how-to

Gothic Poetry

/ ladyspiderwitch / 2 Comments

I like to write gothic poetry. Gothic poetry has a fascinating history, thanks to the writings of Tennyson and Thomas Gray. If you are a lover of the dark side, and enjoy music such as Inkubus Succubus and romantic poetic musings, then I hope this post inspires you to pen dark verse of your own.

Once I walked home past a cemetery on a  magical cold winter night. The chilling glow of the streetlight over the tombstones woke the muse in me. I went home and wrote a poem about what I saw that night.

Surround yourself in an environment that inspires you to write dark verse. I live in a city well-known for its dark spooky history. I visit my favorite cemetery, Mount Olivet, carrying a thermos, a journal, and my pen. Graveyard tours are offered in my hometown. Put away the laptop or phone for an hour or two. Grab a journal, a quill pen, and latte-and go!

Now, once you are comfortably seated in a cemetery, sipping your latte, open your senses to the environment. Hear the bird songs, the creaking tree boughs, see the crows – crows are always hanging around in a cemetery. I think it has something to do with them being messengers of the dead–if you believe in that. Write down your verses. Therefore, it’s great to use a journal rather than a tablet. You can be messier and more creative. It frees up your creative expression.

Observe the way the crows perch on tombstones, how old the tombstones are. I once found an abandoned bird’s nest in a cemetery. Notice the age of the trees, colorful leaves, or flowers at the foot of a grave. A moth flitting over the ground, birds pecking for seeds, crows screeching from the treetops. A crow nest lives in the cemetery in my neighborhood. The nest has been there a long time.

Once, I strolled through Mount Olivet. An apple tree grows inside and outside of the cemetery. A fallen apple lay on the ground. Dead carpenter ants rested on the apple- except for one carpenter ant that crawled over the rotted apple. It churned my stomach. I left.

The Titanic victims are buried there. A word of caution: remain grounded and centered while you are there. Take what you like and leave the bad energy behind.

The quiet of a cemetery can be relaxing. They are not dangerous places, but people should still use common sense. If you do want to write there, go during the day. Safety trumps all. Don’t disturb the graves or take anything that doesn’t belong to you.

This may hopefully lead you to create a poetry chapbook!

 

Travel Writing: How to get inspired by your vacation

/ arellana26 / Leave a comment

Vacations. They’re a time that we so desperately need every once in a while to de-stress, relax, and unwind. And that came come in various forms for people, depending on their personal tastes. Some of us like to veg out on the beach for two weeks straight with a daiquiri in one hand and a mojito in the other; some prefer to get lost down the winding streets of some charmingly medieval European town; others prefer to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to go on a sunrise hike followed by morning yoga then another several other high-intensity activities throughout the day. Whatever your vacation style is, there is one thing we can all agree on: as writers, vacation time can be the perfect inspiration for writing – so long as you can find the time.

I recently returned from a trip to Malta, and as I was sipping my morning latte while watching the sun rise, the thought occurred to me: how exactly do you make your vacation work for you? A writer’s work is never done. Plain and simple. While other professions can easily clock out while enjoying vacation, those of us who are writers – either paid or unpaid – are constantly on the clock. The Muses have no concept of vacation time apparently. Here is a list of everything that I discovered while on break that will hopefully inspire you fellow writers to use your vacations to fuel your writing progress:

Set a schedule

I know, I know. This is probably the last thing you want to do, but hear me out. Setting a writing schedule during your vacation is actually a good thing – it means you get actual writing work done. And there is no need to carve out a whole two hours of your day, 20 minutes is totally fine. I personally found that 20 minutes over breakfast in the morning, then 20 minutes before bed was plenty. It was more a way to organize my thoughts and ideas each day. And of course, if you do happen to have a free day where you can just hole up for a couple of hours in a picturesque café or beneath a beach umbrella to write, that’s even better. But if you’re constantly on the go during your vacation, 20 minutes is plenty.

Keep a travel diary

When I go on break, I like to keep a diary where I document everything I saw, ate, smelled, heard, felt, and experienced during my day. For one, even if you don’t do any work on your manuscript or short story, you’re at least keeping your writing muscles flexed. Plus, going back and re-reading your travel diary when you’re home can help you get back into that feeling of awe and inspiration in order to do some creative writing. I have also found that sometimes you describe things in such a nice way, you want to recycle those descriptions into your writing – and that is totally fine!

Learn about the local history through a guided tour

Local history is a great source of inspiration. In Malta, we did several guided tours and day trips and they definitely helped to get the creativity flowing. Learning the history behind that cool-looking building or discovering more about that historical figure will definitely be of benefit to your work at a later point. Some of the stuff I learned about the founding of Valletta and the Knights Hospitaller definitely had me writing down plot ideas for several projects I’m currently working on.

