My Self-Publishing Journey
Join me as I navigate the world of self-publishing from beginning to end, idea to published work.
I know I apologized last week for not posting more. And then this week I forgot to post another writing prompt this Wednesday. I have no real excuses. Since I just graduated I'm down visiting my family this week. Plus on Wednesday I was down at our new apartment cleaning the floors and walls and windows preparing for the carpet guys who are coming to install our new carpet on Monday. So there are reasons I didn't post, but the most important one is I simply forgot with everything else going on. I wish my phone would let me have alarms for specific days of the week but my phone is lame. Once I get a new phone, hopefully I'll be better at remembering posts. I promise I'm trying.
I made a list of all the things I want/need to do for my writing. I included my weekly emails and blog posts on that list in the hopes that it would help me to remember. Hopefully once things settle down and we move I'll be less sporadic in my posting.
0 Comments
This weeks writing prompt is something I saw last week and really liked. It inspired me enough that I started writing again for pleasure for the first time (almost) since my last semester started in January. Assignments are not a lot of fun. They have rules and restrictions on what you can write. :p
I found this prompt on Pinterest and this is the Link it took me to. So here is the prompt, I know you've all been waiting for it. I apologize for going a few months without posting or sending out my weekly email updates. I do not really have a good excuse, other than that I had a lot of homework these past few months. However, that was my last semester (hopefully ever) as a college student! I graduated this last Saturday and am trying to adjust to life without classes, homework, or a reason to get out of bed in the morning, haha.
Hey all, the writing prompt for this week is "Make a list of things you'll NEVER do, or make a list of things you'll NEVER do AGAIN. Write about something on that list." I found this prompt on Pinterest pinned from this site: http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/ so if you want more prompts like this, you can find them here.
You can use this as an exercise to just get into the writing mood, by writing about 750 words about the experience. it can be an exercise in memory recall so you can get as many details out about what you remember but won't ever want to experience again. If you do that, hopefully you'll remember things from all five sense which will heighten your writing and make it better. Or if you are writing about something you will never do, you can use this as an opportunity to research. Maybe you're deathly afraid of heights and you will NEVER go sky diving. Look up sky diving videos on Youtube, and research sky diving companies, then write about one of your characters going sky diving. There are a lot of places to take this prompt. So show me or tell me in the comments what you did with it. I'd love to see. It doesn't have to be a nonfiction writing prompt. It may even be better to rewrite an experience you had through the eyes of your character because you will be able to distance yourself from the experience allowing you to see what happened in an unbiased or interesting way. Keep on Creating, K. A. Jairl If you like to listen to music when you write, this site could be for you. Audiosparx is a site for screenwriters so they can buy sound effects or music for their commercial, TV show, movie, website, etc. However, it could be a great tool for getting you in the mood to write a scene. If you are trying to convey a certain mood in the scene you are writing, you can look up music that matches that mood. Anything from "Adventurous" to "Disturbing" to "Whimsical." So if you are looking to write a dramatic scene this is the music for you. If you are writing a fight scene, you might try "Menacing" or "Rebellious" or "Tension." You can even listen to the songs for free and see other songs by the same artists. There are songs with lyrics or without lyrics so if you find lyrics distracting, they've got songs for you. If you like lyrics and find them inspiring then choose songs with them to help you write. Basically they have it all. They only thing you may find distracting is that every twenty to thirty seconds a women's voice will say preview to prevent people from stealing the music. It is like a watermark on photos. They have other ways of searching for music as well. You can search for music by holiday, Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Christmas, etc. So, do you listen to music while writing, or do you find it distracting? Where do you usually listen to music? What genre do you usually listen to? Is anyone out there a fan of soundtracks while they write since soundtracks are great for a long interrupted song, with lots of moods in them? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section. Keep on Creating, K. A. Jairl So I remembered yesterday that I was supposed to post a writing prompt for the week, but I only remembered in passing for about a second or two and then my brain was off on other things. So my apologies for not getting this up yesterday. For this weeks writing prompt I want you to get into your character's head. Choose a character that you are either struggling understanding what they are thinking or how they are feeling and write from that characters PoV in stream of consciousness. If you don't know what stream of consciousness is defined with examples here: http://literarydevices.net/stream-of-consciousness/. The examples on that site are not exactly what I think of when I think of stream of consciousness but you can get the gist. Basically stream of consciousness is when you are writing down the thoughts that are going through a character's head. For example, my character Adam is a ten year old boy, so I should be writing in the voice of a ten year old boy and I should be portraying his thoughts through interior monologue (a synonym for stream of consciousness almost). So here goes: As I said, in a previous post, Life the Universe, and Everything is a writing conference that is held annually in February in Provo, UT. The conference is mainly focused on science fiction and fantasy genres, but in my experience the content of the classes and panels I attended are able to translate over to any genre.
I took advantage of the conference this year because I got in for free since I'm a student. We're always looking for perks and free things, and this conference gives students everything they could need. Each class or panel is taught by professionals who have been published (both traditionally and self-published and everywhere in between). There are not just authors of fantasy or sci-fi either. There were cartoonists, illustrators, publishers, and editors, and probably many more people with occupations I couldn't even guess at. In fact, my favorite class was probably the first class I attended on Saturday. Over the weekend I was able to attend a writing conference in Provo, UT called LTUE (or Life, the Universe, and Everything). It was awesome to say the least, but more about that on Friday. In one of the classes I attended, the teacher said to do a writing exercise where you take cliches, especially ones you find yourself using a lot in your writing, and then put them into your own words.
I thought this could be a really useful prompt, especially since I found myself using cliches just a few days before I attended the conference. I couldn't seem to stop myself from typing them. So that is the prompt for today. If you can't think of any cliches you use a lot off the top of your head, here is a link to a Writer's Digest article that lists 12 cliches every writer should avoid: http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/12-cliches-all-writers-should-avoid Try your hand at one of those. Or for an even more extensive list that is sorted alphabetically try this site: http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/cliches.html They have 681 cliches listed there. Here is my attempt at this prompt: "You're all thumbs." "You're the opposite of a dog. They don't have thumbs, and that's all you have." Not my best work, but you get the gist. There are a million ways to do this too. You don't have to use dialogue either, that's just what works best for me. I'll try more later when I have the time. Because I spent all weekend learning about writing techniques at LTUE and ignoring my homework, I'm playing catch up this week and this weekend. Show me one of your favorite rewritten cliches in the comment section below. For even more fun, don't tell me what the original cliche was, I'll have to try and guess it. If I guess it right, then it's a safe bet you conveyed the same message as the cliche without actually having to use it. I look forward to reading your responses. Good luck! Keep on Creating, K. A. Jairl |
K. A. JairlMy name is Kim and I'm glad you stopped by. This is where I post my triumphs and my downfalls as I fight the good fight of being a writer mom everyday. Archives
March 2019
|