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Stuart White posted an update
Hey folks, I need your help!
I’m currently going through one of my worst creative spells ever, and I feel like (probably not true!) I’ve exhausted all my inspiration or advice in terms of the Final Word on the weekly newsletter.
I know the 2 are inextricably linked.
Usually hope with the newsletter is to have inspiration go from the newsletter out towards you, but I’m looking for some ideas from you for the newsletter, so inverse inspiration if you like.
I’ve been staring at the open tab for a while now and I’m going to close it for today, switch off and come back to it tomorrow morning and I’ll read through any suggestions then, and see which one inspires me the most to write something.
TYSM in advance, everyone!
Stuart
Tara Potter, Katina and 2 others12 Comments-
What about “what I wish I’d known when I started writing?”
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Strategies for applying for grants and bursaries, please? Could extend to competitions or subbing.
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I’m sorry mate. It’s nearing the end of term, definitely the least productive part of my year!! In my Creative Writing club in the senior school, we were just analyzing song lyrics for story inspiration – which resulted in an outpouring of creative ideas which we were all sharing and the group-activity of it made it so much better! I don’t know if that helps? I’ve also just finalized reading and recommending the story entries for my annual children’s writing competition and that, along with some great chats with critique group pals, has really energized me. Maybe something on the benefits of sharing your work with others, although I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea?
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Or more on the hotly-debated use of AI in the writing world? Seem to have been reading more and more about it recently. I don’t use Chat GPT for work but an author friend told me that she find it really useful for coming up with comp titles. She can ask it to recommend books to the specifications of her books, and then keep tweaking if its answers aren’t quite right. I havent tried that yet but it sounded useful!
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@Ellie I tried that once and got some perfect recommendations. Downside: I was drawn into a discussion about different types of science fiction with Copilot. Half an hour later, my TBR stack had grown massively with books they’d recommended and I’d ordered 3 DVDs as well. The books, movies and series were good and exactly to my taste, but I started work (not writing work) a bit late that day.
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This is a variation on Nikki’s suggestion, something I’ve been thinking about lately.
What advice, you’ve read/heard/were given when you started writing, should you have ignored? For me, for example, it’s mostly advice starting with ‘Always’ or ‘Never’, that I should have ignored or heavily diluted. Here are two examples which are mutually exclusive:
‘Never use the word said as a dialogue tag’, and ‘Never use a word other than said as a dialogue tag’. I was going through my first manuscript to remove and change every instance of said, when I noticed that the author of the book I was reading (trad published, good reviews), apparently hadn’t heard of that rule, or blatantly ignored it.
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@Karin – I had that, too. So, hard relate. And also to remove adverbs eg. <said politely.>
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What about something about doing your writing in your way? There’s so many courses and so much out there, that it’s very easy to get distracted or overwhelmed. Developing a sense of yourself as a writer – how you work best – for example if you are someone who needs a routine, or someone who benefits from putting it aside for a while and writing something else or just taking a break. It takes a lot of experimentation and self-trust to know where and how you work best and developing your own methods. Writing grows you as a whole person.
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So many great ideas here, everyone! I can could probably write on most of this things, so that will keep me busy for the next few weeks! I really appreciate this and it also means you might read something useful to you, too!
Have a lovely, productive Sunday! -
Having had a friend’s husband die unexpectedly die this last week. A great chap. died completely unexpectedly four days before Fathers day leaving behind a devastated wife and three children under the age of 15. Then with the terrible Air India crash and the stories coming from there. it made me realise that for all of us life is short, unexpected things happen. We need to make the most of every opportunity. Grab the bull by the horns. We’re never ready but to delay it, it might be too late. Every small step working towards our goal is important. Enjoy the journey of writing, enjoy our families and friends, life, nature, be grateful. Not sure if this helps for the Writing newsletter?
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@BatchelJWriter Sorry for you loss, Jenny!
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I’ve been thinking a lot about what trad editors want – things like ‘high-concept’, ‘upmarket’, and I wonder if a blog post on what these terms are would be helpful. I also like what @nikki-spalding had suggested – ‘I wish I knew’.
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