Monthly Archives: March 2019

4 Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Writing (And What to Do About It!)

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Oh, the lovely struggles of a writer’s life — bloodthirsty deadlines, toxic clients, lack of inspiration… These things come with the package, whether you like it or not. But did you know that you are the greatest enemy of your own work?

Out of hundreds of excuses — bad days, the dreaded writer’s block or simple laziness — you, as a writer, bear the sole responsibility for whether words appear on the page or not. It took me a while to acknowledge this and improve (a bit). Now I want to make it easier for you.

Take a look at these four signs and see whether you’re making the same mistakes!

1. You Don’t Prepare an Outline

As much as I like to get “adventurous” with my writing once in a while, my disorganized soul always craves for a grain of order and structure. It’s surprising how even a simple plan can help with all kinds of writer’s ailments.

I’ve battle-tested working without and with an outline, and the writing has always been smoother and more pleasurable for the latter. Even the roughest of rough outlines will give you a solid direction and keep your thoughts from going astray. It will also prevent you from constantly adding and changing things!

Don’t get me wrong. You probably won’t need a master plan for a simple Tweet. But as your projects get more complex and wordy, an outline will be the only thing standing between you and a rambling disaster. You don’t have to go to extremes and follow your plan to the letter; an outline is meant to give you a heading, that’s all.

2. You’re Getting Your Deadlines All Wrong

A reasonable deadline will help you to stay on track with your writing, be it your next big novel or that blog post you should deliver in two days. An unreasonable deadline will give you a headache at best.

Now, I get it. It’s difficult to set sensible timelines for your work when you’re just starting your writing career. It takes time and many finished projects before you can estimate the time needed to wrap an assignment. But are you honest with yourself when you’re setting those deadlines?

I sometimes try to fool myself that a certain project is going to take longer or shorter than it really should. I realized that I do this get more downtime between assignments or simply postpone the work as much as I can.

What to do instead?

  • If you struggle with setting attainable deadlines, review your past projects for estimates.
  • If you’re just starting delivering projects, make sure to track your project time for future reference.
  • Give yourself a small time margin for unforeseen hiccups (10-20% of the total project time).

3. You Try to Do Everything at Once on the First Draft

Do you sometimes stop writing your first draft only to improve a sentence or use a better word? If so, then you’re sabotaging your writing big time.

Silencing your internal editor may be difficult, especially if you’re a perfectionist and want to write a masterpiece on the first try. That’s what would happen to me when I was just starting writing longer pieces and delivering client work. I’d constantly halt and ruminate on a phrase or a sentence that just didn’t seem like a good fit.

If you’re like me, then the spellchecker probably drives you crazy with all those red marks popping up all over the page (Ok, if your page is covered in “blood” from header to footer then you can probably slow down, just a bit!). But the truth is, everybody gets spelling wrong on the first run, and for some, this remains true all the way till the final draft.

It’s even more tempting to combine writing your first drafts with research. Some people prefer to look things up as they go instead of digging into a topic in advance. This approach is even more destructive and totally breaks the creative flow.

If you’re still troubled by your spelling mistakes, you’ll find many interesting insights in this post.

What to do instead?

  • DO NOT attempt to fix all the flaws of your fledgling text on the first draft; your first draft should be free from criticism, both internal and external.
  • Do your research first, and don’t you dare google things up as you write!
  • Unleash your internal critic on the 2nd, 3rd and all the consecutive drafts, but not before that.
  • If the spellchecker distracts you, turn it off.

4. You Celebrate Way Too Early

There are those moments when I finish a paragraph or a substantial part of a project and think: “I’ve done a solid piece of work here…It’s time to rest now!” And so I rest…

I grab a sandwich, take a walk, read a book or even go for a bike ride. The possibilities here are limitless, and since my brain has just done the heavy lifting, it deserves some downtime, right?

While taking occasional breaks from writing is absolutely necessary to keep your mental nuts and bolts in place, I learned the hard way that short breaks tend to beef up in duration if you let them. It’s tempting to notoriously stretch break time and justify it with a flabby “I’ve accomplished something and deserve this!”

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t reward yourself for little successes and reserve some time for small celebrations. By all means, please do (a stroll in a park makes for a great brain-reset). But sometimes it’s better to be a bit tougher on yourself than to despair over a deadline that has just flashed by because you got lost in a book, again.

Does any of these signs sound familiar? Are you guilty of committing similar crimes against your writing? Let me know!

Source: littlezotz.com

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Fascinating Words for Colors (and the Battle of Magenta)

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Imagine not having a word for “yellow” or “beige” or “orange.” For many years, English got by with a lot fewer words for color than we have today.

