creativity – Selina J. Eckert

Three Great Places to Draw Inspiration for Creativity

I have to admit, sometimes it’s hard for me to find inspiration for blog posts. And honestly, sometimes that extends to larger projects, like books, art pieces, or DND campaigns. This is a sentiment a lot of creatives often share, and people can find their inspiration in a lot of different places. So where can we look for ideas when we’re feeling blocked? Where can we search from the comfort of our armchairs or couches or desks? Let’s take a look at three places online we can search for ideas.

Real life

Honestly, is there anything stranger than real life sometimes? *gestures vaguely*

But current events aside, you may find that you can be inspired by the things going on around you. As an exercise, try setting a timer for 5, 10, even 30 minutes (and believe me, a timer is important if you don’t want to lose the rest of the day). Then, scroll through the home page of a news site or even Facebook. Write down as many ideas as you see pop up…don’t worry about if you’ll use them or what you’d use them for. The idea is to pick out things you might not have noticed otherwise, things that can be used for character or world development, maybe even the basis of a plot.

Other media

Another way to come up with ideas is to see what other people are doing. In order to refill your own creative well, you may find that consuming other stories is key. So watch Netflix for a couple hours a couple times a week. Read a few books (and you should probably be reading books anyway as research for yourself). Take time to see what you enjoy in stories or what interests you in documentaries and let yourself dwell on those things. Then, when you’ve done some research into things you like to consume, see if you can figure out how to incorporate those ideas and tropes in your next piece.

Internet

There is an abundance of inspiration to be found online as well, some of which can count as real life or media. But I want to draw your attention to a few particular places online.

Pinterest is a great place to find photos and artwork to inspire you and to create digital mood boards. I do this for just about every story I write! I’ve also talked a bit about how to use Pinterest for your writing in a previous post, so I’ll leave it here for now. 🙂

Photo sites

I won’t list specific ones, but sometimes all you need to shake an idea loose is the right photo. Take some time to scroll through stock photo sites or photography communities.

Tumblr and other blogs

You may also find ideas in blogs across the internet. See what other people are discussing that strikes a chord with you. Maybe it’s a single thought that’s the theme for a new piece. Do you agree with what you’re reading? Disagree? Have more thoughts? Expand on that.

Wikipedia

Finally, Wikipedia is a wealth of information. And it’s so easy to go down the rabbit hole. Follow a link trail and learn new things about a topic that interests you. But, much like with the news or social media searching, you may want to set yourself a timer.

Final Thoughts

Before I close for the week, I want to be clear that what I’m talking about today is simply finding inspiration – a single idea that you can develop on your own. This does not mean taking whole ideas and stories (no plagiarism, copyright infringement, or other illegal activities!). It simply means looking at something that interests you and seeing how you can make it your own story.

But I do want to emphasize that we are surrounded by stories all day every day. With practice, you’ll be able to pick them up and set them aside for later. I don’t know about you, but I keep a file on my computer of random ideas I may eventually use. Maybe it’s time to start your own file, too!

Keep your eyes open, and let your mind wander. You never know where you’ll find your next idea.

Spring! (And Creating a Book)

What do spring and creating a book have in common? Let’s find out!

Hi, friends! This morning I noticed my first green leaves on my commute to work! Usually, I don’t see the little development of spring growing around me; I see it all at once, as I open my eyes one morning to be surrounded by lush, green trees.

But today, I saw the tiny green leaves, the bright red buds on trees. And, of course, I’ve been noticing the flowers blooming on trees all week. That’s my favorite.

And it got me thinking about how the development of a story is like the birth of spring. How, you may ask? Well, let me tell you.

Every story starts with an idea, just like every plant that blooms in the spring started as a seed. That seed may have been deposited a long time ago, just waiting for conditions to be right to sprout, or it may have just been dropped and immediately sprinted into growth and development. And this is true for stories, as well. For example, I started a story a few years back that I got partway through and then just stopped. And then I had a new, fresh idea of what I wanted it to be, and it is developing from this old seed I thought was dead.

