Writing and Money!

Writing

Should You Be Writing Right Now?

Nanowrimo

Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing

“Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.”

BY MARIA POPOVA

In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writingpublished in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardianreached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman:

1. Write
2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7. Laugh at your own jokes.
8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

from https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/28/neil-gaiman-8-rules-of-writing/

Westminster Bridge

Ten Reasons to be a Writer

Top 10 Reasons to be a Writer

   1. Librarians think you're cool.

   2. You have an excuse to be cluttered: you have no time for cleaning; you're creating ART.

   3. You get a collection of stories you'll always enjoy reading because you wrote them.

   4. If you publish, you don't have to think about what you'll get your friends and family for Christmas—they're all getting your book!

   5. You can name your characters all the things your husband wouldn't let you name your children.

   6. You can work in your pajamas.

   7. You get to network with other writers.

   8. Money and fame. Ha! Ha! But I just had to throw that one in.

   9. You can pattern your villains after the guys who dumped you in high school, and

  10. You don't have bad days; you just have more writing material to draw from!

-- from JanetteRallison’s Web Page

More Prompts

  

If you could select another name, assuming you had to, what would you call yourself?  Explain why.

Best of the Worst -- Bad Writing Contest

Gorge your eyes on best of the worst

By Ann Cannon

Published: Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 12:22 a.m. MST

    * Even more of ... 'The Best of the Worst'

I'm overwhelmed. You guys sent me nearly 500 sentences this year! Way to go! I love you! So here it is, kids —The Best of the Worst (your Official 2007 Edition)!

Dark and stormy night

It was a dark and stormy night, but Alicia was learning to her great distress that it's going to be that way when you spend the winter in Anchorage and forget to pay your power bill. — Pam Williams

Science Fiction

The spaceship descended slowly, looking like a giant submarine sandwich — except it was made of metal, not bread, and was actually more circular and not so much oblong, and most importantly, the green things inside were sentient alien beings capable of interstellar travel, instead of pickles. — Mike Middleton

Horror

When the young count was suspended from school yet again for biting, Nosferatu's parents began to suspect there was something different about their boy. — Sean Johnson

Talking Unicorn

Her eyes were numinous, her voice mellifluous, her thighs voluminous, and her demeanor opprobrious — indeed, she was the best bouncer the Talking Unicorn had ever had. — David Alvin Edwards

Romance

John first saw the next "love of his life" when he exited the whole foods grocery store and knocked the overly ripe melons she was returning from her large shapely hands — showering both of them with sweet warm fruit. — MacKay Jones

Romance Gone Really Wrong

She stood mesmerized as the figure emerged from the shadow and she could clearly see a tall, manly form, glistening black hair, penetrating dark eyes, a half-smile on soft, kissable lips, brawny shoulders narrowing toward a slim waist, and the firm muscled legs ending in cloven feet. — Nora Sampson

Words to Live By

When we are most concerned about others, we'll forget ourselves as if we were a rotting sack of potatoes thrown out with the trash. — Erin Hallmark

Power of Positive Thinking

Looking back at the past year — the kidnapping, the landslide, the dog attack, the tree falling on her car, along with her brother's inexplicable habit of showing up at every family party with a different girlfriend — Kim decided that it hadn't been so bad after all and wondered what on earth could happen next as she peered out the airplane door, waiting for the instructor to tell her when to jump. — Natalie Carbone

Sweepstakes Winner

If ever there were two people who desperately wanted to kiss each other at this exact moment, they were Jim and Betty, but since, at this exact moment, Betty was chained in the dungeon of a backwater prison in Argentina, and since Jim was currently plummeting toward the ground in Montana after a freak hang-glider failure, it wasn't very likely to happen. — David Goddard

Writer's Block?

“Sit in a chair and write,” [Brandon] Sanderson says. “Ignore this thing they call writer’s block. Doctors don’t get doctor’s block; your mechanic doesn’t get mechanic’s block. If you want to write great stories, learn to write when you don’t feel like it. You have to write it poorly before you can write it well. So just be willing to write bad stories in order to learn to become better.”

Time to Write

"The myth that we must have 'time'--more time--in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have. If we are forever yearning for 'more,' we are forever discounting what is offered."      Julia Cameron, The Right to Write, page 13

Analogy to Optical Illusion and

Respond to the optical illusions on the overhead.

   This is level one writing.

    Share teacher response:

About analogies.  Comparing one thing to another.

2. More prewriting practice. This is level one writing.

         more focused freewriting

          brainstorming

3.  Mystery writing assignment.    Making Uncommon Connections

         1) Pick a number from 1 to _____

         2) Write down your "topic."

         3)  Writing Assignment: compare your "topic" to "writing."

         4)  Teacher shares her bikini response. 

