Have you ever sat down to start a new writing project and then realized an hour later you were still sitting there, staring idly at the blank page?

Sometimes writing inspiration doesn’t come easy.

In a writer’s ideal world, the blank page is something we always look forward to, a fresh canvas we can color with ideas and texture with language. When our muse is dancing around, we feel motivated and inspired, so the blank page feels like the start of an exciting adventure.

But if our mind isn’t in the right place, if our muse is on vacation, that same page is nothing but a source of frustration.

When I became a professional copywriter, I had to learn how to write whether the muse was present or not. You know how muses are, fleeting little hooligans. I couldn’t rely on mine all the time. So I learned how to get along without her. That meant coming up with my own writing inspiration.

Outsmarting the Missing Muse

Yes, you can get along without your muse. I won’t lie to you and tell you that writing without your muse is the same. It’s less pleasant, more time consuming, and makes you feel like a struggling hack rather than the brilliant writer that you are. Still, life (and work and writing) goes on whether the muse is at your beck and call or not.

First you have to figure out why your muse failed to show up. Here are some reasons mine runs off and hides:

• I’m not into this particular project and neither is she.
• The muse’s secret entrance is blocked by my stress, fatigue, or hunger.
• She’s put her time in for the day and has clocked out (the well’s run dry).

Once I recognize the problem, it’s a little easier to cope with the muse’s absence. I still miss her, but now that I know why she’s a no-show, I’m ready to forge ahead without her.

Forget the Muse, Discover Willpower

You see, the secret to facing the blank page without the muse is sheer determination. You achieve this by getting into the right frame of mind and using clever tricks to convince your brain that it can, in fact, function without the muse. I do this by telling myself any or all of the following:

• Once I get the first sentence out, the piece will start to flow.
• I don’t have to get it right (this is a rough draft, after all). I just have to get it written.
• If I hurry up and get this done, I can do something else.

Sometimes these simple reminders are all it takes to get your word machine in good working order. By forcing yourself to push ahead or promising yourself a little reward, you can actually convince your brain to become productive without its mischievous little friend. That would be your muse, for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention.

Try a New Approach for Coming up with Writing Inspiration

What? You say your brain is smarter than you are, and these tricks don’t work for you? Don’t worry, I have more magic up my sleeve. After all, I’ve been outsmarting the muse for years.

• Take a break and work on a different writing project.
• Take a break and do something fun for a limited time, and then force yourself to spend twenty minutes writing.
• Take a break and get your blood pumping. Exercise for twenty minutes, take a quick shower, and then write for fifteen minutes.

Be careful when it comes to taking breaks. You don’t want to stare at that blank page for five minutes, take a twenty minute break and then just repeat that cycle all the livelong day. That won’t do you any good and your absent muse will have won.

There’s a good chance your brain just needs to do a little stretching. Do you ever wake up in the morning and your muscles are all stiff? You yawn and stretch (and try to come alive). Sometimes your brain needs to do that too.

When you switch gears and get your wheels turning on a different project, you can build momentum for when you return to the one that’s giving you a hard time. Or you could just be overworked and need to pamper yourself by having some fun. Play with the dog or the kids, watch some hilarious YouTube videos, or turn up the music and dance around in your underwear.

That brings us to getting the old blood pumping. I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV, so I can’t give you the biological, physiological diatribe about how blood flow and oxygen getting to your brain can make you more alert and get those creative juices flowing. But take my word for it. A little workout can do wonders for encouraging the word current. (Yes, dancing around in your underwear to really loud obnoxious music counts as a workout. Plus it’s fun, so you get two for the price of one.)

When the Muse Returns

When your muse gets back and discovers all the work you’ve done without her, you might want to gloat. This could discourage her from taking any sabbaticals in the future. Maybe you don’t want to hurt her feelings. If she’s sensitive, then gloating might only encourage her to take off more frequently. All muses are different, and I can only suggest you learn how to deal with yours through trial and error. But be sure to feed her plenty of cream puffs and chocolate éclairs.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you? Of course, because I’m so predictable. I want you to tell us all about your muse. How often does she take a vacation? How do you cope with her absence? Have you found ways to write without your muse, or are you totally dependent on her for writing inspiration? Is your muse a dude?

Do you have any tips for how to outsmart the muse and come up with your own writing inspiration? Leave a comment, but don’t tell the muses we’re talking about them…we wouldn’t want it to go to their heads.

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward

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Currently I’m reading a collection of essays by the National Book Award winner and genius grant recipient Ta-Nehisi Coates. Many people view Coates, a writer for The Atlantic, as political, but I’ve heard him speak, and he repeatedly emphasizes that he is a writer above all else. He is an observer and he shares his observations with the world, and we can draw valuable writing tips from his work.

3 Writing Tips Culled From the Reflections of a Genius

Coates’s book We Were Eight Years in Power consists of articles he wrote during the Obama years, each of which are preceded by Coates’s retrospective reflections on those essays.

As a fellow writer, I was enthralled by those reflections. Here was an anointed “genius” expressing his doubts and self-critiques. There’s something fascinating about watching a successful writer still cringe at the very works that gave him that success.

Given all that, I had to share some of my takeaways, writing tips drawn from Coates’s self-reflections. Here they are:

1. Blog

Before anyone knew who Coates was, he blogged. And he did so solely because he had many ideas and no where to put them. He posted four or five times a day, and over time people (besides his Dad) started reading it. They offered comments and suggested other books and philosophers for him to check out. Eventually the blog drew the attention of The Atlantic.

Writers write. But they also allow others to read and critique what they have written—because it’s the only way to get better.

