Pros: Decent ideas Cons: More like a blog post than a book Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Breakthrough the Block!: 5 Steps to Renewing your Inspiration, by Allen C. Paul, is more like a long blog post than a book.…
Blog Archives
Review: “It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again,” Julia Cameron
Pros: Very handy Cons: A bit new-agey Rating: 4 out of 5 Julia Cameron’s It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Midlife and Beyond is, in general, aimed at people who are retiring from a…
"This Is Not A Book," Keri Smith
Pros: Very freeing; highly unusual; childlike and playful Cons: Needs a few more blank pages to keep exercises from interfering with each other Rating: 4 out of 5 Review book courtesy of Penguin Group. Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal…
Surreal Nike Ad
There I was, reading Cracked.com’s 10 Awesome Ads (for Traumatizing Children), when I came across the Nike ad embedded below. And I watched it. And watched it again. And watched it again. And again. Maybe I’m the one who’s cracked,…
"Wreck This Journal," Keri Smith
Pros: Very freeing; highly unusual; childlike and playful Cons: A couple of details could have been thought out better Rating: 4 out of 5 Review book courtesy of Penguin Group.. *Sounds of disused muscles stretching* It’s been a while…
Character Art Collection
One of my favorite resources for fleshing out a character is the vast wealth of portraiture found online. Art, photos… There are multiple ways to use such items to help you with a character. The two major ones are art…
Posted in Writing Tagged with: Characters, creativity, Images, photographs, portraits, writers, writing
Mountain Men
Today, create a side character (someone who will appear in a story but isn’t meant to be the main character). Base the overall image on a stereotype, but then give the person a quirk that’s completely unlike that stereotype. When…
‘The Sleeping Beauty Proposal’
This morning I reviewed Sarah Strohmeyer’s wonderful book The Sleeping Beauty Proposal. One of the nifty things about that book is the way in which Strohmeyer takes the concept of the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ tale and applies it to modern-day life:…
Wedding Bells
Imagine that one of your fictional characters is getting married. How would it happen? Write the scene. Alternative #1: Imagine that someone close to one of your fictional characters is getting married. Alternative #2: Imagine that you are getting married!…
Tell their story
Visit this page and, for the moment, simply look at the photograph without reading the text. (Just in case you read this entry sometime months from now and the picture is gone, it’s an old black-and-white photo of young men…