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Writer’s Wisdom 78

/ inkspeare

Writing for Pleasure

You have deadlines to meet, and many writing projects awaiting you, but there are times when you just need to write for pure pleasure – just for you.  It is important to nurture this part of writing and give it a place in your hectic schedule.  If you only write because you want to get paid, you will be missing on this important aspect.

When you write for pleasure, you enter a realm of enjoyment, and you are opening the gates of inspiration.  When this happens, ideas can come from anywhere, and you will experience the power of the written word.  Many of us are so worried about making the deadlines and earning a living (out of necessity,of course) that we forget to take a bit of time to just relax and write for ourselves – just for the pure enjoyment of it.

From time to time, relive the early days of your writing career, and take a few minutes to write for the simple pleasure of it; recapture the magic.

Writer’s Wisdom 73

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments

About Private Level Rights packages

Mostly known as PLR packages or bundling, these are articles on a theme that are sold together, such as ten articles about gardening.  Due to the fast request and search engine hunger for content, these packages have become popular.  Many freelance writers will bundle a few articles and sell them as a package.  PLR packages can be packs of 10 -20-25 articles. 

Packaging your articles will allow you to sell them faster to interested buyers and also to play with the price, as it is easier to price a package than sell one article.  You may or may not discount the price, it is up to you.  If you feel that your single articles are not selling fast enough, maybe you should try bundling them instead.  This can also be applied to any other artistic material you may have such as photography or e-books.  Test the waters and see what best works for you as a freelancer.

Writer’s Wisdom 72

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments

 What stops you from writing?

Since I can remember I’ve had a love affair with the written word.  I’ve been an avid reader my entire life.  My desire to write was in the back of my mind for many years.  Deep down, I knew that I was meant to write, but I could not start.  It was always something I would do one day, when I had more time, and life wasn’t so busy.   Many years passed, and life got busier and busier, and I completely forgot about it – or at least did not think about it that much.  It wasn’t until a series of unfortunate events, that I was forced to slow down and look into my soul.  There it was, my desire for writing.  Since I had nothing to lose, I gave it a try.  It felt like a good pair of well-fitting jeans – comfortable and fitted.  That day, I decided that no matter what happened I was going to continue writing – and I have.

There are many things on my plate now, but I won’t stop writing.  Take a look into your soul – what is stopping you?  For me it was the illusion of more time and the fear of not knowing what to write.  At one point I was petrified, to glance at the piece of paper in front of me.  It took something bigger than my doubt to put things in motion.

If you have thought about writing, but it seems very far in the future, get that image out of your mind.  Pick up that pen or PC and start writing whatever comes to mind.  It is just that first step away.

Writer’s Wisdom 70

/ inkspeare

Balancing emotions

Emotions are everywhere, there is no way to escape them.  From the very happy cashier to the very upset man next to you in traffic, from the time you wake up till the time you go to rest – even in your sleep, while having some very emotionally charged dreams.  So, if emotions are all around you, why wouldn’t they be part of your writing?

When writing a piece, pay special attention to the emotions of the characters.  Emotions should match the situation, and the character type.  It would be weird to have a character that just suffered a heartbreaking loss, be worried about triviality (just to continue the story) – unless it is done on purpose to stress the unusual personality of this character or the particular way to cope with trauma.  Such is the case of the serial killer experiencing ecstasy while murdering someone.  It is all a balancing act.  When you balance emotions in a piece of writing, it helps the natural flow of the story.

The question is, can you use emotion to dictate the story?  Some pieces of flash fiction are a very good example of this.  It starts with an emotion and the emotion develops the story to the end.  Do a little experiment; when writing your next piece, pay special attention to what the characters are feeling and see how it is relating to the flow of the story.

Writer’s Wisdom 69

/ inkspeare

“Write what you know.”

I have heard many authors say this, when watching their interviews.  This is a very good point and excellent advice for us aspiring writers.  Even when writing fiction and creating our own universes, those universes have to be filled with something – and that is when “what you know” comes handy.   At the beginning, it is easier to write from knowledge than going through lots of research and deep waters.  It is good practice and it comes from you.  If you have a background in law, you will probably apply your knowledge in that mystery or crime novel, and so on …

That doesn’t mean that we will be writing what we know forever; at one point or another, we will embark towards unknown seas and shake our confidence a bit.  It just means that it is easier to write about something that will flow naturally to us and keep us going.  Eventually, we all know when it is time to cross that bridge.

