Writing projects: the inspiration stage

Recently I was speaking to a man whose wife loved reading fantasy and magic books. She’d read widely in that genre for years and had from time to time said to him “I wish I could write a fantasy book, but I don’t have any imagination.”

He was asking me if I thought that anyone could write and if so how did you get around the not having any imagination challenge.

I asked him if they had children, which they did, now grown up. And then I asked if his wife had made up stories with the children when they were small. Which she had.

So the problem really isn’t lack of imagination. If we watch children, I have a 5 year old great niece, they are full of it. Somehow it often gets beaten out of us as we get older because we have to be sensible and not in my mother’s words, “tell fairy stories”.

But the fairy story was real to me. And I’m sure that to the lady who reads fantasy, the stories are real to her.

I love the quote by Jack London, “I don’t wait for inspiration, I go after it with a club.”

Our imaginations/inspirations are there and simply shifting our focus can open up a whole new world for us. For that man I offered a very simple stimulus for his wife.

“Tell your wife to start with the words, As I walked down the street…”

I’ve used this phrase or a variation of it so many times to kick start my writing. And it works just as well if you’re writing non-fiction. It’s the physical act of writing that generates the inspiration that then generates the writing.

If that doesn’t seem to work then try writing your name and keep writing it until some words come into your mind. Doesn’t at this stage matter much what the words are. What’s important is that you allow them to come uncritically.

Once the flow has started – then you’ll be onto the next challenge.

How to stop!

How to write came up all the time at the book launch as you can imagine.

How to find inspiration to write

How to keep going with your writing

How to separate writing and editing

How to write when you find writing difficult

and of course How to promote your book when you’ve finished it.

Major topics all of them and of course in the book I can only touch on them very briefly.  That’s why we’re planning some training.  All directed to be practical, help writers do things more easily and achieve the result they want.

We’re pushing the training via the Writer’s Little Book Club – so signing up is the only method of finding out about it.  By the way joining costs you nothing and we’re in the planning stages of several more books, products and services.

Address as always is - www.writerslittlebook.co.uk

We’re planning some fun – not putting in the effort otherwise!  But all the time with our focus on providing practical, doable steps.

Book Launch event update.

Two days to go now and we’re rounding up all the things we need for the launch on Wednesday.

Collecting the book itself tomorrow – WOW – I know I saw the proof copy but this will be the real thing.

The printer was telling me about one of his friends who saw the book in the proof copy and wanted to know when he can buy it.  Soon as we launch, it will be available from the website, www.writerslittlebook.co.uk

There are all sorts of things over there now with some video, me on camera, I hate it! Plus you can now follow me on Twitter and we’ve set up a ning group.

So head over there – once the launch is over then we can pay more attention to the online stuff.  Lots of ideas, lots of plans with two more books in process, another product ready for production, and an audio product in creation.

Costs you nothing to join the Writer’s Little Book Club and it’s the only way you’ll hear about what we’re planning!

Come and join us and see how we can help you with your writing.

Yesterday I gave the first of three workshops to a company about how to write better.

One of the things that I covered were confusions in grammar of which there seem to be many.

These are three that seemed to be tripping people up.

1. They’re/their/there
2. Where/we’re/ware/wear
3. And the dreaded apostrophe

The first two are similar in that they’re similar sounding words.  The problem when working in Word is that as long as you spell the word correctly, it won’t pick it up as a mistake in Word spellchecker.

The dreaded apostrophe, or the greengrocer’s curse is so far down the road to acceptance with incorrect use that sometimes I think we can’t retrieve it.

The basic rule is that is stands in for a letter or letters that are missing:

It’s a lovely day today originally started out as It is a lovely day today.

It also shows up if something belongs to someone/thing:

The basket of the dog or the dog’s basket. Or – the book of John of John’s book.

In the case of the possession it’s a less cumbersome way of expressing the same fact.

I’m giving two more workshops so I’ll let you know next week what else other people found tricky.

How to improve your writing

Quick Tips 4 Writing headlines

Why write headlines? Continue reading →