Questions

I’m always surprised when I hear that budding novel writers are looking for a trick to write hit novels, ***? if there is a ***?cret ****.n the ****?cessful writers know about that no one else does!

Well listen to this: There is no ***?cret to writing a novel when it comes to what to write or in what style to write in. The trick that all ****?cessful writers use are more to do with the state of mind needed to write a great novel.

Do you ****?t to know the state of mind all ****?cessful writers use to create award-winning novels? A Zen-like laser-focused visualization state, that is oblivious to the physical world, and totally absorbed into the creative constructions of the universe of the novel.

This is the greatest ***?cret to writing an excellent novel. Get yourself into that state and you can write novels ***? incredible ***? anyone on the ***?ce of the planet. Don’t believe me? Then here is an exercise you can try right now to find out this truth for yourself…

Go into a quiet and comfortable room with no distractions ****?h ***? a mobile phone. Also, make sure you won’t be distracted with email alerts. Be well fed so that your body cannot distract your zen-like novel writing state. Make sure nothing is going to distract your ***?nses in the physical world, so that you can safely enter the mental construct you will be creating.

Ready? Take some deep breaths. To get into the the mental state necessary to write a great novel close your eyes and focus on ‘a scene’. Get clear pictures and emotions of a scene in your minds-eye. Don’t think about plot, ***? that will come later.

Once a scene vividly manifests into your mind try and develop it ***?rther into something you can totally immerse yourself in. Get it ***? clear ***? possible in your mind in the form of pictures, characters (no names) and emotions. These are the essence of the scene.

The novel will basically be made up of ***?veral scenes which interconnect. Think of scenes that raise a strong ***?nse of emotion. These are what make novels great and the writers behind them ****?cessful


- TAIWO OLAOLUWA

I’m always surprised when I hear that budding novel writers are looking for a trick to write hit novels, ***? if there is a ***?cret ****.n the ****?cessful writers know about that no one else does!

Well listen to this: There is no ***?cret to writing a novel when it comes to what to write or in what style to write in. The trick that all ****?cessful writers use are more to do with the state of mind needed to write a great novel.

Do you ****?t to know the state of mind all ****?cessful writers use to create award-winning novels? A Zen-like laser-focused visualization state, that is oblivious to the physical world, and totally absorbed into the creative constructions of the universe of the novel.

This is the greatest ***?cret to writing an excellent novel. Get yourself into that state and you can write novels ***? incredible ***? anyone on the ***?ce of the planet. Don’t believe me? Then here is an exercise you can try right now to find out this truth for yourself…

Go into a quiet and comfortable room with no distractions ****?h ***? a mobile phone. Also, make sure you won’t be distracted with email alerts. Be well fed so that your body cannot distract your zen-like novel writing state. Make sure nothing is going to distract your ***?nses in the physical world, so that you can safely enter the mental construct you will be creating.

Ready? Take some deep breaths. To get into the the mental state necessary to write a great novel close your eyes and focus on ‘a scene’. Get clear pictures and emotions of a scene in your minds-eye. Don’t think about plot, ***? that will come later.

Once a scene vividly manifests into your mind try and develop it ***?rther into something you can totally immerse yourself in. Get it ***? clear ***? possible in your mind in the form of pictures, characters (no names) and emotions. These are the essence of the scene.

The novel will basically be made up of ***?veral scenes which interconnect. Think of scenes that raise a strong ***?nse of emotion. These are what make novels great and the writers behind them ****?cessful


- TAIWO OLAOLUWA

 

When you are in love and want to express your feelings to your partner, we believe that the best way is through love poems. When the reason is love then every person is a poet. Just review your thoughts in your mind, each and every moment that you spent with your partner and the places you been together, will play a magic in your mind. When you put these thoughts on a peace of paper, it turns to a powerful love poem.

Love poems reflect the mental and the heart felt emotions that’s comes out from the core of the heart. Love poems are really touching because it tells about the person’s feelings; it can be any thing like- the first feeling of infatuation or it can say about the steady relation or even the sadness. Love poems are something which you can’t force yourself to write, it comes on its own, only you have to put your thoughts in a proper format.

