To some of you out there, a creative writing job might be the answer to your prayers. The good news is that landing a peach of an assignment could be easier today than ever before. A job that’s interesting and pays well also? Yes, I’m here to tell you they do exist. Are you even aware of the possibilities?

Let’s take a quick look at some of the opportunities on a recent browse through the writing jobs that need to be filled on eLance. The first one to catch my eye is from a plastic surgeon in Miami, Florida who’s looking for a ghost writer to create a book aimed at the mass-market audience. He’ll pay $5,000 to $10,000 for the project.

Bet you could get creative with that topic.

Here’s another. This one is within the same budget but is looking for someone to ghost/assist in writing a novel about an ancient Egyptian boy who grows up in poverty on his father’s farm but ends up as a pharaoh. Once again, this one is begging for a strong dose of creativity.

Blogging is a word we hear a lot these days. I can personally vouch for the creativity associated with this line of work. My first online writing job consisted of writing three daily blogs related to current events in Philadelphia. I live in Missouri and was reviewing restaurants I’ve never even seen! Talk about needing to be creative.

The gist of the point here is that creative writing jobs might be easier to find these days than ever before. Unless your last name was Hemingway or King, writing creatively for a living was a secret club that almost no one was allowed to join. With the internet, things are different. I’d suggest you give it whirl. Investigate a couple of writing job websites tonight. You might find something that changes your life.


- Derek Dowell

I have found two writers of short fiction via a previous question. What we share and offer comments on has been very useful and enjoyable, even if I don’t know who they are. ‘Useful and enjoyable’ because of our anonymity; they say what they want, share (often private) experiences they would not share with a partner or a relative. Such sharing adds perspective and ideas. My stories are from sweet romance to tasteful erotica, frequently in international locations. What can we share? Shall we explore possibilities?
- AngelaM

I am looking into studying a postgraduate degree in the UK next fall but am unsure which schools are the most renowned for a good arts program. Any ideas where to search or how to narrow the possibilities? Please help!
- BlueLuvr82

The premise of this article is that imagination is the fuel of good fiction writing. To be sure, there are many other important, even necessary components that the author must possess and bring to bear, but they all emanate from imagination, without which creative writing is unattainable.

When all are present and put into action then there is a synergistic effect, such that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. These include motivation, discipline, commitment, perseverance, grammar, practice, and, of course, talent. Without such elements as motivation and perseverance, talent will lie dormant. But without imagination, talent will lack the spark to spawn a captivating or mesmerizing story.

Imagination is unique. It is unconquerable, as even a person confined to a cell can take leave by conjuring up its magic. Yet, paradoxically, its possessor must choose to release it, to allow it to roam freely beyond the world that surrounds us; to pull together elements we are already familiar with and assemble them in ways that we are unfamiliar with; to invent new characters that had never existed before and endow them with their own personalities; and to create stories that never happened, yet which have the power to move the reader to tears, anger, inspiration, action, and transformation.

The power of imagination is infinite. It not only flows from the writer, but it also enters the reader, stirring her imagination. When that happens, the reader swells with the capacity to transcend her own world, regardless of how mundane or exciting it may be.

It opens up new perspectives and possibilities. Imagination in play may lead to new lands of emotion, thought, and spirituality. The reader is not only affected, but the writer herself may enter new realms of insight into self, others, and the world; the world as the writer knows it and the world that the writer’s imagination has created.

The author must not allow the rules of her craft to shackle her endeavors. Learn them, yes. Then, once they have become an integral part of one’s unconscious, allow one’s imagination to soar beyond them without restraint. Trust that they, the rules, will know when to exercise their rightful place in the universe of the author’s process.

Columbus never set out to discover America when going to sea. In fact, the rules of the day suggested that if one were to go too far out to sea, an endpoint would be reached, beyond which the ship and its voyagers would descend to some dreaded unknown place.

It took courage and faith to embark on the journey. Those same attributes are to be found in the writer who sets out, armed with her imagination, to write a novel, even though the true course of the excursion and its real ending may not yet be envisioned, despite beliefs to the contrary. The writer’s imagination instills the faith to begin and the courage to continue persevering.

No one lacks imagination. It is an inherent part of our makeup. Some may not conceive of themselves as possessing it and others may be deluded into believing that it is absent in them. For those people, their conception of its presence must be expanded, for the former, or the distortion of its absence must be corrected for the latter. Otherwise, writers who fall into either category will be reduced to the bane of repetition and confined to the limitations of the formulaic.

Some people think of problem solving as requiring imagination. And it does. However, the next level is that of “problem finding.” When writing the novel, the author will stumble across many problems to be solved, but to enhance her story she must also exercise her imagination to find new problems to incorporate into her work, if the final product is to be enhanced to become the most that it is capable of becoming.

The atrophy or lack of its use is sometimes self-imposed. There is an old vignette about a huge gorilla that had been captured in Africa and brought to America for exhibit in a zoo. The gorilla had been temporarily placed in a cage while around the cage there was built an expansive “natural” environment for it to live in. When the construction was completed, the gorilla was removed from the cage.

However, each step the gorilla took was limited to the same space and size of the cage it had lived in, even though it was now free to roam around the vast territory that had been constructed to accommodate it.

Humans sometimes suppress the freedom of their own imagination, hence refusing to go beyond what is immediately present to their sensory apparatus, failing to invent new images that extend beyond the familiar and known, neglecting to visualize alternate worlds outside the realm of that within which they live. The creative writer must not restrain her imagination like the gorilla in the fable, not taking advantage of the freedom he had been endowed with, for imagination is the touchstone of creativity.


- Hugh Rosen

Often when we get blocked it is because we need to write on a particular subject or for a particular assignment, and we may be feeling stressed about doing a good job. Try writing about anything else continuously for ten minutes or longer. Write something you plan to throw away or delete. This will get you started at writing, and you can gradually begin writing about your intended subject or assignment.

Sometimes we get stuck coming up with an idea for what to write about. This is understandable. There is a solution, however. Instead of coming up with a good idea for your topic, come up with twenty ideas that may or may not have any merit. Just rattle off possibilities. By coming up with twenty instead of one, you have no expectation for all of them to be good. After, you can choose the best among your selection.

Instead of your usual outline, try phrasing your jumping off points as questions. Just as in journalism, who, what, when, where, why, and how questions can lead you to what to write. It is easier to write a paragraph or a page in answer to a question than it is to write in response to a heading, so questions make wonderful outlines.

Imagine writing or talking to a particular person about your subject. Picture them as someone who isn’t intimidating to you, perhaps an old friend who knows nothing about your subject or who easily accepts what you do. You might even address an email to them and begin telling your story or writing about the subject to them.

Make it a habit to keep typing or writing without pauses. Resist stopping to research, reread, edit, or procrastinate. Facts can always be checked later, editing can be done later, and relaxation time will be more fun after you have gotten this done. Get something down first.

Always talk to yourself positively about writing. Think about what excites you or is interesting about the topic or story, and try to tell that to your audience.


- CD Mohatta