By

Mignon Fogarty,

Grammar Girl

 

This a Stitcher Premium exclusive Grammar Girl podcast episode. Want to hear it? Head to stitcherpremium.com/grammar and use code GRAMMAR to sign up for your free trial and get access to all archived ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and more.

Colors are such fundamental, tangible things that it’s hard to imagine not having names for them, but the number of words for colors varies widely by language and for many, many years, English got by without a lot of the color names we take for granted today.

In nearly all languages, the first colors to get names are black and white.

Black

“Black” comes from very old words that meant “to burn” or “burned.” But the same old words also gave us “blake,” which is a now obscure word that meant pale, pallid, and ashen. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says that it is often difficult to tell which of these two colors is meant in Old English texts when the context doesn’t make it clear. And to make it even more complicated, at some point, “black” could also be used to describe something bright, shining, or glittering, perhaps related to the idea that something that is burning is all those things. So it took “black” a while to be limited to what we think of as black today.

White

“White” is a little more straightforward. In Old English, it meant “bright and radiant, or clear and fair.” It could be describing something we think of as white such as snow, milk, or an old person’s hair, but it could also describe something transparent, or something light yellow, pale gray, or silver. Online Etymology Dictionary says “White” is also one of the oldest surnames in English, originally referring to people with fair hair or a fair complexion.

There are still languages today that have just two words for colors that are essentially white for all light or warm colors and black for all dark or cool colors.

Red

That surprised me, but one thing that surprised me most was that the next color almost all languages name is red—one theory is that it’s because it is the color of blood.

Although black, white, and red all likely go back to the prehistoric language Proto-Indo-European (PIE), Online Etymology Dictionary states that red is “the only color for which a definite common PIE root word has been found.”

Red shows up in a lot of place names where it referred to the color of natural elements such as rocks and soil. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary lists Radcliffe, Radclive, Redmile, Redford, and Rattery, all from 1086, and slightly later Radly and Redhill. The same root for “red” also likely gave us the word for the color “rust.”

In those early days though, “red” was probably the name for the color rust, as well as purple, pink, and orange.

In fact, we call people redheads instead of orangeheads because at the time we started calling them anything, the word “orange” hadn’t entered the language as a color word, and the word “red” included the orangey color of red hair.

Interestingly, the Irish writer Stan Carey told me that the Irish word for red hair is different from the general Irish word for red.

Grue

After red, most languages add a word for either yellow or a spectrum that includes both green and blue that language experts sometimes call “grue.” Since blue and green are so prevalent in nature, I would have expected one of them to be the third word more languages would add, but I was wrong!

You can think of these as the five base colors that most languages have: black, white, red, yellow, and green/blue. And English today is described as having 11 main color words: those five base colors (black, white, red, yellow, and green/blue) plus brown, orange, pink, purple and gray, but some languages have more or different words. For example, Russian, Greek, and Turkish have separate words for light blue and dark blue.

Gray, Brown, and Orange

Gray and brown are both very old words that go back to Old English, and orange came from the color of the fruit after oranges were introduced to Europe, around the mid-1500s.

Purple

Purple was originally a shade of crimson “obtained from mollusc dye” and associated with people of importance such as emperors, kings, cardinals, and so on. It came to describe many colors in the spectrum between red and violet. The color we think of as purple today was first called purple in the 1400s.

Pink

Pink is especially interesting. According to the OED, “pink” originally referred to “a greenish-yellow lake pigment made by combining a vegetable coloring matter with a white base such as a metallic oxide.” It seems like that first “pink” was more of a description of the process than the color, since the OED notes there were colors such as green pink, brown pink, rose pink, and pink yellow. The origin of the word is unknown, but in the 1600s, the word “pink” also started being used to mean the light red color we think of today. The origin of the greenish-yellow pink and the light red pink are both listed as unknown, and it’s unclear to me whether etymologists think they are related, but I think not.

This second pink—the one we think of today—probably comes from the color of the flower Dianthus, but the flower probably got its name from the spiky, scalloped shape of its petals because if you’ve ever used pinking shears, you know that “pink” has another meaning: to cut a scalloped or zigzag edge on fabric. Earlier, it also meant to punch holes or slits into fabric. So the “cut fabric” meaning of pink came first, the flower Dianthus was called a pink because of the shape of its petals, and then we got the color pink from the color of the Dianthus flowers.

But English also had a different word to describe the color pink before we started using “pink.” In the 1500s and into following centuries you could use the word “incarnate,” which comes from the Latin word for “flesh.” It doesn’t look like it was used alone the way we use colors alone today, as in “That flower is pink.” Still, you could describe something as “an incarnate color,” meaning a pink or fleshy color, or say you picked “incarnate clovers,” meaning pink clovers.