Sometimes when a person expresses his/her feelings in a love poem it can be very flattering but then again it can also be exaggerated too. But if a person has lost his or her love or unhappy with the love life, then his thoughts will lead him towards negative feeling, which in turn will result in a sad love poems depicting frustration agony etc.

If you have ever truly loved some one then you must have written a love poem. Love poems are not always written to share with your partner. When you express your feelings on a peace of paper giving it a life, it makes you feel good from the core of your heart. All the feelings are not shared with your friends or your loved ones; something is always there that you need to keep it with yourself. The feeling that you can love someone so much can never be expressed.

If you are into writing love poems then you should know that there are variety of books available in the market which will help you out to understand how thoughts are structured to express the inner feelings. There are many other ways to explore the world of poetry like- Internet is a great source from where you can get lots of information by browsing the poetry websites. Really, if you have ever been in love with someone then you will be able to write great love poems. Remember, poems are all about your inner feelings.


- Jeff Young

Did you know that Americans buy 7.4 billion greeting cards in a year? And if you apply your calculator to the task, you will be one of Americans who buy 235 cards per second! Not to disparage the greeting card industry or anything, but you can make your own greeting cards, too.

You can make your cards more personalized, which definitely beats buying a store-bought card. Just get your reliable Cross pen and pencils, coloring materials and envelopes, plus a healthy dose of artistic inclination. As for writing the messages, here are a few helpful tips for you.

Write For a Specific Person

You have to express yourself - emotions, angst and passion included - and share yourself with the person you are making the card for. Though expressing yourself can be harder than most other activities, you have the advantage of writing and re-writing your thoughts on paper with your Cross pen.

Unlike the spoken word, the written word can be edited as many times as you like until you come up with the right words. You need to aim for the “right words” rather than the “perfect words” lest you sound too edited and artificial. And do not depend on your Cross pen to do the writing for you either! You have to work on it.

Also, you should take the “me to you” approach in writing your message. For example, writing “I am sorry for hurting you” is way better than “The situation was not in my control and for that, I apologize”. You are asking for a personal apology, not giving a business explanation (which is better covered by a business letter)!

Develop Your Own Writing Style

You can either mimic your favorite greeting card writers’ styles or you can develop your own. The latter is highly suggested for obvious reasons, originality and personalization among them.

Since most greeting cards are written in poetry, you can learn poetry, too. As the movie “Mr. Deeds” showed moviegoers, your first efforts might be funny to some and horrendous to others. But if you keep at it and inject real passion into your verses, you will eventually do it right. Just be sure to keep a handy-dandy paper and your dependable Cross pen to write your thoughts whenever inspiration (or Erato or Polyhymnia or Calliope, all Muses of poetry) strikes.

This begs the question of “to rhyme or not to rhyme?” Depending on your mood and mode, you can actually do both, so long as the emotion is there.

Write Tight

If you will look closely, off-the-rack greeting cards are written tightly. A specific emotion is expressed in a few words but they still pack in a wallop, which you should aim for. When you write tight, you are actually writing in a conventional manner, only very much shorter in content but not in substance.

In short, keep it sweet and short. (And do not include “stupid” because you have to give yourself slack; you are just starting out, after all.)

Who knows? Someday, you might be one of the authors of those 7.4 billion greeting cards!


- Bradlley Mckoy

How to get published? That’s the big money question for writers. Writing is fulfilling in and of itself, but every writer ultimately wants to learn how to get published.

A lot of writers think getting published is a matter of luck. Or it’s a matter of knowing the right person. Or it’s a matter of simply being born a brilliant writer.

Although all of the above will help you get published, you don’t have to have any of these things. You can LEARN how to get published.

When you follow The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers, you’ll no longer wonder how to get published. You’ll BE published.

Here’s The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers:

1. Create a successful writer’s mindset.

To have a successful writer’s mindset, you must know where you want to go with your writing. A goal of getting published isn’t enough. You must have a laser-focused intention. Use visualization to keep that intention at the forefront of your mind.

You must also take an inventory of your beliefs about writing. Any negative beliefs about writing will get in the way of your publishing success. Turn any negative beliefs to their opposite and make them positive beliefs that will serve you.

