When I was in high school my mom worked part time at a fabric store.  They had a huge sale going on that was going to be over at the close of  business that day. About five minutes before the store closed a lady came rushing in the door asking for the sudden buckle.   Mom thought a few seconds and realized the lady was looking for a fabric called suddan boucle (boo clay).  She was able to show the lady the fabric, help her pick out what she wanted and cut it off the bolt so the customer could have the sale price.

Had she not been able to convert the words the lady was speaking it would not have turned out well for the customer. So do what you can to help your reader follow your story.

Finding a few minutes to practice will add amazing skill to your ability to communicate easily with your writing.

Anyone who creates needs a steady influx of new ideas. Everything every created, everything ever invented, began with a tiny gem of an idea in someone’s mind. Every single one began the same way.

So it follows that if we don’t have any ideas to work with, we’re not going to be able to create anything.

Here to help you out then are 7 brilliant ways to have more creative ideas than you thought possible.

1. Use your senses. We experience the world through our five senses, and we create using them too. But often we ignore our surroundings so much that we might as well be wandering around with a bucket of jam on our head!

Wherever you are, the world around you is thriving with stimuli. Focus on just one of your senses, for example your sight, for five minutes, and write down everything you experience, every last detail. The more you do this simple exercise, the more alert and aware you’ll become, and you’ll realise that stimulation for new creative ideas is everywhere.

2. Write lists. Ideas often come and go in our minds, and the problem is not actually manifesting the ideas, but capturing them before they disappear. How often have you had a flash of inspiration, vowed you’ll work on it later, only to completely forget it moment afterwards?

Writing lists firstly is a way of recording those ideas as soon as they occur, but the added benefit is that once you have a few items in a list, your mind naturally wants to add more. Plus you’re creativity will begin looking at different things in your list and ways of combining or cross pollinating them. A very powerful idea breeding ground. Try it!

3. Read a range of materials. If you read the same magazines, articles, websites and books, then although you are getting new content, it’s likely to be in a very similar style and tone to that you’ve already seen. So after a while, its ability to stimulate new thoughts in you will diminish and eventually dry up. Which isn’t very helpful for generating new ideas.

There’s an easy solution. Read a range of materials, and especially in areas you’ve never read before. Try a gardening magazine, a carpentry blog, a biography of a racing driver, or a novel set in 14th century Japan. Find stuff that’s very new to you, and it will instantly stir up new connections and ideas in your mind.

4. Visit new places. When we visit the same places the whole time, travel the same routes to work, or college or to our favourite haunts, we can become blind to everything around us. It’s as if we travel on autopilot and become immune to any fresh stimulation.

An obvious remedy is to visit a few new places, where your mind and senses are going to automatically be more alive, because of the different surroundings. Even better, take a camera, sketchbook or notebook and record everything that interests you. New ideas will be triggered left, right and centre.

5. Write freeform, edit later. Sometimes the best ideas aren’t right on the surface, beautifully formed and waiting to be plucked like a fresh juicy peach on a low branch of the tree. Sometimes the best ideas take a bit of probing, a little digging up.

A great way of doing this is to just write freeform about whatever you wish to. Even if your first few lines seem boring, or even nonsense, keep writing non-stop for at least ten minutes. As you go, you’ll find your creative mind going off at intriguing tangents that will spur exciting new thoughts and ideas. Then, simply pluck out the best bits and expand them into new creative projects.

6. Keep an ideas journal. Your mind is just as capable of having an endless supply of creative ideas as the next person, but sometimes it might not fee like that. The main reason is nearly always that you’re not capturing the ideas you do have.

Get a simple notebook or journal to become your Ideas Journal. Every time you have an idea, write it down. The more you use the journal, the more ideas you’ll notice. An added bonus is the ideas you record will magically begin to grow, so when you return to them you’ll find all kind of offshoot thoughts appearing too. Start your Ideas Journal today!

7. Believe you’re capable of having ideas. This is crucial. If you’re going around with an inner monologue that goes something like: “I’m not creative, I NEVER have any good ideas” then guess what? You’ll never have any good ideas! By believing you’re creative, you greatly increase the frequency of ideas you have.

Here’s a simple way to prove you’re creative. Imagine a small boy called Peter, who wears blue shorts and has a magic horse. Now I guarantee that you’ve already pictured Peter and his horse in your mind, and are wondering what he’s like, why the horse is magic and what adventures they might get up to. Am I right? See! You’re far more creative than you think, believe in yourself and your creativity!

These are 7 ways to have more creative ideas than you thought possible. Which tip are you going to pick and put to use first?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Goodwin

Is creative writing something we can learn and develop?

Or are we simply stuck with a fixed amount of creative writing talent we’re born with?