Colors from Nature

Colors continued to come from nature through the 1700s. For example, ultramarine, a blue color, comes from Latin that means “beyond the sea,” probably because the color originally came from a blue pigment from the mineral lapis lazuli which came from Asia.

The late 1700s gave us “maroon,” from the French word for the color of a chestnut, and “puce,” from the French word for flea or the color of a flea (yes, the insect).

Colors After Chemical Dyes

Advances in chemistry in the mid-1800s that allowed manufacturers to make synthetic dyes led to an explosion of new colors, and the fashion industry in particular embraced the ability to add novelty to its products and drove the adoption of many new color words. According to a book called “Bright Modernity: Color, Commerce, and Consumer Culture”:

“Women’s magazines disseminated the names of new colors and sometimes their origins. Acquiring this knowledge was part of keeping up with fashion for the  middle-class female consumer.”

Many of these new color words came from French. Some of the colors this new era gave us include the following:

  • Mauve: The French word for the color of the mallow plant’s flower
  • Ecru: From the French word for “raw or unbleached” because it is the color of unbleached linen
  • Beige: From the French word to describe the color of undyed, unbleached wool
  • Burgundy: Referring to the color of wine through the Burgundy region in France
  • Turquoise: From the Old French word for “Turkish” because the turquoise-colored stone was originally imported from the Turkish region

The mid-1800s also gave us “aquamarine,” which comes from Latin and means “sea-water,” and “khaki,” which comes from the Urdu word for “dusty.”

Tangerine, the fruit, got its name in the mid-1800s because that particular type of orange was imported from Tangier, and it started being used as a color word in 1899.

There are so many more interesting color words, and I just learned that Kory Stamper from Merriam-Webster is writing an entire book about color words, but I’ll end with the two words that got me started on this grand expedition into color words in the first place: magenta and solferino.

Magenta was originally patented in 1859 by a French chemist and called “fuchsine,” after the fuchsia flower, but soon thereafter was changed to honor a French military victory over the Austrians near the northern Italian town of Magenta. And solferino is a bright crimson purplish red or purplish pink (sources disagree) named around the same time as magenta after a village in northern Italy, again because of a battle that took place in the region.

Solferino also appears to be a coloring that can be added to liquor, at least it was in 1866 when it was used as a tincture that was mentioned alongside caramel and turmeric in the book The Independent Liquorist. The author described solferino as “The handsomest, as well as the most powerful color known to the trade.”

Source: quickanddirtytips.com

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Magic Without Rules

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard

When we say “without rules” we’re talking about stories whose magic is not held under logical scrutiny for the reader. There are lots of reasons why you might do this, and in this episode we’ll talk about not just about the why, but also the how.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:18 — 14.0MB)

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Take a story with rule-based magic. Now have the rules all go wrong, the characters realize they don’t really understand the rules at all.

Source: writingexcuses.com

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When Fiction Doesn’t Work—What Can Be Learned?

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By Bonnie Randall 

Part of the How They Do It Series 

JH: You can learn just as much from a bad book as a good book.

 Stephen King said “Unless you read, you do not have the tools to write.”

Books that whisk us deeply into a story, have characters who become dear friends, or use language in such a way that leaves us breathless, are powerful tools for writers, because those elements are replicable and take our fiction to higher, deeper, and more meaningful levels.

What, though, about fiction that doesn’t move you in any sort of positive way? Can writing lessons be gleaned from these pieces also? 

I am currently reading a novel that has me turning pages—but not in a good way. I am so frustrated from waiting for the reveal of the ‘Big Bad Secret’ the heroine is withholding that I am thumbing through and skimming just to get to the place where she coughs it up. The suspense is not working for me at all, and partly it’s because of the ambiguity surrounding whatever this secret is; there are no clear clues or indicators, and what is presented is vague.
Also, there has yet to be a clear reason why the character is being cagey about her secret in the first place. Additionally, while the character herself is being indirect, the plot keeps getting >thisclose< to revealing The Big Bad…and then being thwarted by convenient twists.
To add to the frustration, there are also interludes which come in the form of handwritten letters from one character to another—and said letters are heavily implied to be written by the heroine with the secret, and yet (I cheated) actually end up being written by the hero when all is said and done.

(Here’s more on What is “Bad Writing?” (And How Can We Avoid It?))

This does not feel like author cleverness to me, but instead like author trickery; it is one thing to not trust an unreliable character, but quite another to not be able to trust an unreliable author.

The take-aways from this reading experience for me are:

1. When employing the device of the ‘Big, Bad Secret’, strike a good balance that leaves your pacing on the side of suspense rather than frustration—and always have a good reason why your character is keeping their secret under wraps in the first place.

