Every writer has days where they feel a little deflated, distracted or depleted of wonder — especially when working on a project as grand as a novel. With short fiction too, it’s natural for this ebb and flow. Although each of us must find our own process, if your writing runs a little dry or you’re feeling uninspired, try these […]
Joseph Conrad on Fiction, Art and the Power of the Written Word
Fiction — if it at all aspires to be art — appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the […]
7 Ways to Embrace Vulnerability and Write Truth
When you create with openness, with a willingness to trust and be vulnerable for your art, your writing is all the more authentic and true because it is uncensored, drawn from the deepest part of yourself — pure feeling articulated on the page — but it can be hard to share our truths, to write without censor, especially when the […]
Creative Confidence: How to Believe in Yourself [and Your Art]
“Self-confidence grows every time you keep a promise to yourself.” —Asha Dornfest Sometimes everything just feels right. You feel confident and relaxed, as if life and your creative projects are all swimming along sweetly. Other times, a fluctuation in your creativity, subtle anxiety or momentary doubt can knock your confidence and lead you to question everything you […]
Free-Writing: The Secret of All Successful Writers
Creative Overwhelm: Slowing Down and Finding Stillness in a Busy World
Finding stillness in our busy world is crucial not only for our ability to live in such a world, physically, and neurologically, but also for our inner landscape. In stillness we are able to reconnect with our centre, our true, authentic self. To silence the endless clamour of our planet of bleeps and busyness, and disconnect from the demands […]
9 Practices to Inspire Your Writing in an Instant
Creative Yin and Yang: Making Time for Writing While Riding the Waves of Creativity
Some days nothing we write seems good enough, other days, it’s as if the nine muses themselves have descended onto the page. After one of those magical writing days, we long for them all to be like that, to all be graced with exquisite inspiration and flow but every moment we dedicate to writing, no […]
10 Writing Tips by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an acclaimed author of more than forty novels and countless short stories. She won the National Book Award for her novel, Them and has been thrice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Here she offers the following writing tips: Write your heart out. The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been […]
How to Beat Writer’s Block: 5 Ways to Face the Blank Page
Just as an artist wouldn’t be able to rework a blank canvas, a writer cannot edit a blank page. Making mistakes is part of the process; don’t smother your creativity out of fear and doubt. Everyone has ebbs and flows in their creativity. Just as bamboo is strong but bends and sways in the breeze, be flexible […]