Once you have your intention, which you nurture with visualization, and your positive beliefs, you’ve established a success mindset that will help you get published.

2. Develop the habit of journaling regularly.

Journal writing isn’t just for memoir writers. Every serious writer MUST keep a journal. It is a tool that will improve your ability to notice the events in your world. Good writers are good observers.

It is also a tool that helps you mine your emotions and thoughts. Writing is revealing. If you don’t understand yourself, your writing will seem flat and uninteresting. Get to know yourself, and you create a goldmine of emotion and thought that will make your writing rich.

Creating rich prose is a key to how to get published.

3. Practice writing daily.

The other way to improve your writing daily is by doing a daily practice. Writing is like playing a musical instrument. You must practice in order to improve.

The easiest writing practice to do is timed writings. Choose a length of time (at least 5 minutes; more is better). Set a timer and just write.

The only rule to timed writings is don’t stop for any reason. If you can’t think of anything to say, write, “I can’t think of anything to say.” But KEEP WRITING! The flow of words limbers up your creative pathways.

4. Understand your strengths and weaknesses and write to your strengths.

Every writer has specific strengths and weaknesses. For example, my style is spare and direct. I wouldn’t do well as a literary fiction author. I am better suited for genre fiction and direct nonfiction.

Discover what you do well as a writer and be okay with what you don’t do well. When you know yourself as a writer, you can choose the projects with which you can have the greatest success.

5. Write with feeling.

Writing is all about emotion. If your writing lacks emotion, it will be flat and uninteresting. You must know your own feelings about what you’re writing, and you must also know what feeling you want to evoke in your reader. Keep these emotions in mind as you write.

6. Fill your writing with just the right details.

Detail is essential to great writing, but too much detail can bury good writing under a layer of distraction that turns the writing dull. When you learn to create the perfect balance of details-just enough, but not too much, you become a writer who can easily get published.

You can choose the perfect details by knowing what it is you want your reader to focus on. For example, in a scene with a man and a woman in a bar, you could focus on the details of the brawl going on behind them or you could focus on the details of their fingertips touching. If it’s an action story, you’d choose the brawl. A romance story would be better focused on the fingertips.

Some writers try and describe everything in a scene in great detail. This just bogs down the writing. Choose details carefully and then describe them well.

7. Make your writing hypnotic.

“Hypnotic writing” is a term created by author, Joe Vitale. It’s a wonderful term that explains how a writer must be able to write in a way that grabs and holds a reader. You must have the ability to mesmerize your reader.

You create hypnotic writing with the use of short phrases, the use of rhythm, and pacing. You also create it with perfect word choice and a constant awareness that your writing must be for the reader.

Understand that the reader always has in mind as he or she reads, “What’s in this for me?” When you write with that awareness, you can make word choices that will make your writing hypnotic.

8. Always have a writing plan.

An absolutely essential element of writing success is motivation. You must be able to stay motivated to start and finish your writing projects.

Many writers fail for lack of motivation. Procrastination and writer’s block are two common writing career killers.

You can avoid both procrastination and writer’s block by always having your projects planned out. Create a short term and a long term plan. List the projects you want to do this week, this month, and this year. Once you’ve created the list, get out your calendar and make a schedule for how you can complete your projects.

Creative people have a tendency to resist structure, but the irony is that structure can actually enhance creativity. So be willing to structure your writing time.

That’s it–The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers.

These steps are not a quick-fix publishing solution. They won’t turn you into J.K. Rowling overnight. But The Eight Steps Success Plan For Writers will, if you work the steps diligently, turn you into a quality writer. It is also the foundation of how to get published.