And while we’re on the metaphor, did you know that seeds can be dormant for thousands (maybe more, I’m a cell biologist, not a botanist!) of years and still grow when placed into the right set of conditions? Amazing, right? And so can a story. You may have had an idea twenty years ago and just now found what you wanted to really make it bloom.

Your seed is growing!

So time passes and you write your first draft. It’s a mess. But, as I recently heard it so eloquently stated, the first draft is simply to make the story exist. This is like the skeleton of the trees from winter. They’re there, but there’s not much to them. Yet.

After the story exists, then we start to make it functional. We rearrange the order of scenes or re-plot the storyline or subplots. These are like the buds and the tiny baby leaves. They are starting to become what we know will one day be a majestic forest full of majestic trees. As long as we continue to feed it sunlight and water and nutrients (feed your ideas and work on the story).

And then we can finally get to the mature story. This is where we get an effective draft, one that tells the story we want to tell and shares the message we want to share. Like the fully bloomed leaves on a tree, they’re finally doing their job of absorbing sunlight and creating food… our book can now feed readers’ imaginations and thoughts.

I’m so happy spring is finally here, and I am loving every minute of the development of my current works. This Cursed Flame is already at the final stage, heading into a summer of fun (you can pre-order it on Amazon and here for all other retailers), Sea of Broken Glass is at the second stage, growing its shoots and flowers, and the Secret New Project is a seedling still making its skeleton. I am in love with all three of these projects (and some other, smaller ones for the future), and I can’t wait to share them with everybody.

So what about you? What stage is your writing in? Or, if you don’t write, what are some books that remind you of spring? Let’s chat in the comments!

Writing is Vulnerability

Writing is hard. So is letting someone else see your writing. And most of all, hearing what they have to say about it.

Happy Friday, writing friends! A bit of a short post today, but there are some things on my mind this week that won’t take up as much time and space as usual.

Recently, I’ve done a lot of things in my writing life that have been putting my vulnerabilities to the test: I sent my first book baby off to a developmental editor (and got all the comments back this week), I’m publishing this book baby next year (so promoting it a lot), I am entering writing contests, I am preparing to query (again), and I opened a freelance business (more on that at the end of this post).

Needless to say, I’ve been busy, both mentally and with my time. And besides just keeping me busy, they have exposed me to not only hearing and accepting criticism but asking for it as well.

That’s rough.

But it got me thinking about the process of writing itself. While all these activities have opened me up to a place where I have to leave my vulnerabilities out in the sun for all to see, all those things I hold dear and support my image of myself (or used to hide from others)… the truth is that we already do that whenever we write with honesty.

You see, if we write from our own lives, whether it is using experiences, emotions, or ideas with which we are familiar, we are telling truths that, more often than not, are so close to who we are as people that letting someone else see it, or even just admitting it on a piece of paper (or computer screen, whatever) is telling the world something about us. It’s a piece of us, so much so that any criticism or questioning of the things we write feel like criticisms of us both as the writer and the human.

It’s so hard to do this, even in the privacy of our own homes, but it is so important to being a writer. Lending our truths and our vulnerabilities to our stories makes them real and gives them more connection and depth. Without it, the story is shallow and meaningless. And without letting others offer criticisms, we are limiting our ability to improve ourselves and our craft.

So yes, it’s hard to let other people see these things, to open yourself up to criticism. And it’s hard to hear the critical things about our work and ourselves. But it’s vital to our growth as writers and to make our stories that much better.

