What My Writing Habits Are Not For a start, that grammar! My daily writing habits include many routines but I am not here to tell you about confidence, inspiration and success in the writing life. I covered those topics earlier this year. Please follow the links. 5 Daily Writing Habits 5 Periodic Writing Habits Ideas For You My One BAD Writing Habit Honesty compels me […]
In this series I alliterate a two-word title and then make myself write it. It’s a personal challenge that will get me out of a sticky patch where, while writing my novel, I’m not always coming up with the goods on my blog. The Break Was In Hull [aka Kingston upon Hull] Hull lies on the river of the same name, near to the Humber estuary, in […]
In this new series I’m going to alliterate the two-word title and then make myself write it. A personal challenge that will get me out of a sticky patch where, while writing my novel, I’m not always coming up with the goods on my blog. Why I Need This I don’t live a boring life. However, my brain has a one-track setting. If my emotional […]
Peppered in amongst the Later Writer posts are several mentions of my novel attempts so far. Earlier this years, I abandoned the second attempt and Turned to Crime.
For this piece of Freewriting, I thought I’d tell you about my novel writing so far.
Dear Reg, Who Would Not Eat His Veg (A Cautionary Tale)
Toddler Reg ate all his puréed food,
But with diced veg, he was not so good.
He’d eat the meat and then the chips,
Consume them all and lick his lips.
But sitting on his dish forlorn,
Were bits of carrot, peas, and corn.
This piece of my own writing, taken from one of my notebooks, is all about a routine or ritual activity. In this case, I’ve chosen to write about my papercraft hobby of modern scrapbooking.
By saying “modern” I’m referring to bespoke products that conserve photographs and memories within a set of pages that will not cause everything to turn yellow-brown over time. The acid and lignin within paper and card causes the images to break down. It’s not an attractive way to keep your memories. Remember those sugar paper scrapbooks that are cheap and, not altogether, cheerful?
What matters with this piece of writing is whether the reader comprehends the activity from the description given.
This writing practice is a play on words. Or playing with words. I love words, always coped well with spelling, but there’s nothing quite like making up your own words, even when they turn out to be nonsense.
List words and change just ONE letter in each. The new word does not need to be real – it often isn’t – but it should be plausible, mean something within the context of the original word, however tenuous that connection might be.
f you also usually write via a keyboard, are you certain all your thoughts, your memories, your creativity, are being accessed? Is your own Inner Critic getting in the way – if it tries to stop me right this minute, I can easily continue making pencil marks on the virginal page. There is no Delete or Backspace key to erase bits the critic decides I should lose.
You can use the most unlikely material for a fun poem. In my writing notebook is a shopping list from many years ago. The way it was set out led to this poem…
How do you use Success?
I have noticed that the crime writers I read are very busy writing the next novel. Their success is fuelling hard work and absorbing their time. This cannot always be easy. My suggestion for the Later Writers reading this site is that you celebrate every time to complete a piece of writing whatever the outcome. Of course you will be thrilled at winning a competition or seeing a story published.