Posts Tagged ‘writing tools’

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Two-words to give you a bit of creativity. Do with them what you will – and don’t forget to share!

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There are hundred’s of rules in writing.

1. Don’t start a sentence with ‘and’.
2. Write in complete sentences.
3. Stories must have a beginning, middle and an end.
4. Use the active voice unless you absolutely need to use the passive.
5. Omit unnecessary words.
6. Don’t end a sentence In a proposition.

But what happened to “be creative”? Shouldn’t that be the #1 writing rule?

I know what you’re thinking: “Not everything can be creative, Kirsten. There are some topics that are just too droll to be creative.”

Bulls*it. If it’s not creative, it’s not worth writing.

EVERYTHING can be creative, we just often forget what that means.

By definition:
Creative –adjective
1. having the quality or power of creating.
2. resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative: creative writing.
3. originative; productive (usually fol. by of).

Now tell me something that can’t be creative. I’m waiting…

Exactly.

Regardless of the topic, everything you write can be (and should be!) creative.
Thoughts?

I follow my stats every day, from both google analytics and stat press (although stat press is becoming less and less trustworthy, so I have been using Google analytics more.) Anyway, while I have still been writing every week day (going on 9 weeks!) I have found that over the last 2, while readership has actually gone up, the comments have gone down. And I am not sure why. I have scratched my head, wondered if it was my writing (nah, readership is up!), wonder if all my commenters have gone into hiding (have you?), maybe I’m not controversial enough (since my OCRegister ‘controversial’ blog got tons of comments) or if all of a sudden, people have stopped caring about responding (say it isn’t so!).

Rather than try and guess what it is – I want to get the straight answers.

Hopefully the comments will bring light to why or why not people comment, and this will help you to keep your comments consistent on your blog as well. After all, without comments, I’m just talking to myself here.

What makes you comment on a post? Or why don’t you comment on certain posts?

A successful blog takes more than just writing down ideas and hoping someone reads it. Successful blogging takes consistency and requires material that people are going to want to read. It also includes a bit of repetition. People expect certain topics when they visit certain blogs. Every once in a while, all bloggers stray off topic, but for the most part, Chris Brogan is always going to be talking marketing and Perez Hilton is always going to be talking celebrity gossip.

Wright Creativity is a blog about creativity. This is a much broader topic, and many people have criticized me for not ‘sticking to one or two basic subjects’. But I think creativity IS one subject…just with a lot of uses. Some days I talk about creativity and business, others are creativity and real life, and some are just random. But, a bit of randomness is to be expected when talking about creativity, right? While I do love having my freedom, I have begun to see some of the ‘other side’ and have decided to bring a little more balance and consistency to the blog. I am not going to narrow my topics on creativity, but I am going to create a new reoccurring type of blog post. The idea originally came to me from reading Angry Julie’s “Wordless Wednesday“. Each Wednesday, she posts a single picture, and lets it speak for itself. I loved the idea of the same type of post one day each week – and one that lets the reader react/comment/create their own ideas from an image…but because I love words so much, I decided to let them reign. Originally, I thought of picking one word, but of course then I had to come up with a creative name, and no days of the week rhyme with one… so I doubled the words and Two-word Tuesday was created!

Best part? It’s all about the readers! I am giving you a bit of creativity, an idea, and you can turn it into what ever you want; use them as the start of your comment, writing a tweet with the words in it, link to a post they make you think of, or use the words to start your own post and then link back! It’s all about the community – creating an online brainstorming group. Who knows which words will stem your next great idea?

From this day on, all you will see on Tuesday’s is 2 words. Do with them what you will – and don’t forget to share!

Now onto today’s two words:




Beginning now




(perfectly apropos, right?)