Take in the scenery

Besides being fantastic backdrops for selfies, picturesque places can help inspire ideas. Whether natural or urban, different panoramas can evoke all types of inspiration. I suggest that if you have the time, take a small notebook with you and just start to jot down whatever comes to mind. If you’re in a particular place that you find thrilling, then imagine a scene playing out. It doesn’t have to be a fully realized story concept or anything; just something that can be a starting point for you. And neither setting, either city or countryside, is more beautiful than the other. They both have different kinds of inspiration to give. In addition to taking in the scenery, don’t underestimate the power of people watching. If you’re out to dinner, or on a tour with different people, or chilling on the beach/poolside take some time to observe the scenery between people – those are potential stories waiting to be written.

Airports are the perfect place to write

Unless you’re going on a cruise or planning a road trip, most of us travel to our vacation destinations by plane. Airports are usually over-crowded, over-priced petri-dishes where we go in order to catch a flight to somewhere magical. While they’re no fun, they do provide perfect places for people watching. And following on the point above, airports are a goldmine of potential stories waiting to be written. How many of us have sat in an airport and noticed someone who, for whatever reason, catches our attention and has us wondering, “Where are they headed?” Well, if you’re not doing anything for two hours till boarding, why not imagine their whole story? That woman wearing a fur coat in the middle of summer, the man in an all-black suit with a briefcase, the couple wearing matching shirts – they all would provide a great foundation to interesting characters and storylines.

Show, Don’t Tell

/ arellana26 / 1 Comment

When I was home in California last Christmas, I was clearing out a box of my things at my parents’ house. As a writer, sometimes it’s fun to look back at your earliest work and see how far you’ve come. I got to go over some of my earliest hits, like the very first short story I ever wrote: a ten page fantasy from fourth grade about the world’s richest rabbit. I also came upon my first manuscript ever: the historical novel I’d penned in high school. Reading through that was tragic.

It was very tough reading through my early works because I noticed I did a lot of showing, rather than telling. As you foray deeper into the world of writing, you’ll probably come upon this critique more and more from professors, peers, or just other writers in general.

So, what does that mean exactly?

If you struggle to differentiate between showing versus telling, don’t worry because you aren’t alone. Plenty of writers struggle with it. It all refers to the actions in your story. When you “tell,” you’re basically just informing the reader of what is going on rather than letting them deduce it for themselves. In other words, you’re just supplying them the information by stating it. Think of it as being the Captain Obvious of your own story. Examples of this would be telling the reader that the character is “upset,” “hungry,” or “cold.”

Instead, showing is basically painting a word picture for the reader to see in their mind’s eye. Rather than tell the reader the character is “angry,” “hungry,” or “cold,” you describe it to them with action. So your character can “slam a door so hard a picture falls off the wall,” or they can “take a sip of water to try and quell the feeling of acid burning in their stomach,” or they can “reach for an extra blanket.”

Instead of telling your reader what is going on, try to make them an interactive part of the experience – make them be able to close their eyes and see it as if they’re reliving a memory. I mean, we’re all readers ourselves so we know there is nothing better than being a reader with an active role in the narrative.

If you need more concrete examples, I’ve written some below:

Tell: When she hugged him, she could tell he’d been smoking.

Show: As he wrapped his arms around her, the faint waft of stale tobacco hit her nose.

Tell: Emily was blind.

Show: Emily’s white cane struck the side of the curb.

Tell: It was late fall.

Show: The orange leaves crunched beneath our feet.

Tell: The man was a plumber and he asked where the kitchen was.

Show: His coveralls were stained with white paint on the left leg. Wrenches of various sizes hung down from the leather belt around his waist. “Point me towards the leak,” he said.

Tell: The date was going well and Tom let his food go cold listening to Lisa’s stories.

Show: Tom’s baked potato had lost its halo of steam as he smiled and asked, “Please tell me the end of that German hostel story.”

Now, you may be wondering if telling is ever acceptable? And yes, it is. However, keep in mind that telling is just summary narrative. It doesn’t add any value to your plot/conflict/character/tension arc, but it can be used when you have to include the mundane but necessary information. In short, you want to do a majority of showing, but sometimes you have to tell some of the smaller, less important things. It’s a writing yin and yang – showing and telling both balance each other out. You just need to figure out the balance that works for the story.

The Fun of Blogging

/ ladyspiderwitch / Leave a comment

Here are my favorite tricks for keeping a blog. I hope you find this information interesting and helpful. Over the years, I have composed around 714 blog posts in total. I am dedicated and hope you find my tricks useful.

Enjoy keeping a blog. It shouldn’t turn into a chore. Have fun with it and allow yourself to be creative. Your blog can reflect your passion in life, whether that be gardening, novel writing, or poetry. Tailoring your blog to your life passion lets you have fun.
A writer should cultivate their own style and you will find your own voice. I create a topic for my posts and write each one from my heart. WordPress helps make writing posts easier by offering features like adding photos or movie trailers, ability to add hyperlinks, or writing your post all in bold or italics. You can schedule when a blog post will be published or publish several on a certain date. You can preview your posts before publishing them or save the drafts if you are too busy. WordPress has tutorials and helpful sites.