Why do some people seem to find it easy to write pages and pages of wonderful flowing creative writing?

While others gaze on eternally frustrated that they will never be able to reach such heights of creativity and productivity?

For many of us, even if we DO manage to overcome our creative blocks in terms of the AMOUNT we write, we feel constantly disappointed with the quality of our creative writing output.

We feel we could write forever at this average-anyone-off-the-street-coulda-written-this kind of standard.

But really we long for that next elusive level.

We’re desperate for that creative writing breakthrough – that poem, that story, that single sentence – that blows us away and makes us feel we’re a powerful creative force to be reckoned with after all.

So how do we get there? How do we experience this creative epiphany?

Well, we can’t summon it up magically just like that. But there’s plenty we CAN do to make it easier for our creative writing talent to evolve to new levels.

Here are two simple ways:

1. Work on your beliefs about your creative writing ability.

If you don’t believe deep down you’re capable of writing creatively then you simply never will achieve the wonderful levels of creative writing you’re actually capable of.

Have a check in with your beliefs about your creativity.

Ask yourself honestly: How creative do I really believe I am?

If the answer is less than an emphatic – “there are no limits to my creativity, I’m as creative as I want to be!” – then it’s time to take a look at some of the ways you can increase your creative self-belief.

Start by simply listing all the things you think someone with strong self-belief thinks about themselves. The same things you’d need to think if you were to be highly creative.

Then read them out loud to yourself, as if you believe them yourself.

2. Gather evidence of your creative ability.

The second simple way to make it easier for your creativity to flourish is to gather together all the evidence of how very creative you are.

Get together all the creative writing you’ve done in the past. Everything: letters, notes, diaries, journals, as well as what you might consider your “proper” creative writing. There’s bound to be more than you think.

Another little exercise to do is take a random object from around where you’re sitting. Maybe it’s a pen or a book or a cushion.

Now pick an emotion. It could be sad, excited, overjoyed, frustrated, or any other emotion.

Imagine you’re someone for whom this object summons up that emotion very strongly. Write a couple of sentences why this is so, the history behind it.

Now you have further evidence of your creative writing ability. From just one object and one emotion you were able to create a story, and the background to a character.

Our creative writing ability is something we can ALL develop.

Start building up yours today by using these two simple techniques.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Goodwin

The word “myself” should only be used sparingly, and only for emphasis. It is not a substitute for “me.” You might say, “I love working for Wells Fargo, myself.” But don’t say, “Myself and Henry Wells ate lunch together.”

• Insure means to protect against risk.
• Ensure means to make certain.

• i.e. stands for id est (that is). Use it when you’re explaining something. I like cats and dogs, i.e., animals you can have as pets in your home.
• e.g. stands for exempli gratia (for example). You can remember this by pretending that e.g. stands for example given. I like big dogs, e.g., Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds.

When two things are being compared, use “than.” Her credit balance is higher than his.

For me, it has been much colder than normal and I have been moving things so the extra clothing required to stay warm has been quite interesting. 

As you know, when you are moving and active you are warmer.  When you are still, you are colder.  Adjusting to the level of activity and the amount of clothing needed to remain comfortable while I have been completing this task has been at times funny and at times quite annoying.  Thankfully, I could layer the clothing and monitor the task activity level.

Find a weather event and see if you can write a short story about the details and your experience.

If you need to know details about proper grammar, because it might be keeping you from doing your writing, find out what you can do to improve.

Click Here!

Often we never consider that how we solved a situation might help someone else.  I am always surprised at the thank your I get from other people when I share.  Underestimating our influence on others can keep you from thinking that what you might say is important and that often leads to not sharing.

If you could just have an idea that what and how much of what you share could help and impact others it might be easier to sit down and write out your story.  Someone somewhere might have made you feel that your ideas were not of value to others so if that is what happened, it might be harder to share your ideas.  Consider that those people are not able to continue to keep you from writing if you really want to share your thoughts.  I would encourage you to begin and see if you can put your ideas down on paper.  I laugh when people talk but do not want to write.  I guess they think that if it is said and someone challenges them they can deny it but if it is in writing they can’t.

The best thing to do if you are nervous that someone might criticize your work is write it down and put it on your shelf.  At least you will have it in writing so you can enjoy it.  Then at some time if you want to share with others you can.  If it really is hard for you to share your work, write under a pen name and that way you will be out of the picture for people to fuss at.

If you are finding you want to write but just can’t get to it, you might be experiencing writers block.

Save editing your work until later.  For now, just continue to write the content that is pertinent to the topic you are covering.  If you are having trouble following your words, so will you reader so see where you begin to feel bogged down and change the content in that area.

If you are ready to begin writing your final content, you can get the help you need that is in a step by step format by using this resource: http://www.edityourownwriting.com