I have been visiting in a northwestern state in the USA in late November. The weather reports have been up to 40% chance of snow off and on for the past few days. Today it has started to snow and is coming down quite quickly so, of course, all plans have to change to accomodate [...]
Have you ever heard the phrase “Baby, it’s cold outside”? It brings up for me lots of cold and sometimes very cold memories. I grew up in Montana in the north eastern USA close to the Canadian border. The coldest I can remember is 70 degrees below zero. While that might not be as cold [...]
One of the ways to increase your creativity in writing is to begin with a story you are familiar with and have heard perhaps in your family. At family gatherings, be alert to the stories that are being told and see if you can glean a plot for your next story by adding embellishments. Use the [...]
During visits home for the holidays or at reunions, many of the pleasurable moments are in sharing about the family stories. Find time to record what you are hearing being shared so you can build on your family history and experiences. Keep those in albums or memory books so they can be passed down to [...]
The opinions of others sometimes sparks in us “I never thought about it that way”. When you can look at what you have written or what others have written in an objective manner it will really help you grow as an author. Lots of opinions are available for you to consider. Choose one that you [...]
When you are first starting to write, keep it simple and allow yourself to have immediate feedback that what you wrote was a success. I’m defining success as you started to write about a topic and finished your train of thought about that topic in one session. You will keep writing when you let yourself grow [...]
You are already an expert because you are the only one who has your insight about the subject you want to write about. You are the only one who has had your experience. Start by getting a collection of ideas together that interest you. Collect as much information as you need to give you [...]
What is the action you want your reader to take after reading what you have presented to them in your writing? What additional information about that topic would support the action and then create the response of the reader taking that action? Sort for the exact explaination about the topic that will present the information in as clear a manner as is [...]
In every language there are a basic number of words that are used to communicate with others. In American English the basic word count is 7,615. It could be fun for you to determine what that number is for your primary language. So how did I get to 7,615 words? Well, my mother was an [...]
Each of us has the gift of writing because writing is, after all, telling our stories on paper instead of verbally. We try to make it much harder than it really is by putting the smoke screen out there that someone might not like what we said on paper and if that happened, how could [...]