I sign each post and use keywords. A signature signals to the reader that the post is complete. Keywords help readers find a particular blog post they find interesting. Be sure to add relevant keywords when you publish your brilliant posts.

Keep a folder for new blog post ideas on your desktop or update an old blog post. Ask your readers what they would like to read. Enter a major keyword of your proposed post topic on Twitter and see the results are. If a favorite movie is coming soon to theaters, mention that. If a new occult store opened in your neighborhood, mention that.
I like to include a photo at the beginning of each post that is relative. I keep the photo a reasonable size. WordPress allows you to select where you would like the photo to be, such as left or center, and large or thumbnail size.

Be yourself when developing your blog. Readers notice when you demonstrate your passion, whether that be science fiction or drama. Offer your readers a contest and fun prizes, book or movie reviews, or interviews with authors/editors. The sky is the limit. Use your imagination and remember to have fun.

I suggest writing your posts in bold. The words stand out better and are easier to read. If you pay for a WordPress blog, extra features are available, such as posting in PDF. The only way to manage a blog is to persevere and learn as much as you can. Be fearless and creative. Let out your inner Lord Byron or Poe. Your blog might inspire you to pen a novel or a book of poems. Many writers who keep blogs often advance to successful writing careers.

One more thing: Learn to proofread. Proofread before you hit the publish button! No one will do it for you. Don’t write in clichés. Instead, cultivate your own voice. Use verbs and nouns. Learn where a prepositional phrase belongs. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly. Sample some editing sites until you grow more confident editing and proofreading on your own. You can practice editing older posts.

There are many other competing blogs out there. Over time, you will see how to keep them faithfully following yours if you follow all these tips.

Good luck blogging!!!!

The Perfect Way to Write Your Novel

/ arellana26 / Leave a comment

Here it is: the cure-all secret that will revolutionize your writing. Are you ready? Do you want to know the perfect way to write a novel? Alright, here is a step-by-step guide below:

1) WRITE!

Thought I was going to let you off easy? Nope. The whole point of writing is to write. It doesn’t have to be good; it just has to come out on paper. That is what editing is for. The key that you need to focus on is sitting down to that laptop or notebook every day and writing something down. There really is no magical secret to writing a perfect novel. Everyone’s novel is perfect in its own way. The real magic lies in actually starting it so go write!

2) Set Realistic Goals

If you’re struggling to get writing, then setting yourself a goal of 5k words a day is a little unrealistic. In fact, it’ll feel next to impossible because when you sit down to write, you’ll get intimidated and suddenly your shower will be in urgent need of cleaning. And if your shower gets cleaned, then you should do the toilet and the sink while you’re at it. And hey, your living room could probably use a dust, and if you dust, obviously you need to vacuum too. Oh look, it’s bright outside. Why not go for a walk? If you’re going to walk, might as well make it productive and take a walk to the grocery store with the canvas bags because it’s about time you stop killing the environment and start meal prepping. If you’re going to eat healthy, might as well exercise in order to lose that gut so you should sign up to a gym. In fact, let’s take a drive to the gym to test it out? And – NO! JUST STOP! Rather than set unrealistic goals for yourself that will then be met with copious procrastination methods, take a deep breath and settle for something more achievable like 500 words. You can even set yourself a time goal instead, like set aside an hour every morning or evening to get some work done. Either way, start small and then work your way up to bigger goals as the smaller ones start to become second nature.

3) Take a Short Break

This is key. Short breaks are good for keeping your sanity. While it’s fun to immerse yourself into your work, short breaks help to avoid burn out. Rather than trying to schedule an eight-hour writing session on Saturday, try to go for six one-hour sessions spread across the week, and a special two-hour day on the weekend. And throughout those writing sessions try to factor in a quick 10-minute break where you can stretch, make yourself some tea, and just step away from the computer or notebook for a minute. It is also a good idea to give yourself a couple days a month where you just don’t write at all. Instead, go for brunch or binge Netflix. Do something that gives your brain a break from your work. It’ll actually make your work even better when you go back to it with fresh eyes.

4) Don’t Give Up

Inevitably, we will all hit a wall at some point in our story. It might happen early on, it may occur in the middle, or it might even come at the end. Either way, the proverbial writer’s block comes for us all. But the key is how you deal with it. Give yourself no more than 48 hours of a break and then get back to it. Even if after 48 hours you still feel like you’re blocked, power through. It’s better to write utter trash that can later be edited than to sit and wait for the brain fog to clear. Writer’s block is the leading cause for stories to go unfinished. Don’t let it happen to yours.

5) Repeat

This one is pretty simple. If you paid close attention to Step 4, you should have a finished product to show for it. Good job. Once it’s been edited and sent out into the world, you can move on to the next project on the agenda, and that is to repeat the cycle: Write, Be Realistic, Take Short Breaks, and Don’t Give Up. It’s not a magic formula, but in following the simple steps you will feel like you’re creating magic.

Happy Writing!