2. If you are going to use an ambiguous POV, make sure you do not leave your reader feeling tricked. There needs to be at least one Easter Egg in each ambiguous passage that raises doubt—and maybe even makes it fun—for the reader to wonder “Is this really Character X? Or could this be Character Y who is thinking / doing / saying these things?”

Now: How about you? Have you read a book that was a real miss for you, yet was still able to impart some good learning?

Please share whatever that book taught you to do (or not do), but do not reveal the title. (Because jeez…what if it’s one of my books?!) Seriously, we don’t want to book-bash, and besides: one reader’s trash is another reader’s treasure; the book I am referring to here, for example, has far more positive reviews than negative, and is selling rather hotly too (which begs the question—what the heck do I know, anyway?!)

Okay, folks. Your turn. And….GO!

Bonnie

Source: blog.janicehardy.com

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The Secret to Writing the Killer Plot Twist

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A woman in Poughkeepsie plucks your debut novel off the shelf. Okay, fine. It doesn’t have to be Poughkeepsie. It can be anywhere—Marietta, Springfield, Sedona—wherever. The town doesn’t matter because your debut novel flew off the shelves in every big and small town across America. Mostly because of one big thing. You pulled off the killer plot twist.

Now everyone who reads your book thinks they’re your biggest fan. That lady in Poughkeepsie? You’re about to become her favorite author. And she’s going to hand your book to her best friend and tell her in an urgent and serious whisper, “You have to read this. I still can’t believe the ending.”

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. Because the secret to pulling off the most memorable plot twist since Psycho isn’t a magic spell. It’s the unreliable narrator.

What is An Unreliable Narrator?

Put simply, an unreliable narrator is a character who lies. Sure, sometimes he lies because he has something to hide. But the lie isn’t always deliberate. Sometimes he just doesn’t know the whole story. So how can he explain it right? Sometimes he’s too crazy (American Psycho) or too tired (Fight Club) or too drugged (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to see the full story as it unfolds. But one thing is for sure. Regardless of the reason for his failure, the unreliable narrator’s story is not what it appears to be. And here’s the secret: it’s the gaps in his tale that leave space for the twist.

How Unreliable Narrators Set You Up for a Plot Twist

In life, we brush shoulders with killers and liars, psychos and saints. We don’t always know a killer or liar when we meet one. Maybe he’s just limping Linus from 2A who hides an unlikely amount of antifreeze under his kitchen sink. Or maybe it’s that mom who rolls her kids to the park in the double stroller. What is she really drinking from that flower printed water bottle?

Life creates a multitude of untrustworthy characters who blend with the crowd. The best fiction does too.

You’ve guessed it. Unreliable narrators feature in so many twisted plots precisely because of what they hide. It’s those missing pieces, the parts of the story they hold back, that feature in the big reveal at the end. And that big reveal? The one where we learned what really happened? It changes how we understand the whole story, doesn’t it? Hence the perfect plot twist.

Ready to see them in action?

How to Instigate Your Own Plot Twist (Two Iconic Examples)

Pi from Life of Pi is a character who keeps you guessing. His story of ship wreck and survival at sea isn’t the first of his fantastical tales. But even though his stories are tough to believe, you find that you want to. Since you don’t want to believe what you already know, you become a willing participant in the deception. So the twist surprises you all the same.

Pi is an example of The Embellisher, an unreliable narrator who tells tall tales for fun. But The Embellisher isn’t the only type of unreliable narrator. Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects uses deliberate deception to trick you in one of the most memorable plot twists in modern storytelling.

Verbal is a Self-Preservationist, an unreliable narrator who lies to save himself. He’s the only survivor of a boat explosion. How he came to be on that boat is a mystery that investigators are determined to extract from him. Verbal’s tale twists many times before the final reveal. Surprise, in this case, is built on deception.

These are just two examples of unreliable narrators. But in 7 Unreliable Narrators to Twist Your Plot I reveal the techniques behind the Self-Preservationist and more. In this article, you’ll get seven character types to wow your biggest fans.

And that lady in Poughkeepsie? She doesn’t need to know you learned it here.

Source: mandywallace.com

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The 7 best cookbooks for beginners, according to an insider

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Need to find the best cookbooks for beginners? A cookbook publishing insider shares the 7 best cookbooks for beginners, no matter what kind of beginner you are!

There’s almost nothing more exciting than new beginnings, and to me, there’s definitely nothing more exciting the start of a new cookbook collection.

Anytime a graduation, wedding, baby shower or any other gifting occasion comes up, I have to physically restrain myself from buying 5 new cookbooks for that friend entering a new stage of life. And I mean it–someone (ahem, Jarrett) has gotta hold me back.

