Tuesday, February 02, 2010

A Useful Little Site

I've just been having my usual morning stroll around the internet an have come across a useful little site called 'Creative Writing Prompts'.. Its full of those little one sentence suggestions that can fire creativity and make you think, 'Why didn't I think of doing that?'

Okay. So the site mainly appears to be an advert for various e books, but that aside, there are 346 completely free prompts and starting points available. Definitely worth a look.

Monday, February 01, 2010

A Little Bit of Light Relief

I should make it clear that the following is not mine: for more like this click here


There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

Reading is the key to writing

So I am halfway through the uni year now and have just completed my most challenging assignment yet: a 1000 word critique of another student's work. Still very much thinking of myself as needing the guidance of other writers around me (and I don't think this will ever change), I felt incredibly under-qualified for this task. But now it's done and I realize that the things that stand out to me about other's writing are the things that I can take control of in my own. Reading is truly the key to better writing

This brings me on to one of my current projects: reading my way through the 1001 must reads before you die. Click here for a downloadable spreadsheet including everything you need to know. You can track where you are on the list and mark the books you already own. It even estimates how long you have to read the books and how many you need to read each year to succeed. The most important thing for me is not completing the list, but that it is encouraging me to read more widely and step out of my comfort zone. So far, I haven't been disappointed with a book. Take a look and see what you think.