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[Write On Wednesday] Trapped

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt. If you’d like more accountability, support and structure as you warm up your writing for StoryADay May … Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Trapped”

[Write On Wednesday] Story Sparks

“Where do you get your ideas?” Every established writer has a tale to tell about being asked that question. Some of them lie and tell people they order them from an Idea store. Some wearily answer that they think really hard until the ideas come. Still others joyfully shout that ideas are everywhere, what are you crazy? … Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Story Sparks”

[Write On Wednesday] – The Ambiguous Protagonist

My nine-year-old son recently volunteered that he hates “I” stories, because you can’t know the main character’s name until someone else says it. I found it interesting that he finds this lack of information about a character annoying. Perhaps I did, at age nine. Now, however, I enjoy the gaps in a short story, in … Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] – The Ambiguous Protagonist”

Tuesday Reading Room – Live From The Continuing Explosion by Simon Kewin

This week’s story is “Live From The Continuing Explosion”, taken from Perfect Circles, a collection of previously-published short stories by Simon Kewin. (Full disclosure, Simon is a former StoryADay participant and co-founder of  Write1Sub1, a year long writing and publishing challenge that I highly recommend you check out. The new collection is available on Kindle … Continue reading “Tuesday Reading Room – Live From The Continuing Explosion by Simon Kewin”

Writing With Confidence – Imagine The Perfect Reader

When you write, if it is to be any good at all, you must feel free, free and not anxious. -Brenda Ueland “If You Want To Write” Some of my best writing, before I started to concentrate on my fiction again, was done in hand-written letters to my childhood friend, Linda. She is witty and … Continue reading “Writing With Confidence – Imagine The Perfect Reader”

[Write On Wednesday] How to Use Pinterest To Write A Short Story

Don’t even think of telling me you can’t think of anything to write. Not with a site like Pinterest at your fingertips. What is Pinterest? It’s a virtual scrapbook where people grab and save images from the web, all neatly categorized and ready for your browsing pleasure. It’s like looking over the shoulder of everyone … Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] How to Use Pinterest To Write A Short Story”

[Write On Wednesday] Photo Prompt

Sometimes it’s easy to come up with a subject, a character, a problem or an issue on which to hang your short story. Some days it’s not. But that doesn’t mean you can’t write. I just means getting started might be harder. If you’re finding it hard to start writing today, hop on over to … Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Photo Prompt”

Tuesday Reading Room – The Standard Of Living by Dorothy Parker

from Fifty Great Short Stories(Milton Crane, Ed. Bantam Classics reissued 2005) I’m working my way through this short story collection which was first published in 1952 and starts with a lot of what would have been quite ‘modern’ writers’ stories: Dorothy Parker, Katherine Mansfield, Ernest Hemingway, V. S. Pritchett. Only one story so far has … Continue reading “Tuesday Reading Room – The Standard Of Living by Dorothy Parker”

The First Thing Writers Should Do Every Day

It’s hard enough to find time to write. Then, when you finally do, you face the paralysis of the blank page/blinking cursor. The most useful tool I have discovered for getting past that frozen moment of potential is to do some warm-up writing. Morning Pages And The Truth Point I first discovered this technique in … Continue reading “The First Thing Writers Should Do Every Day”