- Andrea Rains Waggener

I wish to be stunning in my schools english class. I want everyone to be in awe at this poem. I don’t want anything lame I need something. Really this may just be to satisfy my own needs for good poetry because I seem to have been lacking it in everything that I read.
- RK Lover

Love can be expressed in so many ways. This is because it is a special feeling that calls for a special way of expression. People show their love through words of song and even poetry. Love poetry is very popular and, it is one of the sweetest ways to tell a person that you love them. Love poetry can be found in books, papers, Internet and other places. There are so many love poems that have not yet been written down and are just spoken orally. Poetry comes from the heart and, there is nothing better than this. There are so many collections of great love poetry of all times on the Internet. The following is just an example of a great poem that best captures the spirit of love. The poem is by E.E Cummings and it is titled ‘if there are any heavens’. The following are some of the greatest lines from the poem. ‘Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience; your eyes have their silence’. The poem continues like this ‘in your most frail gestures, are things that enclose me, or which they cannot touch because they are so near’.

It goes on to reveal the inner feeling that can only describe a feeling that has been felt by the best of us which is love. Love poetry will do several things to the reader or listener. First, it will entertain. Beauty of language is observed in good poetry, and you can be sure to find them very entertaining. The other thing is the teaching part. Many poems of love come with a story of love behind them. It brings out experiences of love and what the aftermath was. Love is a positive thing but, we can learn all the faces that love assumes. If you want to learn some tips on how to have love in your life, make sure you listen to great poetry that is inspired by love. They can also be a point of release. Some poems have very sad love stories and, you can just listen to all the emotions playing out and identify with it. This is if you are going or have gone through a similar experience. This will facilitate your healing as you get to explore how you feel and deal with it. Love poetry can do so much more for you. If you wish to express your love to someone through poetry, it is paramount that be very honest and creative. It takes a lot of confidence to go ahead and write a poem and, you should make a point of preparing yourself well.

Do not copy a poem rather, let it inspire you. When you come up with your personal stuff, you will be in a position to make the impression you need. Most people are looking to be perfect and this cannot happen. You just need to be yourself and communicate the message well. There is no doubt that you are going to get what you want. Many men write their partners love poems and this is also the case for girls. This way, relationships are spiced up and, many are happy and content. The poetry will only make your life better for you and your loved one.


- Francis Githinji

This article is devoted to the issue, which has been raised in a novel ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ written by Edwidge Danticat. The main character of the novel ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ written by Edwidge Danticatis Sophie, a young girl raised by her aunt and grandmother in Haiti. This is the first book of Danticat, in which she describes relationship between Sophie and women from her family.

The novel begins with Mother’s Day and the major character finds out that she will leave her home in Croix-des-Rosets and move to New York where her mother lives. The first chapters are devoted to Sophie’s life in Haiti, depicting her tender relationship with aunt. Sophie’s aunt does not have children and she loves Sophie’s very much. The author skillfully depicts their relationship. When a heroine congratulates her aunt on Mother’s Day, her aunt answers: ‘It is for a mother, your mother. When it is Aunt’s Day, you can make me one.’ (Danticat, p. 6) Sophie’s aunt loves her niece as her own daughter, but she does not pretend to a role of her mother knowing Sophie has had one.

In the first chapters the author portrays a calm and happy life in Haiti and the Haitian culture. Sophie’s life in New York, described in the last chapters is a direct opposite to Sophie’s life in Haiti. It is difficult for her to live there with her mother, whom she has never known and who left her. American culture is completely foreign to her. Edwidge Danticatmasterly represents Sophie’s confusion and her life in America. ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ is a beautifully crafted novel about family, culture, gender roles. It is a story of a young girl and her family – her aunt and grandmother, who surround her and play an important part in her life. It is a powerful novel about relationship between Sophie and her real mother.

The novel ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ depicts struggles and lives of women, their emotions and the violence of men. The story shows that real relatives who love Sophie are her aunt and grandmother. They raised her in spite of her origin and the reason she was born. This book shows that there is a bond between a mother and a daughter. However, this bond is strong if a mother raises her child.


- Olivia Hunt

In the first two articles, we’ve explored how essential it is to have a theme to give your novel direction, and how to find those themes that will resonate with you.

You’d think that once you have a theme, you could just sit down and write your book about that, and you’d bring powerful emotions and passionate storytelling and compelling, page-turning action to your tale—but it just ain’t so.

If you just write your theme, what you’ll have is a harangue. A message book. Something that will have the readers who agree with your precise point of view nodding along—whether it be “Global warming is going to destroy the planet” or “Global warming is a pile of cow-flops”—and readers who hold any other point of view bouncing your book of the nearest wall and never buying anything else by you, ever.