Writer’s Wisdom 68

/ inkspeare

What fits into the story?

When writing a story many ideas will come to you; sometimes the gates of inspiration will be open and a flood of characters, circumstances and themes will overtake you.  You may be tempted to incorporate all in your story, after all, you may think – they came to you while writing that particular story.  Well, it doesn’t have to be that way.  Some things may not fit in the current chain of events, and may fit later – or not fit at all.  However, write down these  ideas as they will become fuel for other writing projects.

When editing your current story, mind how things fit together.  Cut out what doesn’t fit right or what seems lengthy and does not contribute anything to it.   Readers will devour a story with an easy flow .  The Twilight Saga from Stephenie Meyer is a good example of mammoth books with excellent flow for the reader.

Writer’s Wisdom 66

/ inkspeare

Mind your ideas.

Ideas come from everywhere; from something you heard, saw, remembered, an object, a smell, or from something you read.  Some writers avoid reading the genre in which they are writing their current piece.  The reason, they are weary of borrowing any ideas, without intention.

The other day I read about the lawsuit going on between the estate of  British author Adrian Jacobs and J.K. Rowling.  It alleges plagiarism on Rowling’s part, but of course, not substantiated.  It got me thinking on how many similar ideas float in a writer’s world, and how easy is to be influenced by a similar idea.  I don’t consider this plagiarism, as many people can have the same idea and express it in a completely different way.  This is not a copy.  However, more than ever, we should mind our ideas, since writing has evolved in so many ways due to the internet and the many ways in which you can share your work these days.  Ideas are free, and you are free to write what you want, as long as it does not land you in already claimed territory.

Writer’s Wisdom 65

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments

Character’s Point of View

When writing fiction it is important to consider your character’s point of view – where is he/she coming from?  The life experience and the amount of detail of who he/she is, determines how the character moves throughout the story.  A character that grew up and lives in the slums will know little about social etiquette or let’s say, playing golf (unless the character is learning that particular skill and of course it would part of the story).  For example, you cannot write a chapter where this same character – with no previous golf experience – will beat a golf pro in a game (unless you are planning to include some special magical abilities in the story, or paranormal, such as re-incarnation or past lives) – you get the point. 

Make your characters believable, alive and your readers will identify with them.

Writer’s Wisdom 64

/ inkspeare

From Movie to Book

We have read the book, we loved it, and pray for it to become a movie.  It seems that more and more books, especially for young adults, are making it to the big screen.  I prefer to read a book first, then watch the movie.  Some people become inspired by a movie to read the book.  However it goes, one seems to complement the other – although some book lovers may disagree and say that a book stands for itself – and that is true.  Let’s say that they enhance each other and this relationship between book and movie makes good commercialism.

I have heard best-selling authors being interviewed about their involvement in the process of their book being made into a movie and their opinion is very similar.  Most love it, consider it an honor, and view it as a complete different process.  Some don’t want to be involved much in it, but enjoy having a little bit of input.  But most, if not all, agree that they want the integrity of the characters to remain true to the story – and I think that is what makes one to enhance the other in the relationship of book and movie.

We all enjoy to read a good story – in our heads we visualize it – but when the story becomes alive in the screen and special effects are added, our senses become alive – the icing on the cake.

Writer’s Wisdom 63

/ inkspeare

The story that I love …

Who do you write for?  Although books are categorized or targeted for sale to particular groups of readers, such as young adults … I keep hearing best-selling authors saying during interviews that they sat down to write a story that they would love.  Some of them say that they wrote the story for themselves.  This is a very important point since it determines how you approach the writing of a piece. 

If you sit down to write the story that you love, you will be connected with that piece much more that if you think that you are writing for such and such group of readers – a bit of pressure there.  Of course some authors will take advantage of a trend, such as the trend of vampires.  It seems that since Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight and the sequels and it was a hit with young readers as well as adults, everyone is writing about vampires and werewolves now.  The vampire has been awakened again.  And that is fine.

So next time you sit down to write, ask yourself this question:  “Am I writing the story that I love?”