      Overhead ---

 [3.  Analogies -- Response to an optical illusion overhead:

My life is like this optical illusion because sometimes

I'm fooled into thinking I see what isn't there.  For instance, sometimes I see people I know talking together and they don't look at or talk to me.  I think I see them being mad at me or laughing at me, not wanting to have anything to do with me.  And I feel very small. But maybe what I think I see isn't there.  Maybe they just didn't notice me.  

         And sometimes I think other people are better off than I am.  They seem to have more fun and less  fewer troubles.  But usually, if I look closer, I see that their fun is just different from mine.  And I do have a lot of fun.  Perhaps their troubles are different from mine, or maybe they have some of the same problems I have, but I just haven't seen their troubles. 

         I think I'd be better off if I didn't fall for so many "optical illusions" of life. 

The Writing Process

Creativity Collage

Collage of Creativity -- About Me!

 (All work except the picture collage will end up typed or neatly written in black ink.)

I.  Make a title page for your entire assignment with a creative title, and with your name, class, and the date. 

II.  Create an 8 1/2" x 11" collage of pictures and or other illustrations that represent you and your interests.                                                                                            Due _________________________

III.  Write bio-poems based on two of the patterns you are given.  Due ________________________

IV.  Choose three out of the following ten choices. Title each assignment. (Use complete, correct sentences in your writing.)                                                                                                                                 Due ________________________

1. Top Ten  -- Create a top ten best and worst list (ten best and ten worst) of things that have happened to you so far in your life.  You must be specific, detailed, and creative.  Don't say -- 1. Born 2. Moved, etc.  Each item should be at least two creative sentences long.  Have a title for your lists -- not "My Top Ten."  Be more creative.  (Use complete, correct sentences in your writing.)

2. Junior High Hang-Ups Poem or Essay -- Write a poem or informal essay about a theme that is important to junior high school students.  For example, friendship, conformity, originality, education, family, finding talents, being yourself, staying away from drugs or other addictions, self-esteem, honor, popularity, careers, status symbols, sports, band, etc. or your own idea.  Use poetry techniques -- metaphors, power words, alliterations, symbols, figurative language, etc.  Don't rhyme.  Your poem must be at least twenty lines long.  The essay must be a page, double-spaced.  Have a creative title. 

                                                                ^{(Page lengths refer to typed pieces.  Handwritten will be longer.)}

3.  How to Survive in Junior High -- Make a list of twenty specific and truly valuable pieces of advice you would like to give new seventh graders.  Your list may be humorous but must contain "true" wisdom and be appropriate.  Have a creative title.

4.  Me and My Shadow -- Do you have someone you are with constantly -- a shadow?  Write at least a half page, double-spaced about how you are alike and yet different.  Why do you make a good pair?  Have a good title.

5.  What if. . .   What if. . . is a big question.  Make a list of twenty what if's.  Be specific and creative. 

6.  My Family -- Write at least a half a page, double-spaced, about how you have affected your family.  What would your family be like without you?  What do you add?  Have a title.

7.  Celebrations of Education -- Write at least two or three sentences celebrating -- notice the word is "celebrate" not "desecrate" each year of your public education.  Be sure to include the grade, teacher, and school.  Be specific.  Have a title. 

8.  Honoring Me -- Design a certificate with a border and a graphic that honors you for some specific but perhaps hidden talent.  Make this a talent of character rather than ability.  Be specific and creative -- not just "Good Friend."

9.  My Golden Rules -- Make a list of ten very specific and original-to-you rules to live by.  What wisdom and advice do you have to offer the world gleaned from your own experience.  Have a title.

10. Fifteen  Minutes of Fame -- Someone once said, "Everyone will experience fifteen minutes of fame in his or her lifetime."  What will your fifteen minutes be?  You may write in short story form -- narrative -- or explanatory style.  This must be at least a half of a page, double spaced.  Have a creative title.                                                   (Dorsey, 1-17-06, Adapted from materials presented by Brenda Burr and Launa Strong)

Examples;

Getting Started:  Ms. Dorsey’s Choices for the Creativity Collage

(Top Ten)                          My Life in a List – The Worst!

10.  It broke my heart when I lost my kitchen!  We had recently remodeled, and I had my dream kitchen. I’d been able to pick out everything in it from the cabinets to the ovens to the faucet. I hadn’t enjoyed it very long when we had to move. 

9.   I had my chance and blew it!  When I was in college, there was this guy in my zoology class.  He was handsome and smart and from California (which I thought was exotic and exciting – California, that is).  I was amazed when he asked me out on a date to the planetarium.   I was so nervous that I wasn’t very good company on that date.  He never asked me out again!  At the time, I thought I’d die. :  )

. . .

Celebrations of Education

First Grade:  Somehow my mom had enough clout to get me into the best grade school in Burley, Idaho.  It was an old run-down building called Overland Elementary, and was in the worst part of town, but that school had the best teachers in the area.  I loved my teacher, Mrs. Horne.  I remember the basement classroom, a set of seven colorful rubber  dwarves we could play with, numbers and letters on a flannel board, and building “mouse trails and houses” in the thick grass along the chain link fence with my best school friend Darwin Silcox. 