So go write, go share. Don’t be afraid of the criticism. Ask for it. Embrace it. Use it to your advantage. And remember these words:

Writing is vulnerability.

~~~

IT’S TIME!!! Friends, I am finally open for business! If you have editing and/or proofreading needs, consulting needs, or the need for a fantastic fantasy map, I’m your girl! Take a look at my Services page to see what I’m now offering (and the rates), and if you need a little more convincing, look over at the Testimonials as well.

I can’t wait to work with you to make your stories shine!

Impostor! Impostor Syndrome and You

Have you ever felt like you don’t actually deserve the attention or success you have had? Do you ever feel like the good things that happen are because of something outside of your control or a mistake someone else made regarding you? Do you feel like if people actually knew and understood, they would take away those successes?

Well, my friend, you just may be suffering from Impostor Syndrome. And let me tell you, it’s not the most fun thing in the world.

Impostor Syndrome is defined as a persistent, internalized fear that you will be exposed as a fraud, that your successes come from external sources rather than your own abilities and self-worth (source). It is a trick that causes us to doubt the worth of our work and our successes and feel as if we don’t deserve the good things that happen to us.

And it’s often our brains lying to us.

Unfortunately, this is a common feeling among high-achievers, particularly women (though this idea may be incorrect… some emerging evidence suggests it affects men and women equally). I first encountered this idea while I was in grad school, and I think it’s pretty relevant to writers, too. We can experience this feeling when we receive compliments or awards or publications, any time our work achieves some level of success or recognition. It keeps us from ever feeling like we have made progress in our skill, talent, and career. Even the greats, like Stephen King, will tell you they still don’t feel like masters (see his book, On Writing). Many writers who have “made it” still feel like impostors. Just like us.

You see, we consistently put our souls out for the world to see whenever we share our writing. It is easy to think that people who say negative things are correct while those who say positive things are just “being nice” or have fallen for a “trick” of some sort. We attribute what success or acclaim we gain to luck rather than our hard work or our talents.

And this is unfair to us and our readers. Let me tell you why I think this.

When we shrug off a compliment and tell ourselves it’s not because of anything we did, that people will figure out soon enough that what we did isn’t worthy of attention or adoration by anyone, we prevent ourselves from taking pride in a job that not everyone can or will do. Writing is hard business. And by ignoring or downplaying the compliments or good reviews because of our feelings, we are invalidating our worth and the worth of our work. That’s not fair to you.

On the other side of the coin, when you ignore or shrug off a compliment, readers do not find it attractive or humble. It can be just as invalidating to them. You are telling them that their opinion doesn’t affect you at all, which can translate to you not caring about their opinion. And as writers, our life and the life of our stories depends on readers. We need connections, and we need to make our audience feel appreciated. If they took the time to write to you or leave a review, your work affected them. End of story. Say thank you and accept the praise.

So next time you’re feeling like a failure, remember that it might not be true. Take a few minutes to step back and look at your feedback. Don’t dwell on the negative reviews (people tend to remember the negative over the positive, no matter the difference in numbers). Realize that not everyone is going to like your work, but that doesn’t say anything about you as a writer. Take pride in your successes, accept the accolades you receive, and most of all, keep writing no matter what your mind tries to tell you.

Because as long as you keep creating, these feelings lose.

Your turn: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with impostor syndrome? Anything to add? Tell me in the comments below!

Writing When You Feel Drained

Writing is an intense creative process that can take an immense amount of mental energy. It is impossible to be passive when your mind is actively creating worlds and people and situations. And that can be incredibly tiring. As we write more and more often, it becomes easier for us to sit and extend our writing time, but we all eventually reach that limit where our brains are just too tired to write another word. And normally, that doesn’t present an issue.

But what about when other things in your life are draining your mental energy? When you can barely stand the thought of adding even one word to your manuscript?

Previously, I’ve discussed the difficulties of writing when life is crazy or when you are experiencing some sort of health problems, and today I want to revisit that just a bit with a related topic: writing when you feel drained.

You see, the last few weeks have been kind of hectic at work; we have had a huge project generating mountains of data every day, and I had the herculean task of compiling, organizing, and arranging all of that data. And it’s been constantly changing, requiring me to go back and change all the previously generated analyses. This has led to three weeks of constant data processing for the entire workday, and it has left my brain feeling fried.

And I’m sure I’m not alone. How many other writers are out there with their day jobs sucking away their creative minds? How many other writers toil the day away at work or even at home and feel too tired to work on writing by the end of it? The truth is simple: nearly everyone will experience this at one time or another.

So what can we do when we feel drained? How do we keep ourselves motivated without burning out? I have a few tips (and these might sound familiar).

Give yourself a break. I know, counterintuitive, right? But when we are tired and our creative well is low, we don’t need to be beating ourselves up for not being productive. We need to cut ourselves some slack, understand that it’s okay to take a break, and be kind to ourselves. And if that means not writing for a few days or even weeks, then so be it. You cannot fill from an empty cup.
Take time to recharge. When things are busy and difficult during the day, it can be hard to sit down and write when we actually have the time. So when you can’t write, make sure you are doing things that will refill that creative well, things that will ease your burdened brain. Spend time with your family, go for walks, relax in front of the TV… do what you need to do in order to feel better. Your health and well-being always comes first!
Set reasonable goals. Don’t forget about your writing schedule, even when you’re not writing. Make yourself a goal or two during the downtime. Maybe your goal is simply to scribble one sentence per day. Maybe it’s to brainstorm new ideas. Maybe it’s even to take a week off. Decide what will help you and your writing best, make it achievable, and follow through. Do what you can… but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t. Make your writing habits work for you during this time, and don’t worry about making adjustments. Personally, my habits are always shifting, anyway.
And finally, use your time to your advantage. You can recharge while still making your time productive and contributing to your writing. You can listen to podcasts or read or draw your characters. You can talk about the story to a friend. You can simply binge Netflix for “research.” One thing I find helps me when I’m tired is reading books, and this is a great way to keep up on things we should be doing as writers. Whatever you do, try to find at least one thing that will make you a better writer and add it into your recharge time. But make sure it fills that recharge requirement, too!

These are some tips I find helpful when I’m feeling creatively drained due to mentally taxing things going on in my life. One important thing to remember, though, is that you can’t take a break forever. Don’t wait around for things to slow down or life to improve… it may never happen. Make your writing happen instead in the midst of a hectic life. If the draining time is dragging on, it may be time to re-evaluate your daily and weekly writing goals. But when these bouts of feeling drained crop up in our normal lives, utilizing the tips above will help you to recharge, feel better about yourself and your writing, feel better in general, and get back to the things you love.

Take breaks when you need to. Take care of yourself. Cut yourself some slack. And remember this one final thought: you are still a writer, even when you aren’t writing. Taking a break doesn’t make you any less.

And when you’re feeling better, dive right back in.

