Challenge to Writers: Jump Into a Blissful Research Break

Boy, Have I Been Having Fun!

By Annette Rey

Any time away from your daily grind job is fun, right? Well, I have been recently blessed with a relief in my workload. I am spending that time enrolling in free, educational, one-day events around town (at colleges, nature centers, libraries, and churches)*.

These are marvelous opportunities for writers. Waves of new information enter your head and the creativity part of your brain lights up. I will be sharing these experiences with you, encouraging you to search out the same types of opportunities in your part of the world. You will be amazed at what is out there to stoke your writer’s imagination to help you break through anything you may think is writer’s block.

Take a look.

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Create Creative Characters

Use Your Imagination

By Annette Rey

When was the last time you were awed by a new invention? Did you say to yourself, “I wish I had invented that!”

Well, set your imagination free and create creative characters!

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What Person Has Most Influenced Your Life?

For the Good or for the Bad

By Annette Rey

Here is a dynamic exercise for you to investigate your own life, like examining the growth rings of a tree. Delve deeply into your psyche and your memory and answer the following fifteen questions. You will discover new things about yourself, a significant person that has profoundly affected you, and your past. This may take some courage to complete. Do you dare?

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Open Your Story with a Wow!

Engage Your Readers at the Start

By Annette Rey

How quickly do you get bored when a story doesn’t get to the point right away? Are you disturbed when the location is not made clear? What if an opening begins with dialogue? Those words better be dynamic, right?

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A Life Event Can Be a Writer’s Block

Blocks Aren’t Always Mental

By Annette Rey

Writing ideas are always in front of you, so dismiss the excuse of writer’s block. Sometimes, though, your writing can be utterly stopped when a crucial life event takes place.

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Does Your Environment Affect Your Writing Life?

Let’s Find Out

By Annette Rey

Looking for new writing inspiration? Do you want to acquire intriguing information about your own reality? Then reading this book should give birth to new writing projects.

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Picture Prompts for Writers

By Annette Rey

Here are some visuals to inspire a short story, a poem, a flash fiction. Be creative. Dream. Write.

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Do you know where you are?

Are you driving alone?

Is someone you don’t know driving the car?

 

Sunny, but sinister? Are your spider senses tingling?

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What goes on inside? Does a cult meet here? Is a psychopath holding hostages and no one on the outside knows it yet?

What is this man pointing to? What is in his pouch?

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Are you filled with sympathy? What thoughts do you have about how vulnerable he is on the city streets? Could he be your new protagonist?

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Trapped!

You are locked inside a store with an angry bear!

How do you outsmart him…or not?

 

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Is this a story about the past? What did this tree witness? What role did it play in the lives of many? Who is mourning its passing? Who was the violent agent who brought down such a monument to life?

Write the stories you feel and see in these images.

Just write!

The world is waiting to hear your song.

 

Science and Writing

Love Them Both!

By Annette Rey

You can break writer’s block by combining another subject you love with your primary desire to write work that flows. To this end, science facts will get me writing.

On 3/30/19 I posted Will Writer’s Digest Die?, an article informing that F&W Media, the publisher of Writer’s Digest, has announced Chapter 11 bankruptcy and unless another interest buys the magazine, writers of the world will lose a valuable resource.

What do these first two paragraphs have to do with one another? Read on.

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Conflicted Characters

By Annette Rey

When Opposites Make Sense

Can Sigmund Freud’s beliefs help you create scenarios for your characters? I think so.

I found an article with a provocative lead sentence. What if you hated someone who you were socially and morally expected to love? (link below)

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Einstein and Writing

By Annette Rey

Character Ideas From the Past

Writers should take guidance from history’s greats. Einstein is one of them.

Why do I choose him to feature in this post? Read on and see.

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