Second Grade:  Still at Overland, my teacher was Mrs. Dummer, and I kinda thought she was.  I remember thinking I was a true artist when I drew a picture of the three little pigs.  I was so proud.  And I remember the fall carnival, with a white elephant sale in my own classroom.  I wanted to buy all those marvelous things, as I looked and looked for a real white elephant. 

Third Grade:  Mrs. Budge read to us from the Thornton Burgess animal stories.  We’d say the pledge of allegiance and recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning. 

In October I moved to a brand new school, where one of the best teachers had transferred, so then I was in Mrs. Williams class where we learned about dinosaurs, and I could spell tyrannosaurus all by myself.  Because the school was still being built, we played “I’m the king of Bunker Hill” on mounds of dirt in the schoolyard, and we were bussed to the junior high for lunchtime.

What if. . .

1.   What if eating double chocolate ice cream made you lose weight?

2.   What if gasoline cost only 25 cents a gallon?

3.   What if our lunch breaks were an hour long instead of thirty minutes?

4.   What if dishes cleaned themselves – and put themselves back in the cupboards?

5.   What if snow and ice never stuck to my sidewalks and driveways?

6.   What if all students did their homework and handed it in 

-- on time? !!!!!

(Junior High Hang-Ups)     Conformity

         Why is it that when kids want to be different, most of them dress alike?   

         

Prewriting

Prewriting exercises -- Finding or elaborating ideas --

Have students do a blueprint prewriting  purple text, page 16, a map of their neighborhood.

Creative Writing --

Prewriting Techniques:

1) freewriting

2) focused freewriting

3) brainstorming

4) clustering

5) questioning

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

6) keeping a journal

7) observing

8) reading with a focus =

preview, skim, take notes

9) listening with a focus =

seek background info, create list of info needed, take notes

10) imagining

11) gathering

quotes, ideas, etc.

Prewriting Techniques:

1) freewriting       

2) focused freewriting     friendship, highway, child

3) brainstorming             a place I enjoy  or a place I don’t like

4) clustering                   heroes, movies, holidays, dreams

5) questioning                  sports, 

Who?                                     players -- baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.  fans 

What?                                    excitement, stadium on day of game, tailgate parties, foods, TV, uniforms,                                    

 Where?                                     stadiums, school playing fields, back lots,

When?                                    times to practice, time to watch, time to arrive for game, game over

 Why?                                     social, emotional, physical outlet

How?                                             getting to play, getting to see the games

       What do I know?  What would I like to know?  Where can I get more information?  What would I like to focus on?  What is my point of view?  Who is my audience?     -- drug addiction

6) keeping a journal     self, assigned    goals, dreams, steps,    problems    analyze self, situation, describe people,  If I could. . . then. . . ,   secrets,    people you admire or are supposed to admire    places to visit    considering things you’ve learned    news     facts   (the average young American witnesses 18,000 TV murders before he or she graduates from high school)

7) observing

8) reading with a focus =

preview, skim, take notes

9) listening with a focus =

seek background info, create list of info needed, take notes

10) imagining     What if. . .

11) gathering

quotes, ideas, etc.      “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  --Abraham Lincoln

Myths About Poetry

Seven Myths about Poetry

Today there are many myths about poetry. Late last century a surge took place among young people, teens began writing more and more poetry due to new concepts like slam poetry and rap music. However, many notions about poetry were formed and seen as truth. Here are seven myths about poetry:

    * Poetry must rhyme. In fact, poetry doesn't have to rhyme. Poetry doesn't have to do anything--normally it is just good practice to have rhythm and meters. However, there are exceptions to all rules.

    * Poetry must be a set length. A poem can be as short as one letter or as long as one billion. It just doesn't matter. Actually, poetry doesn't even have to have words or letters at all. A picture or photograph, even a drawing could be considered a poem in the right circumstance.

    * Poetry requires no thinking. Actually, it does. Just like any art really. There are some people who can write poems right off the top of their head and make perfect poems; however, most of us can't. We need to think before we write and think about what we wrote, then edit, then edit some more and write some more.

    * The best poetry is written when authors are depressed. You could make the argument that more poetry is written while authors are depressed, thus the chance of better poetry due to the amount. However, even this might not be true. Many famous poets have written their best works while in love--Rumi for example.

    * Poetry must make sense. Not entirely. Most forms of poetry do need to make sense. However, dada doesn't.

    * Poetry must have correct grammar. Not even close. Of course, many who have listened to music within the past decade know this already.

    * Big words make better poems. Edgar Allan Poe is a great example to dismiss this notion. Big words should only be used when they are absolutely necessary, unless of course your purpose is to make a poem which isn't.

http://www.poemofquotes.com/articles/myths-about-poetry.php

Poem of Quotes.com