I am a firm believer in having a knowledge channel that you can go to for ideas and inspiration – for me, that channel is my Outlook RSS feed. I have over 40 blogs that I subscribe to and read on a daily basis. They range from business marketing and social media writers to sites good for a morning laugh. A few of my favorites are on my recommended reading list. There are many more that I read, but I only add them to the sidebar once I have been reading them for more than a month and feel that they are worth something to my readers. Obviously that list is always growing…

Anyway, while browsing the current posts from the blogs I subscribe to, I noticed one from Ari Herzog. He shared how he adds one new blog to his collection every day. I do the same thing, just never thought about telling people how I did it. But, I liked reading about how he did, so I figured I would share how I add to my knowledge base.

1. Use StumbleUpon. The tool bar for firefox is fabulous (don’t know about the one for IE), all I have to do is click the ‘stumble’ button, and a new website pops up in whichever category I have selected at the moment. More often than not it is a blog, since most of my categories are writing, blogging, photography or creativity related. You can then vote whether you like the page or not and it learns what you like and therefore the results get better the more you use it.

2. Twitter. I have twitter searches running for many different terms, plus all of my great followers…which leads me to finding a lot of great articles. Once I have clicked on an article, if I like it, I will browse the rest of the blog. If I find at least 4 or 5 interesting articles right away, I will subscribe to it. There is no harm in testing a blog for a few weeks, if it stops being interesting, I can just remove it.

3. Searching Technorati. Simply enter a key term or phrase that you want, and presto…a bunch of great new blogs to check out!

4. Blogroll’s of blogs I already read. I have found some of the most interesting blogs through the blogrolls on sites that I already love. Although I do get all my articles via a feedreader, I try to visit each actual site once a week…see if there are updates/changes to the site, etc. Most of the people I read have a list of other writers they like. I usually find at least 1 new blog to read each week this way.

How do you find new blogs to read? Do you constantly add new ones or read the same group?

Oh, and just in case you missed it on Monday, make sure you’re subscribed here too!

We’re almost halfway through 2009. Unbelievable, right? While I have never been good at sticking to a New Years Resolution, I always try to set goals for myself each January 1st. But, by this time every year, I seem to have either completed all the goals or have forgotten where I put the list of them. So I have decided to create a new list for the second half of the year, goals (both business and personal) to achieve by the end of 2009. Some are small, some are big, and some are a little unrealistic. But, if all the goals were easy and small, there wouldn’t be much to strive for, would there?

1. Focus on my writing. A lot of times with my blog, I tend to stray from the ‘writing’ and focus on numbers of readers, advertisers and all the other stuff… For the next 6 months, I want to just focus on my writing and let the numbers fall where they will.

2. Take a train ride down the coast for inspiration. I am a very adventurous person in my head. In real life, I don’t do quite as many things as I would like. I want to change that, and the first thing I want to do is hop on the Surfliner and ride it up the coast. Bring my laptop and spend the afternoon writing and enjoying the scenery.

3. Contact someone I admire. In the first half of the year, I reached out to Chris Brogan and learned a lot. I’d like to do it again, with someone else I admire. Not sure who just yet, but I’ll let you know.

4. Take a class. I have wanted to learn flash for a long time, but haven’t dedicated any time to doing so. I love learning something new and think flash would be a great challenge.

5. Complete 4 more chapters in my book. U have been working on a novel in my free time for about 3 years, but it has been entirely on the back-burner for the first half of this year. I need to dedicate time to it during the next half.

6. Convince my hubby to play hooky with me. Everyone deserves a break, and after the rough first half of the year that we had, it would be great to act like kids again and take him somewhere special for the day.

7. Crack the top 150 on Ad Age’s Power 150 list. I know that #1 was to focus on my writing, but I would also like to have one measurable task, and I think cracking the top 150 would be a great accomplishment.

8. Get a Greyhound. This is where my list becomes a little “unrealistic”. I know that down the road, the hubby will let me get one because he misses his (passed away 2 years ago) , but I definitely don’t think it will be this year…I can still attempt to convince him though!

9. Make a difference in someones business. The entire reason I started the site was to help others, and although I am not sure how to measure this one, I will still make it a goal.

Now that I have all these tasks, I need to plan out how to accomplish them…that’s the toughest part!

What things can you do to make the rest of the year even better than the first half?

Image courtesy of PerezHilton.com

Stop staring at me like I just swore in church.