Because, you see, I think that finding your way in the kitchen is one of the great pleasures of life. And that’s not even mentioning the practical incentives. Like that whole thing about how cooking at home is the #1 best thing you can do to save money, save your health, and save your relationships.

It’s true: cooking is magic for every corner of our lives, which is why it can be so rewarding to give yourself or someone you love the gift of a few cookbooks. But which are the best cookbooks for beginners? Can there even be one set of best cookbooks for beginners?

The 7 best cookbooks for beginners: why this list is different

In researching for this article, I found that many of the other online lists of the best cookbooks for beginners weren’t really for beginners. They shared books that were either too comprehensive (read: intimidating) for beginners or too high-brow (read: doubly intimidating) for beginners. And many didn’t acknowledge that there are many different kinds of beginners, and that therefore, the best cookbook for one type of beginner just wouldn’t do for another.

So instead, I decided to research and prepare my own master list of the best cookbooks for beginners. It’s organized by the type of beginner you might encounter, as well as by what that beginner might actually be interested in learning.

This list is sourced both from my 10+ years of editing and working on cookbooks, as well as my own life as a home cook and a bordering-on-obnoxious gifter of cookbooks. (And no, I haven’t personally worked on any of these–these truly are just my favorites to gift!)

I hope you find this list helpful for spotting that one best cookbook that will work for your beginner, so you can set them (or yourself) on the path of good cooking and good living.

The 7 best cookbooks for beginners

The best cookbooks for beginners who: want to master the basics

best cookbooks for beginners

How To Cook Everything: The Basics

Mark Bittman

There are many cookbooks for beginners who want to master the basics, but this is the best one for one reason: step-by-step photos. Beginners often feel a surge of confidence if they can see exactly how each step is done and how the food should look. So the 1,000 photos in this thorough starter will go far to relieve their newbie anxiety.

I especially love the beginning sections that explain—with more photos!—the different ways to cook, from sautéing to braising to pan-frying. (You won’t believe how often I hear beginners express nervousness because they don’t know what “sauté” means!)

This book is the next best thing to treating your beginner to a one-on-one cooking class. And it’s easily one of the best cookbooks for beginners (and pros!) who want to master the basics.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: love to go out to eat

best cookbooks for beginners

Comfort Food Makeovers: All Your Favorites Made Lighter

America’s Test Kitchen

Here’s a secret: the best way to get a beginner in the kitchen is to convince them they can eat better at home than at their favorite restaurant. And what are the two things that keep us from going out to eat every single night? Cost and health.

Comfort Food Makeovers is the perfect solution for this, as it shows beginners how they can make many restaurant favorites at home for about half the cost and half the calories. Think Olive Garden’s Fettucine Alfredo, Red Lobster’s Cheesy Biscuits, Chili’s Nachos, and much more.

The best part? The crew at America’s Test Kitchen explains exactly what changes they made to lighten up each recipe. So with each recipe, your beginner will be learning how they can modify and substitute their way to healthier food on their own.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: love to watch recipe videos

best cookbooks for beginners

Tasty Ultimate: How to Cook Basically Anything

Tasty

Have a beginner in your life who loves to watch those 30-second recipe videos online but hasn’t spent much time in the kitchen? Tasty Ultimate is from the minds behind many of the internet’s most popular over-the-top recipe videos. You know, the ones with the mouthwatering cheese-pulls and ooey gooey frosting drizzles. And here it delivers more of the same in book form.

This book is perfect for the beginner who gets excited about outrageous mash-up foods—things like Mozzarella Stick Onion Rings and Fried Egg Pizza—but isn’t into the old school bouef bourguignons of other beginner cookbooks.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: are foodies but can’t cook

best cookbooks for beginners

Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Kristen Miglore

I love gifting this cookbook as a wedding gift and graduation gift, because it really is chockful of the best-of-the-best recipes. You’ll find simple staples like deviled eggs, no-knead bread, and fried chicken, as well as one of my favorite recipes of all time: Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter.

The recipes are contributed by a star-studded line-up, full of names the foodie in your life will recognize, like April Bloomfield and Nigel Slater. The recipes aren’t fussy, but they are all elevated in some way. Some in exquisitely simple ways (like the onion and butter added to Hazan’s tomato sauce) and others with twists that could be used again and again (like the Salt-Crusted Potatoes that get a Cilantro Mojo dipping sauce).

This cookbook is perfect for beginners who don’t shy away from sophisticated, chef-y food when they go out to eat, but who want to start with the simplest, best versions at home.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: are newlyweds

best cookbooks for beginners

Date Night In: More than 120 Recipes to Nourish Your Relationship

Ashley Rodriguez

This is such a sweet cookbook for beginners because it’s infused with the warmth that comes from cooking and eating as a couple. It’s the perfect wedding gift because it promises the newlyweds a lifetime of hours at the table together, sharing about their days and feeling close again, even as the distractions of kids, work, and to-dos ebb and flow throughout life.

