January 2012
1 post
“and did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? i did. and what did you...”
– late fragment x raymond carver (via ilikewhatyousee)
October 2010
1 post
January 2010
4 posts
Interventions by Carla Brooke
chelseatatum:
After a morning of yoga, my body is stretched to take in the ocean view. Still, I can feel my chest muscles tighten as I drive along Hwy 1 to teach Intensive Intervention, an afternoon program at an elementary school near my home in Half Moon Bay. I give myself an hour to set up for the nonstop whirlwind of students who are pulled out from their classroom for literacy help. Many...
dailymeh:
I don’t carry a sketchbook to write down ideas. I don’t write drafts in notebooks. Instead, I write and rewrite ideas in my head. I’m not talking about general ideas here; I assume everyone, or at least everyone who cares, thinks about what they want to write before they sit down to write a serious text. Even those who say they think by writing, I assume, don’t sit down to write with...
Expanded Scene Breakdown - Best Kept Screenwriting... →
screenwriting:
“The Expanded Scene Breakdown is a 20 to 40+ page point by point, step by step, scene by scene outline of the entire screenplay in prose form using dialogue, character development, action, etc.”
Rules for Writing Well
meltinyourmouth:
26 Golden Rules for Writing Well
1.Don’t abbrev. 2.Check to see if you any words out. 3.Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct. 4.About sentence fragments. 5.When dangling, don’t use participles. 6.Don’t use no double negatives. 7.Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent. 8.Just between you and I, case is important. 9.Join clauses good, like a conjunction...
December 2009
6 posts
it's all happening, all of it!
missmlady:
yourwrite:
Doesn’t it ever alarm you to think about how there are billions of people existing out there right now, right this moment, and they’re all the creators of so many thoughts and ideas whizzing about? At this very moment in time there are people making love and having babies and putting their dogs to sleep. There are husbands leaving their wives and wives leaving their...
What California?
lieslieslies:
I’m almost done with my collegiate victory lap (LOL) and essays like this still make the grade. I took a course on California Culture and a big topic was ‘what represents California?’, etc. Obviously, I wrote about THE OC and its representation of the real life counterpart. Whatever!
Typically written off as a prime-time soap opera, Josh Schwartz’s The O.C. has become a defining...
Oh, leggings.
6od:
realrealsoft:
You are not pants, You can’t pretend Though you accentuate Cute girl’s rear ends
But do not front As if you are A pant like denim? You’re not on par.
It’s not like I Don’t like to see A girl with leggings In front of me
But would you go pantsless To your work? When leaving the house, Do you forget your skirt?
If to these questions You answered ‘no’ The...
truthordare:
Prick prick, go my fingers on the spindle. Drip drip, go the liquids of my skin. I know I shouldn’t have, I know for next time But next time never does come soon enough, and by then, I shall continue in my ways, pricking cautiously, my fingers on the spindle.
Writing
chula:
I hear that the more you write the better you get at it. really? I write every single day, in a book, on the computer, for work, for play, for volunteering. Do I think I’m getting better? No, not really, but I definitely have been receiving some nice compliments recently- especially for the stuff I write for work. What has developed, FOR SURE, is my desire to study the art of...
November 2009
3 posts
stuttering fingers.
bruised words
caught behind
the snake of a
tongue.
sprained hearts
accelerate beyond
strained skin of a
chest.
huge thoughts
twisted mind
warmth hidden inside the
eyes.
fluttering fingers
stuttering, flying
as explanations
echo around the
hands.
hidden, caught
behind, beyond
explanations
words, the thoughts
rhythms
accelerated.
you know, i see
you...
Submit your writing!
Now added: Reader Submissions!
Please submit with abandon. We will not judge you. We may critique, which is like judging, but with bigger words.
How to Write with Style →
nechamaelle:
sparo:
Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.
October 2009
1 post
rising and shining
realrealsoft:
i used to wonder about those girls. friends of mine, or otherwise, who would wake at my side as hungover as i, but with rosy cheeks and fresh skin in contrast to my sallow pallor, and her hair would be as tousled as mine but with more of a bardot effect, and less like my rat’s nest. i would think: it cannot really be so effortless to look so sublime? and my question would be...
September 2009
2 posts
Demeter, Waiting, Rita Dove
sleepanddream:
poetry365:
No. Who can bear it. Only someone
who hates herself, who believes
to pull a hand back from a daughter’s cheek
is to put love into her pocket—
like one of those ashen Christian
philosophers, or a war-bound soldier.