~~~

Your turn: what tips do you have for when you’re feeling mentally drained? How do you approach your own writing at these times? Tell me in the comments!

Writing When Life Gets Crazy

As writers, we often find joy, peace, and stress relief in our writing (ignore those infuriating, anxiety-inducing things like “sharing” and “querying” for a moment). Once we dedicate ourselves to our writing, we even find that we want to make time for it on a regular basis, that it gives us excitement, energy, and purpose.

But when we are just starting out or when our lives start changing, that can be more difficult. Maybe we have full-time jobs or responsibilities that cut into our writing time. Maybe we have a lot of hobbies that eat up our free time. Or maybe events happen in your life that change your ability to write for a time, such as planning parties or weddings or starting a new relationship.

Personally, I encountered this between the end of March and beginning of May. I got married on April 21 (yay!), which meant that for the weeks leading up to the wedding I was insanely busy and stressed (boo!). It also meant that the weeks following the wedding I was traveling and recovering from being insanely busy and stressed.

And you know what? Not having the time, creative energy, or motivation to sit down at the keyboard took its toll on me. I became irritable and anxious about everything, even toward the man I love more than anyone. I started having stress-related health issues (which I’m still trying to fix). I battled my anxiety and my depression to keep from losing it completely (when they say weddings are stressful, it’s an understatement).

All because I had no outlet and I let myself get caught up in not doing the things that restore me. I wasn’t creating and my dreams felt stagnant. I wasn’t working toward them. My job felt pointless and unfulfilling. And yeah, there was good reason I wasn’t working toward my dreams, but still, being able to do something to move you toward your goals is SO IMPORTANT. I knew it was a temporary situation, but I really did suffer for it.