The recipes are special enough that you’ll feel like you’re treating your spouse to something out-of-the-ordinary. Yet the ingredient lists are short enough for weeknight date-night food, not once-a-year Valentine’s Day food.

This is the best cookbook for beginners who are beginning their lives together in the kitchen. Hopefully, it will show them just how important dinnertime can be for staying anchored to each other.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: are college bound

best cookbooks for beginners

The 5 Ingredient College Cookbook: Easy, Healthy Recipes for the Next Four Years & Beyond

Pamela Ellgen

Here’s the truth: your college-bound beginner probably won’t do much cooking. But here’s another truth: this might be the first time your beginner is choosing all of her own meals. And over the next four years, she’s going to start getting kitchen-curious. What better way to speed up that introduction to the kitchen than to make her first cooking experiences incredibly simple and soothing?

That’s why I love this book—it’s not about flashy cooking or learning knife skills or using new ingredients. It’s 5 ingredient cooking for the student who has never once made French toast or macaroni and cheese but is finally ready to try. It’s also great for the beginner who’s on a student budget. It’ll help them swap a few fast food meals for meals eaten at the dorm without settling for styrofoam-y noodles.

Remember: beginners have to begin somewhere. And college really is the best time to take that first baby step into the kitchen.

The best cookbooks for beginners who: are budget-minded

best cookbooks for beginners

Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day

Leanne Brown

It’s no secret: cooking at home is the #1 best way to save money (not to mention improve your health)! Yet eating at home can feel expensive and time consuming if you’re surrounded by the wrong recipes. You know, those recipes that make you buy ingredients you’ll only use once, or that call for pricey proteins like shrimp or steak.

Instead, help any budget-minded beginner arm herself with the simplest, most delicious, and affordable recipes she can get her hands on. This IACP award-winning cookbook has been a sensation because it proves that you can eat well on just $4 a day (the U.S. food stamp allotment) without resorting to processed, packaged, nutrition-devoid food.

There’s almost no cookbook collection that wouldn’t benefit from this practical and clever cookbook. But it’s especially one of the best cookbooks for beginners who want to crush their savings goals.

Source: cooksplusbooks.com

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10 Reasons Why You Should be Proud to be a Writer

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Sometimes I compare my job as a writer to his and I wonder if I’m bringing enough value to the world and helping enough people.

Genevieve Parker-Hill

The above quote comes from a wonderful post called Write the Book, Save the World.

In the post Genevieve wonders why she should be proud to be a writer when her husband who works with a large nonprofit organization seems to be bringing so much more value to the world?

Here at WritetoDone we believe every single writer matters. As Genevieve says:

what if your work helped just one person? What if your work connected with one person and colored their life with joy for one moment? What if it gave just one person a powerful connective experience, a sense that they aren’t alone?

Below are 10 reasons why you should be proud to be a writer in the real world, because in the real world, writing, and writers, really matter.

proud-to-be-a-writer

Let me know in the comments below why YOU are proud to be a writer.

Source: writetodone.com

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25 Ideas for Your Author Blog

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By Bryn Donovan

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: Writers hear it all the time—“Oh, you should start a blog.” Not a bad idea, but the hard part is knowing what to blog about. Bryn Donovan visits the lecture hall today to share some ideas on just what to do with our authors’ blog.

 Bryn Donovan earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, and in her day job, she’s the acquiring editor for Hallmark Publishing. She’s published novels both as Bryn Donovan and as Stacey Donovan, and she’s also the author of 5,000 Writing Prompts and Master Lists for Writers. She blogs about writing and positivity at bryndonovan.com.

Take it away Bryn…

When I first began my blog a few years ago, two friends of mine, my husband, and my sister-in-law were my only readers. Writing posts would sometimes feel pointless, but I told myself Well, you’ve got to start somewhere.

Now I have over 3,000 subscribers, and I get 4,000 to 5,000 people a day reading my posts because they found them in an online search or on Pinterest. It’s the main way people find out about me and my writing.

One thing that keeps some people from blogging is that they’re not sure they’ll be able to think of enough things to write about. In my book 5,000 Writing Prompts, I included 500 ideas for blog posts. Here are twenty-five ideas, most of which aren’t in the book, geared specifically for author blogs. I hope you like them!

25 Ideas for Blog Posts

1. Share ten weird facts about yourself. This is a classic for a reason. It’s a great first post…and it’s fun to do after people think they’ve gotten to know you, too.

2. If you’re trying to decide between a few different photos for the official author photo on your blog, ask people to weigh in. This is a great first or second post for a blog that gets people engaged and connected with you.