Whether you love him or hate him, you most likely know who he is. What you may not know is Perez Hilton really is an incredible writer – of eye catching headlines!

Whenever I am having trouble thinking of a headline for a post, I will visit his site and check out some of his. I will look at his word choices and how he introduces his posts. Many times, just reading his headlines will give me enough motivation to come up with a great one for my post.

Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself.

So, how does he do it? The fact is, he knows how to do 3 of the most important things you can do when writing a headline.

1. Be thought provoking

2. Make the reader go “huh?”

3. Be clever, interesting and funny, but not cliche.

Let’s look at a couple headlines from today that show his talent:

Angelina Kicks Oprah Out
Of what? Her house? Her life? Her movie? So you may not actually care what the answer is, but the headline opens the door for thoughts and questions. It is thought provoking.

Joe Jonas And Camilla Belle WALKING
Whether you know (or even care) who Joe Jonas is, the headline makes you go “huh?” and want to find out more. Which is exactly the point.

PetAirways: Flying The Slobbery Skies!
Clever, funny, interesting and definitely different. I want to know more immediately after reading that headline…and Perez wins again.

At the end of the day, he isn’t a fantastic post writer, in fact most of his posts have grammar and spelling errors all over the place, but he certainly knows how to write headlines.

What do you think of Perez’s headlines? Is there an unconventional place you go to find writing help?

Last month, I stayed on top of my blog calendar. I had it mapped out, easy to change and maneuver, something that was going to make sure that May was done right and it was. I only missed one weekday post all month. I was thrilled, proud and motivated. And apparently, I motivated others. Unfortunately, as I stare at my blog calendar for the month of June…it looks like this:

Other than the American Issues weekly posts and the articles for the OC Register…there’s nothing. No post ideas, no where to start. Wright Creativity doesn’t have any creative ideas. Okay, so that’s not completely true…I have a ton of creative ideas, I just haven’t put them on my calendar yet or gotten myself organized. I have been so focused on everything else in my life that despite having quality writing up through the end of May, I didn’t even think about June. So, I am going to fix myself a glass of Chardonnay and focus on my calendar. When I look at this calendar tomorrow morning, it will be full of brilliant ideas for posts and will keep me motivated and writing all month (or so I hope…)

Do you keep a calendar? Do you make sure it is updated before the next month? If you haven’t, do it with me today and let me know how it goes!

If you couldn’t tell, I love to write. Absolutely passionate about writing. And it’s something that I do very well (not to sound conceited…). But, great writing isn’t born overnight. It takes practice, effort, training and did I mention practice? All writers have resources that we use when we need to improve our writing, but some writers would prefer not to admit that. I have no problem admitting I use other websites for advice, and even more, I like sharing those websites with other writers. I Have shared some of my best writing posts that I have written on my writing tips page, but those are just a tiny piece of the world of writing tips out there. So, here are a few tips from other writers (some from published authors, some from others like me, who write for fun and work).

1. The Economists style guide – this is the guide that they give to each columnist for the economist. My favorite section is the common misspellings. Although almost everything has spell check, it is still good to learn to spell better.

2. 3 killer words – Copyblogger is not one of my favorite bloggers, however this post was well written and definitely one i look back at often

3. Writer’s Prompts – The writer’s digest put together a great list of writing prompts that allow you to just start writing which is one of the easiest ways to improve your writing.

4. Misused words & phrases – As often as I use some of these words/phrases, I often forget which means which. This is a great resource to make sure you are choosing the right one

5. Jack Kerouac – strange, eclectic, incredible. His 30 tips for writing.

6. Thinkexist.com – ever wanted to find the perfect quote for a post or a story, this is where to find it.

7.  Futureisfiction – One of my side projects is a novel that I am working on. This site really helps when I am struggling with ‘punishing’ a character that I love

8. Descriptive words - whenever I am at a loss for the right word, I can just turn to this list. It has words for all types of categories, and really helps break word block. Sometimes just one of these words can help me create an entire post.

Let me know what you think of the articles – or if there are any that you use to help improve your writing.