So, in hindsight, let’s discuss how to deal with your writing (or any other dreams) when life gets a little out of control. And maybe next time, I won’t lose it so much either!

Use the time you can find. It can be hard to find time to do things that restore you when you’re busy and stressed and ready to explode. But you know what? You can. It won’t necessarily be your first choice, but if it’s something important to you or something you need for your own self care (like writing for me), then you need to just do it.
So what do I mean? Can you set your alarm five minutes earlier in the morning and just write for five minutes? What about staying up five minutes later? Brainstorm while you’re on your commute? Take a couple minutes out of your lunch break? As soon as you get home, scrawl a sentence into your work in progress? These are all tiny, but if you can do even one of them, it can make a huge difference in how you feel. It’s small, but it’s not stagnant. You’re keeping your creative brain active and awake. I wish I had done that this past month instead of letting everything sit and fester.
Cut yourself some slack. Listen. Life gets rough sometimes. You run into issues or things get away from you. It happens to everyone. Don’t beat yourself up. We’re all doing the best we can. Your dreams will still be there no matter what you do. Try to take little steps, but if you can’t even do that? Give yourself a break. As writers, we have enough forces coming at us in the form of rejections and critiques and reviews that we really don’t need to add to the negativity just by opening our own mouths.
Take care of yourself. Make sure you put yourself and your health above trying to crank out work. Yes, do those things that you have to, like wedding planning or building a relationship or whatever it is that is interfering with your writing schedule… but don’t forget that your health is the first priority. That includes mental health. So take that bubble bath. Read that book before bed. Take a walk. Just take care of yourself in whatever way you need to in order to get through the tough time.
Refuel yourself. Listen, tough times drain us. They drain us emotionally, physically, mentally, and creatively. Don’t expect yourself to jump right back in as soon as things get better. You need to recover. Make sure you’re putting coins in the bank of creativity: keep notes while you’re busy of things you can come back to later, make every experience count toward writing fodder (as I call it… this is anything I consider usable writing material). But while you do that, give yourself time to relax and refill creative tanks without pressuring yourself to get back to your former writing performance. It takes time. For me, it was my honeymoon. I spent a week with no responsibility, seeing things I’d never seen. And by the third day, I was already inventing story ideas in my head. Refueling is vital!
Keep dreaming. Don’t give up, even if you can’t be as involved and active as you want to be. Life can be hard. But don’t let it steal your joy.

Writers are such a unique breed. We need to write to take care of ourselves, yet our writing is also one of our greatest sources of stress and anxiety, especially when we can’t work on it. So, knowing this, we need to work extra hard during the tough times to take care of ourselves and do what we can to keep the creativity flowing. Or to at least make deposits in the creativity bank. If we can’t take care of ourselves, our writing is going to suffer, and so are we. Take care of yourself.

For now, that’s all. I’m ready to dive back into more creation! Good luck, and please share your tips and comments below. I’d love to know how you deal with your writing when life is busy!

Juggling Multiple Projects

Growing up, I was the kind of girl who was obsessive about stories. I devoured them like they were the juiciest cheeseburgers, and I always craved more. Naturally, that evolved into writing my own stories. But that’s a post for another day!

Instead, today I want to talk about something that has plagued me since my early writing days, all the way back in elementary and middle school. That’s right, I’ve been writing since elementary school.

As a kid, I was filled with ideas. They were in my dreams, they were in the television programs I watched, they were in the other books I read, they were in my life experiences. They collected like raindrops in my brain. They brewed and stewed and percolated.

However, the abundance of ideas that I almost always tended to have at once proved difficult at times. I would start writing something, then get distracted by one of these new shinies. Instead of focusing my mental energy on planning and plotting the work in progress, it shifted to thinking about this new idea. And you know what happened? The work in progress died. I turned all my attention and writing time to the new idea. Oh sure, occasionally I would halfway finish a story. But I never returned to it, never polished or relished or cherished it. I was too focused on the next big idea.

