Monthly Archives: January 2017

Your Local Public Library

 

A Writers’ Need

By Annette Rey

Did You Know…?

A writer’s information resource often overlooked is your public library.

The library is not just about books anymore?

Your library is equipped with a check-out system you can access from your home computer. Isn’t that great when you are snowed in? That feature is a real plus for writers who don’t want to leave their lair. And what about the money you save when you don’t have to purchase a necessary product?

Let’s crack the surface and see all the things your library has to offer.

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Writer’s Words

Wonderful  Words – pique and fête

By Annette Rey

Writers, do your research. Nothing is worse than to misuse a word unless it is to misspell it. One of my biggest bugaboos is putting a word into your work and not doing your own spell checking. Take nothing for granted. Check it.

I saw a piece of work with the intended word pique. He spelled it as it sounds, peek. The sentence said something can peek your interest. Of course, spell check did not catch that.

The more you read, the better you will become at using English.

Another word error I observed in a piece of work was fête. This word, correctly pronounced, sounds like the word fate. This writer spelled it feet because he thought that is how the word is pronounced (it was not a typo).

Both of these writers did not do their research. And how long does it take to look up a word in a dictionary?

Your writing stands as an example of you.

 

 

Some Influences on Your Writing

Environment and Your Mood

By Annette Rey

Have you noticed the emotional effect that varying environments produce on your mood? When I view luscious environments in the background on television shows, I am aware of the feelings those scenes evoke in me.

As a help to enrich your writing, begin to focus on emotional changes inside you related to environment. Think more introspectively about your feelings. Put these feelings into words.

Let’s look at some ways to accomplish this. 

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Avoid Those Lovely Adverbs

And Have Fun Doing It

By Annette Rey

Why do professionals advise writers to limit the use of adverbs? Aren’t adverbs descriptive words? Don’t they give a visual to readers of what is going on?

These are good words. Personally, I like them. My lazy side prefers them.

And that is the point. It’s harder to write a sentence that shows the reader what is going on. It takes more thought to find descriptive words. It takes more time. But the results are worth it. You will have more pride in your work and the reader will have a better reading experience.

So let’s look at a few of those adverbs and learn substitutions for them.

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Breaking Writer’s Block

Subject Search

By Annette Rey

Are you having trouble finding  a subject about which to write? I have found that odd subjects are alluring to many readers. People are curious. Many are seekers. A lot of them are ravenous readers and read package ingredients, posters, and billboards. They are hungry for information and they wish to escape their realities. So don’t think you won’t please an audience if you write on subjects out of the ordinary.

Who doesn’t squirm when a hairy spider is described? Yet, like people who watch ghost stories or sensational news clips, their eyes peer between the fingers covering their face, so as not to miss a thrilling moment.

Let’s talk about roaches.

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Your Living Body of Work

By Annette Rey

Let’s call the piece you are constructing a living body of work and think in those terms, a whole unit composed of dependencies and interconnections and interactions.

Body of work = the whole piece

Living body of work = one piece, breathing, experiencing, projecting, inviting, moving

But it can’t function without its parts which are listed in the analogies that follow:

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Four Ways to Cut Your Writing Expenses

$    Okay. How many writers out there are spending way over their budgets on writing craft books, pretty ink pens, highlighters, folders, notebooks, copy paper and the next gadget being hyped as a just-must-have? Sure, many of these items (and more) can be needed for a writer’s life. But, a beginning writer has more money going out than coming in. How can we spend a bit less, yet gather what we need to produce good work? Some of the following ideas are simple common sense, even mundane suggestions, but worth mentioning.

$   $   $   $   $   $

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Benefits of Building a Spiral Notebook Library

In another post I mentioned my spiral notebook library. It is growing and is filled with juicy fodder for my work. The pages are overflowing with my own ideas drawn from reading other authors, instructional excerpts from books on writing, character profiles I am building, chapters of various book projects, small nuggets of grammar, vocabulary – you name it, every aspect of writing.

A review of any of these notebooks opens writing flow like a rushing river and I do not exaggerate. Scraps of thoughts written months ago seem to have germinated in my brain without my realizing it. Revisiting an entry provokes an “Aha!” moment and I’m writing and fleshing out the idea without effort.

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Four Points for Struggling Spirits of Struggling Writers

Periodically do you ask yourself, “Will anyone be interested in this that I am writing?”, “Will this sell?”, “Do I have what it takes?”

Most struggling writers have self-doubts, give up from time to time, or throw in their pen completely until their inner muse draws them back, sometimes almost against their will.

But for those times when you are at the crossroads of doubt, or feel simply out of steam, consider following the next four points.

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Four Ways to Live Your Writing

What do I mean by Live Your Writing? Let me start with an opposite explanation. If you treat your writing as just beginning when you sit down to type, then you are not living your writing. If your writing is an afterthought of your day, an isolated concentration separate from your daily events, then you are not living your writing. The following four suggestions will help you find ways to incorporate your writing into your life when your fingers are not holding a pen or tapping keys.

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