Are you plagued with writers block? Or do you just need a gentle nudge to get in the writing mood? Find a musical muse and let the power of music unleash your creativity. I normally don’t listen to music while I’m writing. When I do I choose classical, jazz, or easy listening. In “Music to Write By,” author Indra Sena suggests that non-listeners try “anchoring” themselves to a starting song (her term for musical muse) to get in the writing mood: You can choose any song that makes you feel energized, inspired or excited. Every time you sit down to write, play the starting song with the plan that you will write for the duration of the entire song. Even if you decide you will only write for tho
If Your Character is a Monkey, He’s Going to Act Like a Monkey Recently, I attended the annual cotillion dinner for eighth graders. Every year I have a standing gig teaching a three-hour tutorial dinner on how not to eat like a monkey. Here in southern USA, cotillion in a social rite of passage. It’s an opportunity for young ladies and gentlemen in middle school to learn social graces – how to ask a lady for a dance, how to escort her onto the floor, and how to shuffle around in such a way that it might be construed as dancing. And after I get through with them, they also know it is improper to eat with one’s feet or to swing from the chandeliers. Back in the day, when I went to a ladies’ f
The adage, write what you know, is true up to a point. You don’t have to be a serial killer to write about one. Unless of course you know a real serial killer, then you can just ask him. We cannot understand the irrational. We can only observe it. So, how can a writer attempt to get into their head when their brains have been encoded improperly? The serial killer’s that is, not the writer’s. While you’re in there, you’re going to see disturbing things that can be the stuff of nightmares; human nature at its worst. The usual behavioral traits we have all experienced, the stuff we write about in most novels are not applicable here. The most broadly recognized mental disorder associated with se