But things changed a few years ago, once I was in the thick of grad school. I started writing fast and finishing things (yes, in grad school. Writing became my escape from the stress and from difficult situations I couldn’t otherwise escape.). I made a decision, either consciously or unconsciously (I really couldn’t tell you if you asked now) to be serious about my writing. To finish ideas. To make them sparkle. And I wrote and completed three manuscript drafts in a year. Yeah, they may never go anywhere. I may be done with them now. Or for now. But I finished things.

However, I still had that same problem of how to juggle multiple ideas at once. I would still get new, captivating concepts while I was drafting. In fact, it’s happening to me right now. But I think I finally figured out a solution. Once again, it comes down to dedication and discipline.

So here’s my new way to juggle projects (and it’s working for me): I am not allowed to touch the new idea until I have added at least 1000 words to the old one. And in setting that one, unbreakable rule for myself, the days that I get to write and really focus on writing, I end up with over 2000 words in a sitting, half of the old manuscript and half of the new manuscript.

So what about you? Do you have this same problem? How do you manage multiple ideas and projects at once? Comment below with your stories and advice!

Yes, You’re Still a Writer.

Writers write. Right? That’s what it means to be a writer. But what about those times that you need to take a break?

This is life. We encounter problems like lack of time (even if we try to make the time, sometimes we can’t), health problems (physical or mental), and unexpected obligations or tasks that require our time and energy (in work, our personal life, or both). Sometimes we are so drained or unable to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) that we just can’t write. So we don’t.

You’ll probably see a lot of advice out there telling you that in order to call yourself a writer, you must write every day. I have said before that in order to be a writer you must write. But I know it isn’t reasonable and shouldn’t be expected that a writer writes every single day.

Instead, I think it’s more realistic to say that a writer writes when he or she can, regardless of inspiration. It’s about dedication. Practice writing is important to making your writing better. But sometimes writers can’t write, and that’s when they often sit and think about writing. Or the fact that they’re not writing. It’s a guilty cycle. When you write, you don’t feel like a real writer. When you don’t write, you feel like a bad writer.

My advice is usually to try to make yourself write something every day. Even if that something is a sentence. But if you can’t, it’s really okay. I promise. You don’t stop being a writer. It’s okay to take a break when you need to. It’s okay to skip days. I’ve skipped days, I’ve taken long breaks for months. I’ve had years where I barely wrote a word. I’ve felt the guilt and the itch of not being able to write for one reason or another. But I’ve learned that it’s okay.

Think about the stars. Do they go away when the sun comes out? No! The sunlight just keeps us from being able to see them for a while. But as soon as the sun goes down, the stars come back as bright as ever.

It’s the same thing with writing. If you’re taking a break from writing, think of yourself as a star during the day. You’re still a writer, you just aren’t showing your writer side for the time being. It will come back, if that’s what you want.

So don’t stress yourself out so much. Write when you can, when you have the time and energy and health to put into it. If you can’t, don’t count yourself out. Come back to it when you are able, and focus your energy on where it needs to be in the moment.

Don’t let anyone tell you that means you’re not a writer. You are still a writer.

Reading Like a Writer

Writers are quite often first and foremost avid readers. Many of us grew up carrying a book (and a spare or two) everywhere we went, regardless of whether we would actually have to time to read it. This immersion in the fictional worlds we craved perhaps led us to create our own fictional worlds, to fill voids that no book in existence could fill. And so we became writers to create those books.

But even as writers, we are still readers. And we should be. How can we possibly write well if we do not continue to immerse ourselves in the worlds of books? But while our love for reading has not changed, perhaps our style should. Now the question becomes how to read as a writer.

In general, reading like a writer means examining other authors’ writing so that you can apply their knowledge of the craft to your own writing, thereby improving it. The focus isn’t on the story itself or the content or message. It is on the actual construction of the story from a wide (story structure) to a narrow (sentence structure and word choice) level. You read to learn how to write. How do we actually go about doing this? Here are five simple ways to read like a writer.

