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Nina
Rectangular memories
Posted: 01/02/16 09:18 |
11 Comments
The concept of mind mapping may have evolved from the mathematical spider diagram, but, not being a mathematician, I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that by placing a single concept, in the shape of a word, phrase, or image, in the centre of a piece of paper, and using word representations, associations and memories to expand outwards, answers fall into place. This technique prevents you from losing those tiny peripheral thoughts that may be the nub of creativity, and encourages new ideas to drop from the muses.
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That Beach Ball Feeling
Posted: 23/11/15 09:26 |
5 Comments
I can clearly remember my first rejection. It was as if someone had released a little valve on me. The sort of little valve that beach balls have so you can blow them up. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to write again.
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The Secret Life of Characters
Posted: 05/10/15 03:32 |
3 Comments
You want your readers to be driven by emotion as they read, and in fiction it’s the characters who engage that emotion. For this to happen, the reader has to be trapped in a sort of magic…temporarily, he must believe the character is real. So how do you acquaint yourself well enough with your characters to fool your reader into believing they are authentic people?
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Pull Those Underpants on Over your Trousers and Fly!
Posted: 18/08/15 09:19 |
4 Comments
In this monthly series of blogposts on Writing Skills (both the course and the subject) we’ve been concentrating on various aspects of Part One, making the most of early strategies such as employing speedwriting, using notebooks, compiling a commonplace book and learning how to ‘zone in’ when describing. It’s time to move onto Part Two of Writing Skills, which is all about character.
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See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me…Zoned-in Descriptive Writing
Posted: 21/07/15 09:22 |
8 Comments
‘See me, feel me, touch me…’ sings Roger Daltrey of the Who; not the most wonderful of lyrics, but a most useful phrase for writers…
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How many notebooks does it take to…
Posted: 09/06/15 09:50 |
15 Comments
Shoot me down in flames if you don’t agree with me, but I’d say that a writer who does not have at least one notebook, is not a writer.
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The Commonplace Book: A Miscellany of New Ideas.
Posted: 12/05/15 09:45 |
7 Comments
A Commonplace Book is a store of incidental items that a writer might find useful, informative or inspiring in time to come…a collection of ‘miscellaneous’ cuttings…pages from magazines or printouts from the internet…photos, postcards, business cards, leaflets, maps, CDs & DVDs. Collecting incidental items is what a Commonplace Book is all about.
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Go with the Flow: a Strategy for Writing
Posted: 06/04/15 03:59 |
3 Comments
Free-writing is not about rules, or even guidelines. It’s about a freedom that comes when writing can simply be enjoyed.
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Hollow Places
Posted: 21/01/15 10:06 |
2 Comments
I’m a King of Hearts kind of writer. That is, when I begin to write something, long or short, I have to start at the beginning and I only stop when I get to the end. Many writers, established and successful, do not follow this pattern.
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Story & Plot: Americanah
Posted: 22/10/14 11:59 |
5 Comments
Plot and story are different things, albeit sometimes difficult to pull apart. In fact, in a well-plotted novel it should be damn-near impossible to separate them, because good plotting intricately intertwines its underlying stories into an almost invisibly woven fabric.
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