3. Can’t decide what story to write next? Share the ideas you’re considering and ask people to vote.

4. If you’re writing a horror story, write about haunted places or scary incidents. If you’re writing a mystery, write about a real-life unsolved mystery. If you’re writing a romance, share your favorite romantic scenes in movies.

5. Write about ten of your favorite books of all time.

6. Near the end of December, write about the best books you read in the past year.

7. Share your “dream casting” for your work in progress: choose an actor for each character in the story.

8. Share photos of your writing assistants—that is, your pets—and ask others to do the same. People love showing you pictures of their cats and dogs!

9. Post a roundup of your favorite public domain quotes about reading and writing.

10. Share your writing research! If you’re setting a novel in Chicago, post a list of movies set in Chicago. If you’ve learned something interesting about medieval weaponry or scientific breakthroughs, tell everyone about it.

11. Post a list of all the weird things you’ve Googled as a writer. It’s funny, and it may make people curious about what you’re up to.

12. Share a mood board of your work in progress: put together a grid of nine images that express the feeling of the story.

13. Invent and share a recipe for something easy, like a sandwich or a cocktail, inspired by your work in progress. Maybe you could create a few for various characters!

14. You can also create recipes, cocktails, or “mocktails” based on fictional characters you love from a TV show, book series, or movie…especially if you’re writing something in a similar vein.

15. Write about tropes or plot lines you love as a reader or a viewer. (For instance, I personally love any story that features strong bonds between brothers …and I love amnesia stories. We all have our favorites!)

16. If you’re a struggling writer, share your best dirt-cheap recipe or your best tips for being frugal.

17. Share the results of a personality test you took, and ask people what their type is!

18. Or share the zodiac signs, Myers-Briggs types, or enneagram types of the characters in your work in progress.

19. Write about a trip you’re planning or a goal you’re pursuing, and ask for advice.

20. Share your favorite writing tools: the best pens, journals, software, books about writing, and websites (like this one!)

21. Ask people what their three proudest accomplishments are…and share yours, too.

22. Post pictures of book covers you love.

23. If you ever happen to be in the very fortunate position of having two different choices for the cover of your next book, and you love both of them…ask people to vote. They’ll love it.

24. Share photos of the place where you do most of your writing. Maybe add photos of other writer’s spaces and studios. Ask their permission first, but if you’re linking to their blogs, they’ll probably love it.

25. Write about the top ten authors you admire in your genre. You don’t have to ask to link to their blogs or websites. They will definitely love it.

Whether you’ve just been thinking about starting a blog, or if you already have one, I hope you found something here to inspire you. If you’re a blogger, please share your advice for others in the comments—I’d like to learn from you, too! Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

Never have writer’s block again.

Source: janicehardy.com

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How to Find Inspiration—Fiction Therapy

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Whether you’re wondering what happens next in your story, want to write your first novel, or are about to start on the next instalment of your long-running series, there are always times when you’ll need inspiration. And it is often surprisingly close by.

‘Be observant,’ said the dramatist, Lajos Egri, ‘and you will be forced to admit that the world is an inexhaustible pastry shop and you are permitted to choose from the delicacies the tastiest bits for yourself.’

It’s that easy.

Except it’s not.

It’s difficult to suddenly ‘be observant.’ You don’t have time to sit around looking at things. You have to pick up the kids, get to the supermarket, make dinner, finish off that last game of solitaire. And you have to write!

Hemingway noted that it was difficult to be observant, but he also recognized its importance for writers. Being observant, he said in his 1935 Esquire article, Monologue to the Maestro, takes practice. ‘You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.’

You don’t have to memorize every object in a room. There are simpler ways to get inspiration for your writing from observing the world around you. It can start with your morning shower.

Try to use all five senses next time you take a shower. Notice how the water falls, how it splashes and goes off at different angles. How would you describe the soap smell? Does the warm water taste different from a cold glassful? Does the water feel warmer on your face than on your back or legs? And listen to the sound of the spray and how being in the shower can distort other sounds?

As your characters go about their everyday routines, try to pick similar moments in your day to gather details you can use in your writing.

Eating is another good opportunity to practice these kinds of observational skills. How do you hold your cutlery? How do you cut the food? Do you pile it all on the back of the fork or scoop it up? Stop just before you take a bite. Look closely at the texture, the shape and colors. Notice any aromas. Then, when you put that morsel in your mouth, take a moment to taste it before you bite. When you do bite, does it make a noise? Does it crunch? Do your teeth clack together? Does the food taste different when you start to chew? What kind of flavors are released?

After a while, you can start to make notes of your observations. Wherever you are, somewhere new or somewhere familiar, take time to look around and enjoy what author David Mitchell called ‘free gifts’ in a recent interview with the LA Times.

