Elementary Writing

In all my years as a writer, I’ve learned that it’s just one of two alternatives - either you have the skill or you don’t. People who attempt to become writers when they have no innate talent often fall short of expectations and struggle to find words even for the most basic writing assignments.

It’s not that those who have the ability to write find it a breeze all the time - there are times when they feel frustrated and fed-up because the words don’t flow as freely as they ought to and/or because they have too much work and too little time to finish it in.

I wouldn’t call this situation the clichéd “writer’s block” because it’s a combination of factors where you know what to write, you even know how to write it, but compelling deadlines make it impossible to devote the attention to detail that you know is required.

If you’ve ever been in such a situation, or if you draw a blank when you reach for words, here’s what you need to do:

• Don’t take shortcuts:
  It’s tempting to finish in a nutshell and expect the reader to be satisfied with what you’ve provided, but when you’re known as a quality writer, when you have standards to uphold, it’s not wise to take shortcuts.

  If you find yourself running short of time once too often, it’s time to take stock of your time-management skills rather than compromise on the quality of your writing. Wake up earlier than usual or go to bed a couple of hours later, spend less time on the phone or doing things that don’t contribute to your work, and put work first on your priority list.

• Read as much as you can:
  One way to improve both your writing skills and your style is to read as much as you can. Don’t stick to just the genre you like; instead, read as many styles as you can so that you find yourself improving and adding to your repertoire as time goes by.
• Adopt styles that you admire:
  I’m not even suggesting that you plagiarize, so if you thought I was, get the idea out of your mind. All I’m saying is that if you like a particular style of writing, try and write in a similar fashion once in a while to see if it suits you. If it does, then it’s well and good; if not, you could always try a new one.
• Don’t try too hard:
  The words have to flow from the heart or it’s just not happening the right way. I don’t have to read my work once I’m done to know that I’ve written rubbish - I often know as I’m writing it. And when I find myself crossing a certain imaginary quality line, I know it’s time to abort the process and start all over again.
• Take pride in your work:
  When you’re really struggling with both the quality of your work and time factors, take a break and remind yourself of how good a writer you really are. Go over your work, especially the articles or books that you and others consider your best. This will give you the much-needed boost of confidence you need to get back into the flow again.

Finaly, you will need to experiment and find the approach that best helps you to overcome your inspiration problem. Keeping the above mentioned points in mind will certainly help. Let me know what you think.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of online universities. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com
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*If you would like to consider writing a guest post for this blog, please contact us with your proposal by e-mal.

Coming up with new creative writing ideas from the thin air is difficult and time consuming.

Good news is that there are techniques and online resources you can use right now to produce as many ideas as you will need. Here are some of the best and some of the easiest.

Creative Writing Ideas - Where they usually come from?

Do you see the book ?

Let’s first look at the traditional setup that teaches us of the inspiration coming from:

• Other people observation
• Newspapers and Magazines
• World out there
• Your bookshelf or a local library
• Your personal experiences

The problem is though, finding those ideas, it can be as much hard work as siting at the desk writing.

If you just sit down in front of your computer, and it’s just a blank page, you’ve got no idea what to write or where the story goes next, you don’t think that anything is going to happen, then the good news is that the little piece of hardware you are sitting in front of can actually be your precious source of fresh inspiration and creative writing ideas. You just need to know where to look.

How to Make Inspiration specific Search Engine Survey

This sledge hammer technique rests on two most powerful forces in the known universe:

• Internet Search Engines
• Your desire for indulgence

And this is how it works: You need to make a list of the keywords and phrases that best match the answers to the following questions:

• What is Your life wish list ?
• What do you best understand ?
• What is most important to you ?
• How do you feel now ?

Once you make the list, you can perform your own custom search to Google, Yahoo, Live or Ask search engines, than narrow it to the resources listed bellow. You will be surprised with the results and how they neatly follow the pattern of your anticipation and aspiration.

Online Resources for Creative Writing Ideas

• Online Newspapers and Magazines
  Most of the popular magazines and newspapers today are present Online. Searching for them is easy process, here is just a god starting repository for your search.

  * World Newspapers  - directory
  * Metagrid - Magazines search engine
  * FreeByte - News Agregator

  Many magazines will have RSS feed for subscription. You may subscribe to their topic specific feeds using your feed reader.

• Social Media Sites
  There are two types of social media sites that you should explore to find articles related to your preferences.

  The social bookmarking sites like delicious and furl where users save their bookmarks and tag them. If lots of users save an URL, the site or page becomes popular.

  News popularity sites like digg and mixx. Check out these sites and subscribe to the appropriate categories and tags that are related to your topics. Also, search for “Top List of Social Media sites” using Google.

  Nice easy way to get fresh creative writing ideas and have fun at the same time is to install StumbleUpon toolbar, small browser plug-in. By utilizing the power of Social Networks with each pressing to Stumble button, it serves you a new website that is most of what the online community is buzzing about at the moment. Nice way to stay tuned as well.

• Google Alerts
  Once you have a list of keywords, go to Google Alerts and create a Google alerts based on those keywords. Google will send you the latest relevant Google results based on those keywords. You can choose to receive the alert email once a day. You can also opt to receive alerts on topics published only in blogs and news.

• Meme Trackers
  Meme trackers are about creating something memorable. These sites study linking behavior to find the most talked-about news. That is exactly why they may be the excellent source of fresh ideas for writers.You may find list of meme trackers and more information about this service at Memetracker Wikipedia page.

  Be cautious though,  as the number of articles from these meme tracker sites may overwhelm your RSS reader because each day these sites track hundreds of posts. So, you need to organize all these feeds in a single folder of your RSS reader. Scan the titles quickly and flag the post you are interested in.

Make Literature Online - Free Writing Ideas Factory

If you wish an instant access to quality creative writing ideas resource, this is a good place to go. Make Literature Online Collaborative Writing Community provides an extensive catalog of fresh creative writing ideas contributed under the open Creative Commons License by the community members.

If you find one, few or many ideas here, intriguing enough and inspiring for your future writings, you are free to pick them up and use freely withing the specific terms of CC License. This is a precious shortcut to overcoming writer’s block that you may go back to whenever you  need it.

Bottom Line - Start Writing Now »

It’s better to write anything, and do it right now. English writer Graham Green attributes much of his success to a simple habit: He forced himself to write at least 500 words daily, whether he felt like it or not. Perhaps creative inspiration can strike at any time, but it strikes more often when there is work instead of waiting. Use the advices from this article, than start writing and you’ll have more creative writing ideas.