If your goal is write more this year – perhaps to finish the first draft of your first novel, perhaps to add to a growing body of work, I’ve rounded up some more of my ‘elsewhere’ posts (below) to help you on your way. (You’ll find another 10 posts about writing here.)
From top tips for writing commercial fiction to the nitty gritty of raising the stakes in your story, I’ve got you covered!
I’ve also added a creative exercise to help get you started. I did this exercise myself this morning as part of the #Fresh5000 challenge in my Write With Allison Tait group and it helped to unlock a thorny problem in an idea I’m working through.
Hopefully it will work for you, too!
9 posts about writing
An insider’s guide to story structure
Beyond the writing 5 authors share their tips for a successful career
5 reasons why you should write middle-grade fiction
Twitter for authors: is it still worthwhile?
5 ways to increase the stakes in your story (and keep readers wanting more)
Anna Spargo-Ryan’s top tips for writing beautiful sentences
Is your manuscript ready for feedback?
5 top tips for writing commercial fiction
Content writing versus copywriting: what’s the difference
And a creative exercise
This is an exercise I created for my online writing group, and attempted myself this morning.
Poetry makes us look at language in a different way.
Today’s challenge is to find three poems to read. Any three. They can be from a book on your shelf. From the internet. Or search for #poetry on Instagram (it’s a surprisingly effective platform for poets).
Once you’ve read three, try writing a poem of your own. It can be a haiku, it can be a stanza, it can be a sonnet, it can rhyme, it can be free verse – the beginning of a verse novel perhaps.
If you can’t think what to write, look out your window and try to write a poem describing what you see.
This exercise is about bending your brain just a little bit.
I looked for poetic inspiration in an anthology on my shelf, in the spoken word performance of Joel McKerrow (highly recommended) and in the (also highly recommended) Instagram posts by Red Room Poetry.
It’s not hard to find these days!
If you’d like to try more creative exercises and write 5000 words by the end of January, it’s not too late to join us!
Would you love more writing tips and advice? Check out my book So You Want To Be A Writer: How To Get Started (While You Still Have A Day Job), co-authored with Valerie Khoo and based on our top-rating podcast.
Thank you for sharing your helpful articles, Allison. I gathered a heap of great ideas for my own debut novel.