‘When I go to a place I get a number of free gifts … I’ll get five decent sentences … about the place; they’re textual photographs. If you get these free gifts, use them in the text, use them in the prose, use them in descriptions. Put them in and they’re lovely little things to find on the forest footpath of the story, of the book.’

If you do that, you too could become wonderfully eloquent when giving a simple piece of advice.

You don’t even have to go somewhere new to get your five sentences. Try to write a few lines about the room you’re in right now. Look around, in all the corners, under the furniture, to see if you can find something you’ve never noticed before. Or find new ways to describe how the seat feels under you.

Internal inspiration

It’s not only the external world that can provide inspiration. There is often a whole conversation going in inside your mind. It can be worth taking a moment to stop and listen in.

This is especially useful if you’re writing from a first person point of view.

Try to observe how thoughts arise in your mind. What are your thoughts like? Do you think in words? Do they come in complete sentences? Maybe you think in images. How could you translate them to the page?

Don’t try to change your thoughts. Your thoughts are not good or bad, they’re just thoughts. Sit there and listen. That too takes practice.

Look for moments of conflict in your own thoughts too. When you consider having another coffee, for example. Or should you write one more page first? Try to listen to that to and fro as your mind tries to rationalize the best choice:

‘I’ll get a coffee first, that’ll give me the boost I need to write this next page.’

‘Yeah, but if I write the page first, the coffee could be a nice reward.’

Try to observe this whole thought process and see if you can introduce that into your writing to make your characters’ internal conversation and inner struggles seem more realistic.

Sometimes, when you’re lacking inspiration, it only takes a sentence or two to give you that spark, to set you off again. And those couple of sentences can be right in front of you now. Just take a look.

Where do you look for to get inspiration on those difficult days? Do you have sources of inspiration that never fail? What other tips do you have to fill those blank pages?

Every month, I look at the many different aspects of fiction—character development, plot, story structure, etc.—and offer advice and tips to help you work through the problems in your novel.

I have adapted many of the concepts you’ll see here from proven techniques used in modern psychotherapy. Hence: Fiction Therapy.

By Jim Dempsey
Source: writerunboxed.com

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Creating Believable Villains

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What are the trademarks of a villain?

Do they have dark, piercing eyes, a snarly grin, crooked-yellowed teeth, knobby fingers, an evil laugh? Or is there more to it than that? The antagonist can be the hardest character to write but also the most fun. How can we be successful at it? Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way.

Make them appear human – nobody likes a pure evil villain. They need to be likable or they fall flat. Give them a redeeming quality. Maybe we even want to cheer for them. Think Hannibal Lector or the Blacklist’s Raymond Reddington. Yes, they are evil but still have amiable qualities. We find ourselves applauding them.

Give them a clear motivation for their actions – we need to know why they’re doing their evil deeds. Their motives need to feel fair and just in their minds. Start with the basic reasons for their crime. Passion, greed, jealousy, but give it an added kick. Let’s place ourselves in their shoes. What makes them tick? Why do they think the way the do? In one of my stories the antagonist has a daughter who needs constant medical care for her deadly condition, so he justifies his actions to get the money to provide her with the necessary attention. This gives the reader empathy for the antagonist.

Give them flaws – we can’t make the villain’s life too easy. They need to work hard at being bad. Keep them in constant conflict, making things more difficult for them as the plot unfolds. Maybe they’re OCD and that keeps them from getting their hands dirty at a crime scene. Perhaps they’re disabled and struggle with getting around. Whatever the flaw, make it realistic.

Hide them in plain sight – don’t make the villain a klutzy moron. That robs the reader and makes them angry. We want to keep them guessing and surprised at the end of the story. Also, we can’t make the antagonist a minor character. This is cheating and doesn’t satisfy the plot. Give subtle clues as to who the criminal is, but make them the boy next door or the female everyone likes. This will give our stories plausibility.

Give your villain backstory – I like to do a full character sketch on the antagonist just like I do for my protagonist. Don’t cheat them in the development stage of your story. Get to know them. Sit down with them for coffee and ask some poignant questions. What are their dislikes? Loves? What is their deepest fear? What were they doing at the age of fifteen? We need to know them inside and out in order to make them come alive.

Fit their behavior appropriately – plant seeds along the way so when they commit a crime it doesn’t come out in left field. For example, if your villain is about to strangle someone give him big hands. Perhaps he works out to pump up his muscles. Or if he’s building a bomb, give him a military background or one in science. Remember, it needs to be realistic.

Creating villains can be fun. Study your favorite and then design yours to be believable and one that will keep your reader turning the pages!

By Darlene L. Turner

Source: almostanauthor.com

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