Browsing Tag

writing tips

The Best Piece of Writing Advice Most Writers Don’t Listen To

For most writers, writing is a strong inner calling. It feels like a passion that they can’t ignore, a destiny they must fulfill. And for writers who feel blocked, or are cut off from the act of writing for some other reason, the lack of writing in their life results in a state of low-grade misery. A writer who isn’t writing feels unfulfilled, listless, and can easily fall into creative despair.

Writer’s block is extremely common among writers. Most people assume that the most typical form of writer’s block stems from a lack of ideas, or a lack of motivation that comes from inside the writer. Writers themselves tend to assume this too. When we have problems writing, we most often blame some sort of “inadequacy” we see inside ourselves. However, the most typical cause of writer’s block that I’ve seen after so many years of working with writers actually comes from the outside. Continue Reading

27 June, 2023 by Lauren Sapala

Why Intuitive Writing and Deadlines Don’t Go Together

About once a month, I’ll get an email from a reader who is struggling with writing and meeting deadlines. Usually, they’ve discovered my Intuitive Writing course and they’re extremely interested in learning how to connect more deeply with their intuition to feed their creative process. They like the way I describe how they can shift their relationship with writing from stress and pressure to adventure, fun, and ease. The only problem is, they don’t quite see how they can fit that in with their current writing life needs, which involve a lot of deadlines.

Much of the time these types of writers are screenplay writers who need to turn in projects by a certain date, and also need their scripts to meet a certain set of criteria. Sometimes they are freelance writers who are writing articles on topics assigned to them by a company or nonprofit. Occasionally, I even hear from ghostwriters who are writing something that is supposed to be in someone else’s voice, and they also have a firm deadline on when the work needs to be finished.

Nearly all of these writers who email me are tired, frustrated, and feeling defeated with their writing process. They tell me they feel blocked or stuck, and they’re just pushing themselves through the writing because they know there is a deadline and they have to get it done. But every time they sit down to work on the project, they feel like they would rather be anywhere else.

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28 April, 2023 by Lauren Sapala

Seven Sinful Writing Tips for Transgressive Fiction Authors.

Today’s guest post comes from the satirical G.C. McKay, author of the anthology Sauced up, Scarred and at Sleaze and his recently released novel, Fubar. G.C. is one of my favorite writer friends because he always pushes limits and questions the status quo. Plus, he manages to be totally irreverent and profound at the same time. The following is his take on the writing “rules” for transgressive fiction authors.

Transgressive fiction gets a pretty raw deal. In fact, it gets the same treatment by the world we live in as its characters often do inside their stories. This is probably to be expected, as the themes it explores are normally on the, shall we say, darker side of the human spectrum. Whilst we can argue till our faces turn blue (sexual-innuendo obviously implied) about what actually defines transgressive fiction, I’d venture to guess that we can all agree that it… unnerves us, as Lauren Sapala so adequately put it in her post Why are so Many Writers Afraid of Transgressive Fiction?

On that note, here are seven sin-ridden writing tips to keep in mind when your gunk-filled fingernails sit poised over the keyboard: Continue Reading

16 April, 2019 by Lauren Sapala

Those Who Make It as Writers Tend to Have One Big Thing in Common: Patience

There are a lot of tips and advice out there on what makes for a great writer. I’ve written on this topic many times before, myself. It takes persistence and determination, say the experts. Writers have to be brave, says Charles Bukowski. You have to be clear on your goals, ready to receive hard feedback, and have an organized daily schedule, says the internet.

However, I’ve actually met and befriended hundreds of real life writers and I can say with a good degree of certainty that not all of us are all of these things. Or, we’re only some of these things some of the time. The rest of the time we’re disorganized, self-doubting, afraid, and not at all ready to hear harsh criticism of our work. Continue Reading

11 April, 2018 by Lauren Sapala