Tag Archives: poll

Technique, News & Contests

What series would you like to see next?

I love doing series on writing craft and techniques. This year, I’ve done a series on the secret sauce of writing that I feel took my writing to a publishable level, and a guest series on things other authors feel are part of their secret sauce that we’ve just begun. Secret Sauce Part II will probably run through the rest of the summer (and I’m still taking guest posts if you’d like to share some of your secret sauce!), but after that I have several ideas for the next series.

What topic would you like to see covered next?

Be sure to check the free writing guides page or the list below to make sure I haven’t already covered a topic before you suggest it!
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Other previous series (now available as PDF writing guides!)

Technique

Writing craft book club poll

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I’m thinking for our September series, we’ll do something collaborative: a book club. But since we’re all writers, I though we could read a writing craft book together and discuss it—possibly chapter by chapter.

Why? Because although we can get a lot out of reading these kinds of books and pondering them ourselves, I think we can get even more out of discussing the concepts and applying them to our work, and to one another’s. And even if you can’t get ahold of the book, you can still participate in the discussion.

So what book should we choose? (Feel free to check your local library for availability—no need to pay to participate!)

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Click through to the post to take the poll and choose our writing craft book club choice!

What do you think? What book should we read—or is this not the sort of thing you’re interested in?

Works

Where is fancy bred?

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This morning, it happened to me again. I had a dream. And not just any dream, a dream: one of those dreams that inspires a big, big story.

I’ve sketched out the characters from the dream, the scene, the basic plot idea, and I did a little research (it was a historical dream). Evernote (which I learned about yesterday via The Creative Penn) is my new friend. I haven’t decided if this is what I should write next, although what I was planning to work on is only slightly less sketchy at this point 😉 .

I’ve had a couple stories begin as dreams before, and so far, that’s probably my most common source for story ideas. What’s yours?

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(there’s a poll in this post; click through to participate)

Oh, and if you’re wondering, the post title is from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:


Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?

But I’m not afraid to admit that I know it more from Willy Wonka.

I love hearing this from other writers. Where do you get most of your story ideas from?

Photo by Gravity X9