Read outside your genre. Writers often start by mimicking the styles, settings, and characters of our favorite authors. But the true key to becoming a writer is to grow past this stage, to find our own characters, our own voice. One of the best ways to do this is to keep on reading everything. And I mean everything. Don’t just stick with stories within your preferred genre of writing. For example, I write mainly fantasy, and while I read an obscene amount of fantasy, I also read nonfiction, historical fiction, science fiction, contemporary, children’s books, and anything else that can hold my interest. I learn so many new things and glean so many ideas from these books that I never would have encountered had I not read outside my genre.
Read inside your genre. It is important to also keep up to date on the new releases in your preferred genre. Even if you don’t read all of the new books that are released, have some idea of what is out there, what publishers are buying, and what readers are consuming. This will help you to compare your book to similar books when it’s time to query (many agents prefer that you use comparison titles released within the last couple of years) and understand how your book might fit into the current market. How do you keep up to date on this? Follow people. Follow everyone. But on social media… don’t actually stalk people. Look for publishers, agents, authors, and book reviewers on any social media outlet, including (but not limited to) Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Instagram, and Facebook. Make yourself an attractive author when it’s time to market your story by knowing as much as you can about industry trends.
Re-read. The idea behind this is to choose a story that you want to use as a model for your own work, to re-read it and actively observe the pattern of the plot and development of the story. Since you’ve read the story before, you know ultimately where it is going and can sit back and pay attention to the details in between. Another personal example is when I was preparing to begin my current WIP, Foxfire. I wanted to write urban fantasy, but I wasn’t sure how to structure it. I re-read some of my favorite stories within the genre, writers who are well-known and well-received (Patricia Briggs and Anne Bishop), and worked from there.
Take notes. Now, I don’t care if this is directly in your book or on a notepad you keep with you while reading. But the point is to specifically notate the story with your own questions, comments, and observations as you read. This makes you an active reader (like active listening). Even if you don’t write it down, pay attention to your own thoughts and experiences as you read.
Take it all in. Examine the details of what you’re reading, how each scene was composed and how it fits into the overall story. Notice the development of the characters and how the story changes them. Follow the plot arc and how each important point is achieved. Map it out, if that helps.

Now, there are plenty more resources out there for learning how to read like a writer. Writer’s Digest offers a variety of resources on writing and publishing, including on this topic. However, the biggest piece of work I would recommend today is Mike Bunn’s “How to Read Like a Writer.” He gives some interesting background and explanation in more detail than the tips I share above.

Now go forth and read books!

Friends in Creative Places

A while back you may recall my post titled “The Demons of Discouragement.” Well, after reviewing that post recently, I realized that the discouragement I was feeling has been somewhat alleviated. So I started thinking about why that might be, and I have come to a conclusion: I found the right creative friend. This isn’t to say my other support hasn’t been phenomenal, and I love my friends and family for their support every day. But it’s quite different to have a creative friend doing the same work as you.

Back toward the end of summer I had joined a local writing group that met in the Barnes & Noble closest to where I lived (I still attend every meeting!). About the same time I started going, another woman near my age also began attending. Like me, she had written a book. Like me, it was fantasy. Like me, she was ready to query. Unlike me, she was vocal about it.

So we gravitated together at and around these meetings, talking shop and gushing over our books. She began pushing me to do things I would have avoided out of my introverted, shy nature or because of the cost. With her, I attended a writing workshop in Philly in April. I went to a Sarah J. Maas book signing and discovered that she lives pretty close to me. I traded critiques and reviews of synopses and query letters and drafts.

And you know what? The query process is going so much better. I got a request for my full manuscript at the workshop. I have six queries out in the world, shining in their new and improved status. I feel more confident in what I’m doing, not like I’m just flailing in the dark and hoping to hit something.

But you know what’s even better than all that?

I’m in love with my writing again. Because of her, I’ve had professionals tell me I was talented and skilled (a huge boost for the discouraged writer!). I’ve had a passionate friend who loves fantastic worlds as much as I do. I’ve had opportunities to meet people and grow not only as a writer but also as a person.

And because of her, I’m back.

So what about you? What have you experienced or done that has fueled your creation and your passions? I’d love to hear about it!