| Menu of articles on writing written by professional SF/F writers. |
| www.sfwa.org |
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| A concise guide to some of the most frequently violated rules of writing, punctuation, and grammar. |
| www.junketstudies.com |
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| NAEP Writing Subject Area |
| NAEP assesses student performance in writing periodically in grades 4, 8, and 12 for the nation, and in grades 4 and 8 for the states. |
| nces.ed.gov |
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| See all blog posts tagged with writing on Technorati. |
| www.technorati.com |
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| IPL Teenspace: A+ Research & Writing |
| Includes step-by-step instructions on researching and writing, how to find information online and offline, as well as links to useful resources. |
| www.ipl.org |
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| Dictionary.com: Writing Resources |
| Free online English dictionary and reference guide. List of sites writers can use. |
| dictionary.reference.com |
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| WritingFix: Home of Interactive Writing Prompts and 6 Trait ... |
| Daily and interactive writing prompts. |
| www.writingfix.com |
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| Advice on Academic Writing |
| Includes articles on critical reading, planning, researching, style and editing, grammar and punctuation. |
| www.utoronto.ca |
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