That’s where blogs (or even the comments of The Write Practice articles) come in.

Coates used his blog to get out ideas out of his head and heart, and was open to the comments of others. Many of these posts even served as the starting points for articles he later published in The Atlantic and elsewhere.

Try blogging (or commenting) to test out new techniques, attempt to write in new genres, or to simply workshop certain pieces or ideas. Who knows? You may get the attention of a prominent magazine. 😉

2. Reflect on past work

It was really, really, really interesting for me to see Coates look at an essay he wrote three years ago, think about where he was in his life, and then consider whether he successfully executed his idea or not.

For example, Coates describes a 2004 article he wrote about Bill Cosby as an “attempt”: “I felt myself trying to write a feeling, something dreamlike and intangible that lived in my head, and in my head is where at least half of it remained.” He also admits that he heard about the accusations against the comedian, but chose not to go there. He says that decision made the article less true.

Nine times out of ten when I publish something, I’m done with it forever. I rarely return to past work. But maybe I should. In preparing Eight Years, Coates was able to both reflect upon his weakness in a dispassionate way and appreciate his growth.

As writers, we constantly question ourselves and think our work could be better. But perhaps this self-critique would be more useful to us if we allowed some time to pass first.

3. Seize your moment

Coates says he’s know as a “black writer.” Yes, he’s black, but he also writes about black American issues, specifically. So the election of Barack Obama was directly life changing for him. In other words, it was his moment. Coates writes:

“The fact of Barack Obama, of Michelle Obama, changed our lives. Their very existence opened a market. It is important to say this, to say it in this ugly, inelegant way. It is important to remember the inconsequence of one’s talent and hard work and the incredible and unmatched sway of luck and fate.”

If you find that, after years of setbacks and failure, the world is suddenly ready to hear your voice—speak. Write.

More importantly, pay attention so that you don’t miss the opportunity. As Coates “inelegantly” points out—timing can be just as important as talent and hard work.

What is your unique market? What hole do you fill with your writing?

Your Ideas Can Change the World

Writing is our opportunity to share our observations with the world. Want to influence others with your stories and ideas? Share your work boldly and invite response and critique. Reflect on past work after a few months or years have passed so you can view it through the lens of your personal growth.

Then, when your moment of recognition comes, you’ll be ready to seize it.

And your words will change the world.

Have you read Coates’s writing or heard him speak? What other writing tips can you draw from his work? Let us know in the comments.

By Monica M. Clark
Source: thewritepractice

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More lessons on making what you write and edit for others more useful and meaningful.

By Peter P. Jacobi

In Part I, I covered a number of lessons for those who both write and edit. Items included being clear, self-editing, leaving no questions, and adding interest. Now, here are the remaining points:

Follow Policy

Often, the editing involves handling of opinionated copy that may or may not be appropriate. Be careful to follow policy. And remember there’s a great difference between using other people’s opinion in your copy, which, when used fairly, is proper, and using your own, which may not be unless labeled “opinion.” That can all become quite sticky and become a significant part of your duty to handle as editor.

Know Your Limits

Personally, I have experience handling professional copy for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. As teacher, I’ve edited student copy of all those journalistic sorts for more than 50 years. I’ve done utilitarian editing and the others.

Let me emphasize, however, that we cannot, as individuals, handle all sorts of editing. I cannot. I’ve been asked to edit book manuscripts, for instance. Nonfiction I probably could do but avoid because a work of such length makes me nervous (not to read, mind you, but to edit). Fiction is out of the question. Fixing plot and character development and made-up dialogue and arcs of climaxes and such matters is not my thing. I say “no” to such requests. Consequently, working for a book publisher is not on my list of credits. That’s a very different sort of editing animal. Remind yourself of personal limits. Most of us who write cannot write everything. Ditto, when it comes to editing.

Which brings me back to Barbara Baig’s Spellbinding Sentences, mentioned in Part I. She uses the perfection of sentences to preach the series of lessons we need to be reminded of in seeking to write and edit better.

Her lessons are extremely well presented and developed. I think you would benefit from reading and using the book. Its coverage is grammar-deep, oriented toward showing how — when you use the language accurately and briefly and correctly — you are on the way to making what you write and edit for others more useful and meaningful.

Practice Visionary Editing

Which also brings me back to the Highlights Foundation Workshop mentioned in Part I and my friend’s address to the students. He is a dear friend, Jan Cheripko, a deeply thoughtful and kind man, a former working journalist, a retired teacher in a residential school for children with emotional problems, and a successful author of books for children. He titled his talk “Literature, Lessons, and Life: How the Desire to Write One Good Sentence Pursued Me.”

He did discuss working toward perfection of a sentence through just the right language. But the aim of his discussion reached wider. One heard him deliver a number of sentences from a number of sources, some of them from literature, others among them from lessons and life. Out of events from his own life, that of his family, and of his troubled but beloved students, from the lessons Jan learned, he arrived at sentences, perfect ones, that in content and verbal style and personal voice and spirit wrapped up a spiritual journey or a lifesaving moment or a mind-opener that altered the course of someone’s life, including Jan’s own.

Jan was arguing that as writer and editor, when we can spot such in someone’s writing or discover it in our own, the editorial wisdom to leave that alone and pass it on is a gift to every reader. That becomes visionary editing, editing on another, higher level. Whenever you sit down to write or edit, keep your heart and brain on the lookout for such copy, potentially a gift beyond all measure.

Peter P. Jacobi is a Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. He is a writing and editing consultant for numerous associations and magazines, speech coach, and workshop leader for various institutions and corporations. He can be reached at 812-334-0063.

Source: publishinghelp

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