Portfolio Advice

Some questions kept coming up in your self reflections. I will attempt to answer these problem areas and also give you some guidance and tips about strengthening your writing:

• Question: How can I get motivated to write?
• Most writers will answer this by stating that they cannot help but write. A professional writer is someone who spends their free and spare time, making time in their day, that is, to write. Even talent cannot make you a professional. Writers are people who write. Period.
• TIP: Don't spend your time thinking about writing or talking about that great idea. Instead, sit down and type or write in your notebook. Nothing should pull your focus away from this essential rule!
• TIP: Relax. You don't have to be great at this moment. You are only 14-17 years old. There is no such thing as perfection. Even the best authors think they write some bad work. It happens. We can't always be at the top of our game--that's simply being realistic and human! So give yourself a break!
• The universe does not owe you anything. We make our own successes by working at them. Yes, writing is work. It can be fun, pleasurable, and even necessary, but it is work. Try to train yourself to realize, just like training for a sport, lifting weights, or exercising regularly, the more you spend your time writing, the more likely it is you will get better at it!
• Create an artificial deadline for yourself. Set a word count minimum for the day. If you set your creative writing word minimum at 100 words per period or even day, don't go to bed or move on to another project until you have completed these words. If the word count is too easy, increase it gradually until it is a challenge, but not impossible to meet.
• Decide that you ARE going to use your time to write. Then do it.
• Remove distractions to the best of your ability. Realize that this is hard to do. In this class, in this school, in this lab--we have to agree that this is our sacred writing time. Do NOT bother one another. You should be writing and your best friends, if you really care about them, should be writing too!
• Create a contest with yourself or a writer friend. Who can be the first one to write 3 pages of prose? Who can write a sonnet before the other one writes one? 
• Restrict yourself--make up your own rules and stick by them. One writer (Georges Perec) decided to write a novel that never used the letter "E". He succeeded (but he called it a "win")! The novel I'm referring to is "A Void". Read about it here.
• Motivational Sites for writers: (from "PR Daily")
• 1. Writer’s Digest. This site is overflowing with resources for writers. Writer’s Digest also publishes its 101 Best Websites for Writers. 
  
  2. Son of Bold Venture. Esquire contributor Chris Jones offers entertaining tips on writing and observations of the profession. Particularly geared toward Journalists. 
  
  3. Write to Done. Tips about writing.
  
  4. The Grammarphobia Blog. Grammar police and casual writers alike will find this blog funny, useful, and entertaining.
  
  5. Writing White Papers. Writer Michael Stelzner's blog.
  
  6. Inkwell Editorial. A fantastic starting point for anyone looking to get into freelancing. While you’re at it, check out Freelance Writing Jobs, which offers daily updates to help writers get paid for what they do. (Yes. PAID!) 
  
  7. Six Sentences. Here’s the gist: Writers submit stories that consist of six sentences. Pretty simple, right? No, not simple at all. You try telling a good story in six sentences. Seriously, try it and then submit it to Six Sentences blog.
  
  8. Wordsmith.org. This site offers daily tips for writers. 
  
  9. The Writer Underground. Tom Chandler's blog, which includes some interesting, original interviews with professional writers. 
  
  10. Daily Writing Tips. This site offers daily, relevant writing tips on word usage, grammar, and punctuation. Many of you need this terribly! No offense meant but your grammar and punctuation skills are really bad. We try to help, but you've got to take the responsibility of your own learning here. Read this daily!
• Question: How do I get ideas? How do I know what to write?
• Stephen King addressed this already. I have addressed this. Every professional writer has addressed this. Where do we get ideas?
• From our lives
• From our imagination
• From talking to people (but not in the lab when you should be writing!)
• From reading!
• From READING!
• FROM READING!!!
• Here: read this article and it will explain what I'm trying to explain.
• As you know, writing prompts can help budge you a bit, and programs and courses like this one can help "require" you to write so you get practice, but ultimately it is the writer's responsibility to find a reason to write. There is no muse that sprinkles "art" dust on your head to get you to come up with creative ideas. 

In the lab: 

Work on Stephen King's prompt. Use the time in the lab to write. Notice his rules for his prompt. Don't like what he prompts you to do? Change anything you'd like in his scenario, as long as you're writing. 

Don't like that either? write about: 

• A practical joke that goes wrong
• A story about human endurance
• A story about hope
• A story about revenge
• A story about sin (or correcting mistakes made in one's life)

You may use Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations (see previous post) to help you. 

HOMEWORK: None. Our coffeehouse is Nov. 20 at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. We'd love to see you there!