You have the passion to be a writer or a daily blogger. It’s there gnawing at you every moment of every day until you give in and start writing. If you’re not writing, you’re thinking about writing, you’re jotting down ideas, you’re thinking up great blog posts, new angles to share with your readers—this is your life; you are passionate about being a writer—you are a writer.
So what happens when the passion goes to sleep? Has the flame of desire completely gone out and killed all your enthusiasm about writing? …

I recently posted about listening to music while you write. In Words & Music I said that music can inspire your writing, “Poetic stories told with captivating music are not only inspiring but magical in many ways.” In that piece I mentioned some American songwriters; Bruce Springsteen and Ronnie James Dio. I also covered British bassist, songwriter and founder of Iron Maiden, Steve Harris—who I will also cover again in this post—he’s just that good.
Today I want to cover how you can improve your writing by following how lyricists write. …

Dancing With the Muse – An Introduction to the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling
We are inundated with writing wisdom. It cascades around us like political fallout, right and left, plotter and pantser, light and dark, first person and third, commercial and literary, nuanced and smack in your face.
How to unblock. How to craft compelling characters (an alliterative gem in its own right). How to write scenes. How to write genre fiction. How to not make your English teacher turn over in her grave. …

If you don’t know, how can you write compelling characters? All our characters, in a sense, wear a mask. Some wear many masks and until we can “see” behind those masks, we don’t know who they are. Sure, you can give them a past and all the other “typical” information that goes with creating a character, but you have to step into their shoes, slip into their skin and get inside their head—almost literally.
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he …

If you arrived here through Blogging Tips to see how often I update this poor little blog. . .Welcome to my World.
Was it a ploy to get you here through trickery? Not really, it was more sinister than that. It was actually a ploy to make me update the thing.
If you arrived here by other means, Welcome to my World.
At the time of this writing, I have no title for this post or even a clue what this post will be about. A blog post should be specific and cover …

Today we’re going to talk about scenes. This is part of the writing series I mentioned about writing styles and helpful tips. Remember these are merely guidelines and may or may not work for you.
As writers, we must each fine what clicks for us. Hopefully you can use some of the information listed to help you build memorable scenes that propel your story along.
A scene has often been defined as “a single action or a series of connected actions taking place in a single setting in a finite period of …

In writing the story before you write the story we’re going to discuss a method that some writers use to workout their back story and characters.
Back story is, in a sense, the character’s driving force, the motive for why he/she wants something so badly. Back story should be cleverly injected into the story. No one wants to sit and read pages and pages of back story. For this reason, you should give the reader just enough back story throughout the main story to keep them wondering. Sometimes it will spark …

There are writing prompts all over the Internet that you can choose from. I’ve used several of them myself. It recently dawned on me that I always picked prompts that sparked my interest. This is not a bad thing but it really doesn’t force you to exercise a true creative spark.
I’ve recently been picking random writing prompts; I simply close my eyes and point. Whichever prompt my finger lands on is the one I use–even if I don’t like it or think there’s no way I can get into a …