She is gone again and I will not bear
it. I will drag my grief through a winter
of my own making, refuse
any meadow that recycles itself into...
13 Writing Tips by Chuck Palahniuk
dhk:
thesophie:
Text copied from here.
Twenty years ago, a friend and I walked around downtown Portland at Christmas. The big department stores: Meier and Frank… Fredrick and Nelson… Nordstroms… their big display windows each held a simple, pretty scene: a mannequin wearing clothes or a perfume bottle sitting in fake snow. But the windows at the J.J. Newberry’s store, damn, they were crammed...
March 2009
1 post
Spice Up Writing: Other Words for "Said."
zombienovela:
maryclare:
Acknowledged Added Admitted Advised Agreed Announced Answered Approved Argued Assumed Assured Asked Babbled Bargained Began Boasted Bragged Called Claimed Commanded Commented Complained Cried Decided Demanded Denied Described Dictated Emphasized Estimated Exclaimed Explained Expressed Feared Giggled Grinned Grunted Indicated Insisted...
January 2009
2 posts
How to finish a novel →
nechamaelle:
First know how it ends
Write your ending, and then write to it.
Create five or six “candy-bar” scenes, and use them to keep you moving forward.
Write about people you enjoy spending time with.
Use an outline.
Allow yourself to be surprised.
Write because you want to, not because you should.
Write what you love, not “what sells.”
Cultivating a Writing Habit | chrisbrogan.com →
(via zenhabits)
December 2008
1 post
Oh so that's why you write fleshed-out characters
nickdouglas:
Because then when you realize that the plot you gave them is garbage, the characters yell at you, like “Why the hell did you add that guy at the end to deus the fuck ex of our machina when you’ve got me sitting here doing nothing? Don’t you think I’d be solving that problem?”
And you go, “Jesus, you’re right. Of course you’d do that. And that’d make a very satisfying resolution,...
November 2008
5 posts
Why good poetry is hard to read
magicmolly:
Not because it is syntactically kooky or may contain fancy words (everyone has a dictionary, or a Dictionary.com)— but because it is so dense with content.
It is like someone took all the parts you underlined in your favorite book and squashed them together on a page. With no filler. It takes a strong stomach to digest such density! A strong stomach and lots of practice.
Red Leaf (feedback)
Finding shade from the evening sun. The day was long but the work is done.
I rest my back against the tree, Sweet relief washing over me.
My feet are blistered. My hands are raw. My knuckles ache From gripping the saw.
Summer days are filled with heat, Tempered by the Sun’s retreat.
I lean my head against the wood, And in a joke only nature could, A red leaf Drifts into my lap, And I...
Eyes
Eyes
There’s nothing special about her eyes.
Light brown with flecks of yellow.
Honey and molasses.
And a ring of shining gold.
There’s nothing special about her eyes.
Gazing, peering deep inside.
Warm with tenderness.
Framed by soft lashes.
There’s nothing special about her eyes.
But I can’t look away.
October 2008
7 posts
tucson ("finished", but feedback welcome)
tucson is where my dad slept with that woman and I
wish I knew her name so I
could write her maybe? and ask her maybe if she ever felt bad
maybe
she’d say adultery is such a strong word
these moments where we’re all scared— something, everything’s happening.
parallel lines are a tragedy when you think about them sincerely; they are after all of similar minds and will never meet....
How To Write
tylercoates:
marklisanti:
1. Open document.
2. Ignore open document.
3. ???
4. Congratulations!
Shopping Day (feedback welcome)
Tap
Tap Tap
I place the grapefruit down, still unsure. It never works for me. My mother used to be able to tap a fruit twice and know if it was ripe or not. Just twice, using the back of her soft warm hands, and she could hear the ripeness, but I can never figure it out. They all sound the same to me. The hallow thud of my knuckles only tells me that what I am holding is not a figment of my...
“Hm! … You talk of fame and happiness, of some brilliant interesting life;...”
– Trigorin, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull
—Natasha
“Writing is a cop-out. An excuse to live perpetually in fantasy land, where you...”
– Monica Dickens
What do you think?
I forgot to mention that the style will probably undergo changes every now and then. If you think a different color scheme or theme would work better, please don’t hesitate to suggest it.
Number 2 pencils only
Ok, so by popular demand (meaning at least 3 people) I have set up the writing blog and workshop. Here you can post stories or poems or really any writing you have worked on, and ask for comments or feedback.
The one rule I think should be that if you want someone to workshop or critique your work, then you should request it in the title (maybe by putting workshop in parenthesis). I know we can...