Bad.

So now you bury your theme. You write about something utterly unlike the theme you fought so hard to come up with in the first place.

One of you just went, “Waaaaaait a minute! If I write about something besides my theme, how are people going to get my message? How are they going to know that global warming is evil/ irrelevant/ actually the dawning of a new ice age? How will I convince them that I’m right?”

They won’t know, and you won’t convince them. It’s as simple as that.

The theme is there for YOU. Your job as a novelist is to tell a story that entertains your reader, that makes him think, that haunts him long after he finishes the last page—maybe even that STILL haunts him long after he’s read the whole thing for the fourth or tenth or twentieth time. I get letters and emails from readers who have done that, and it’s great. They frequently tell me what they got out of the book, too, what hidden meanings they found, what they took away from the story.

Funny thing is, they never find what I put in there. That’s okay. They found something that mattered to THEM, that changed the world for THEM. So I did my job.

If you want to send a message, buy an ad.

If you want to create resonance, you work your theme in. If you want to have people love your book and treasure it for what it meant to them, you bury that theme so deeply only you will ever know what it was.

Here’s how.

1) Figure out the key elements of your theme.

I wrote one book the theme of which was “if the Democrats and Republicans don’t recognize each other isn’t the enemy and start working together toward a common cause, real enemies are going to destroy the country while those morons are bickering over pork and entitlements.”

The key elements of that theme were:

* People who had more in common than they knew fighting over trivialities

* Enemies disguised as friends bearing gifts

2) Plan your hiding place.

That book was not set in this time, in the US, or even in this world. It was a high fantasy novel set in another world, on an island nation about the size of England and about the location of Australia with the climate of Alaska through the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the US. The cultures were Iron Age plus highly developed magic, with levels of sophistication ranging from 18th-Century France to the nomadic hunter-gatherer-herdsmen of the Mongol Horde.

So figure out YOUR disguise. Your most meaningful themes are always going to be drawn from the here and now, from the events in your life that trouble you and frighten you and elate you—but those themes go into Westerns and SF and fantasy and mysteries and romances and hard-boiled detective tales and mainstream novels set in every possible time and place.

3) Create your metaphors.

In that novel, the Democrats became one nation, the Republicans the other. I made a point of locating the good and the bad in both parties, and giving the two nations those good and bad characteristics. I created the real villains from current events, too, (though not from obvious current events), and worked out a complex metaphor for them, too, creating their culture from elements of a handful of different cultures. My two protagonists were from warring nations, magic was the physics of the world, and the villain was disguised as a good guy for the first half of the novel.

4) Never even hint at what you’re talking about underneath it all.

I didn’t then write a story about how the politics of the warring nations and the outside world clashed. I didn’t give a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink and call my nations Demos and Republis. I spent time developing deep cultures built not around my particular axe to grind, but around the needs of the story. And then I built three characters, one from each of the three cultures.

And the story I wrote was a love story set against the backdrop of war and peace.

I wrote about the characters, I didn’t confine them to my metaphors, I didn’t try to push any points or convince anyone of anything. I let my folks become who they were, good points and bad, and I told the story of their lives in that world, that place, and that time—and because I knew what underlay it, it meant a lot to me. And because SOMETHING underlay it, it meant a lot to a whole lot of readers.

With the possible exception of its sequel, it was the best book I’ve ever written.

That story remains a favorite for my readers, too—even though what they take from it is sometimes the exact opposite of what I put into it. They have found their own meaning in it, have felt the resonance of it being about something bigger than the story on the surface, and have taken it to heart.

And if you’re a novelist, that is what you want them to do. (If you’re still hung up on requiring that they get YOUR meaning from your book, you’re in the wrong line of work.)

In BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, Part IV, Playing Chicken With Your Story, you’ll learn how to take the personal risks in writing that will keep your readers glued to their seats turning pages.


- Holly Lisle

i have extreme writer’s block. please give me something to write about. list things that make you smile, things that make you sad, and just random emotions. thanks
- octopus