Provides new insights and observations from Vogler's pioneering work in mythic structure for writers.

    "The Write-Brain Workbook" is the first of its kind–an easy, fun, and playful way to exercise your creative writing muscles each day.Eliminate the dreaded emptiness of the blank pageWrite without the pressure of preconceived expectationsLearn about your own unique writing processBuild the momentum of a quick daily writing practiceUnlock writer's blockApply the breakthroughs from daily practice to your "real" writingExpand how you see yourself as a writerExperiment with different ways to approach writingAffirm your commitment to being a writer"The Write-Brain Workbook" is bursting with 366 innovative exercises that let you experiment and play with words and styles. Whether you love the pure joy of writing, are just getting started, or are trying to get past a particular writing block ... this is the book you've been waiting for!

    Her ideas are user-friendly, innovative, and pragmatic." Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's WayWrite and share what's in your heart! Let SARK show you how. Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper is your non-judgmental witness, resoundingly supportive friend, and practical guide to the craft of writing and storytelling. For anyone who knows that a writer lives within them but doesn't know how or where to start; for writers who need new ways to work past their blocks and be reinspired; for anyone who loves SARK's wise words and art, Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper will help start the ink flowing and keep it going.

    You know the soaring creativity of the Creator and the serious discipline of the artisan. And you feel the impulse to excel in each. So grab a steaming mug of your favorite hot drink and come learn the art and craft of Christian fiction from one of its master teachers. You'll learn: How to find your story amidst all your ideas How to bring your characters onstage the first time How to convert your telling into showing How to handle profane characters in Christian fiction How to use the dumb puppet trick How to write for the (approving) audience of One The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction is the complete school of fiction from Jeff Gerke, popular writer's conference teacher, professional book doctor, and Christian novelist. It includes and expands upon his influential Fiction Writing Tip of the Week column at WhereTheMapEnds.com. ** Christy Award-winning editor Jeff Gerke entered the Christian fiction publishing industry as a novelist. Under the pen name Jefferson Scott, Jeff has had six of his Christian novels published. He has served on the editorial staff of Multnomah, Strang Communications, and NavPress. Novels that Jeff has edited or acquired have won multiple Book of the Year awards. He is the founder and publisher of Marcher Lord Press.

    In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth.How does one pull from one's own boring, agitated self the truth-speaker who will tell the story a personal narrative needs to tell? That is the question The Situation and the Story asks--and answers. Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras.This book, which grew out of fifteen years teaching in MFA programs, is itself a model of the lucid intelligence that has made Gornick one of our most admired writers of nonfiction. In it, she teaches us to write by teaching us how to read: how to recognize truth when we hear it in the writing of others and in our own.

    A celebrated writing coach with a sense of humor and a gentle touch, she’s also a master writer herself with a long and distinguished career in both teaching and practicing the art of writing.The Book on Writing contains 25 chapters in three sections: A dozen essential but easy-to-apply guidelines to good writing, from the importance of clarity to the value of a conversational tone. Paula LaRocque believes learning is easier and more successful when we are not only told but also shown. So her Book on Writing is chockfull of actual writing examples that supplement and illustrate principles that apply as naturally to fiction as they do to nonfiction.How to tell a story—from building suspense, to effective description, to the uses of metaphor and literary devices. Paula LaRocque also deals with the narrative “engine” and the value of the archetype in plotting and characterization—as well as with pace and speed and leveling what she terms writing’s “speedbumps.” A clear and concise handbook that deals with common problems in grammar, usage, punctuation, and style—the kind of problems that often trouble even wordsmiths. The handbook also debunks pesky language “rules” that are actually myths. The Book on Writing is one-stop shopping for writers. Read it once, and you’ll be a better writer. Read it often, and you’ll be among the best.

    Through a series of out-of-the-ordinary lessons, each with its own takeaway points and recommended readings, Douglas Wilson provides indispensable guidance, showing how to develop the writer s craft and the kind of life from which good writing comes.

    Insight and creativity - the desire to push the boundaries of your writing - strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act: in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night.The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write, and revise like never before - without having to wait for creative inspiration. Brian Kiteley, noted author and director of the University of Denver's creative writing program, has crafted and refined these exercises through 15 years of teaching experience.You'll learn how to:Transform staid and stale writing patterns into exciting experiments in fictionShed the anxieties that keep you from reaching your full potential as a writerCraft unique ideas by combining personal experience with unrestricted imaginationExamine and overcome all of your fiction writing concerns, from getting started to writer's blockOpen the book, select an exercise, and give it a try. It's just what you need to craft refreshing new fiction, discover bold new insights, and explore what it means to be a writer.It's never too early to start--not even 3 A.M.

    In this all-new second edition of a best-selling classic, today's most successful freelance writers, including Robert Bly, Linda Formichelli, Kelly James-Enger, Jenna Glatzer, and others, provide up-to-date information on e-querying, writing for digital media, knowing your e-rights, and the core topics of magazine article writing. You'll learn how to:find and query article ideasplan your research and interviewsidentify potential marketsstructure the most common types of articleswork with editorsnegotiate contractssell reprint rightsbe a successful freelance writerWriter's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing contains everything you need to successfully break into this popular market or to continue developing your magazine writing skills.

    The machines have taken over. Everything is computerized. People no longer talk, they text. What number do we have to press to get a flesh and blood HUMAN? It’s easy to feel like we’re losing our humanity when surrounded by computers, cell phones, and text messaging, but I’m here to bring you the good news. The same machines that seem to be stealing our humanity also have the power to restore it. Yes, you read correctly. The more we embrace technology, the more distinctly human we can become.The new author is a cyborg of sorts—part human, part machine. The machine part allows us to compose series of words, copy them, email them, and then send them across the globe with a push of a button. We can research faster and more accurately than ever before. We can communicate with people all over the planet real-time and virtually for free. The new power technology has given writers has made us, in effect, superhuman.Branding has broken free of marketing’s shackles and merged with personal identity. If we want to thrive in our new environment, we need to adapt, to apply technology as an extension of our humanness. This is not a book to teach you 1,000 ways to blast people with advertising. The WANA Way is different than anything you’ve likely encountered. It is constructed using the timelessness of art, blended with the strength of human relationships. Platforms are more than a zillion ways to try to part readers from money; they are living works of art and meshed with the soul of the writer-artist. The machines are rising, but humans were here first.

    It’s great to know that – but while you’re reading about it you’re not writing your book.And what these books don’t tell you is how to use this learning and get the job done.Nail Your Novel is a writing buddy – and mentor - in a book.In 10 easy steps it will tell you:*how to shape your big idea and make a novel out of it*how to do your research and how to use it*how to organise your time*how to plot and build characters*when you’re going to hit problems and what to do about them*how to write on the days you don’t feel inspired*how to reread what you’ve written and polish it.Along the way, Thumbnail Notes give tutorials about storytelling and storycraft – strictly when you need them. The author has written nearly a dozen novels that have made it into print – and this is how she did it.You don’t even need to read the whole book before you get started. You read a section, then do as it says. And, once you’re finally satisfied, Nail Your Novel will tell you how to sell it to publishers and agents.

    A bestseller through six editions, Writing Fiction by novelists Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French explores the elements of fiction, providing practical writing techniques and concrete examples. Written in a tone that is personal and non-prescriptive, the text encourages students to develop proficiency through each step of the writing process, offering an abundance of exercises designed to spur writing and creativity. The text also integrates diverse, contemporary short stories in every chapter in the belief that the reading of inspiring fiction goes hand-in-hand with the writing of fresh and exciting stories.

    It is the product of preparation and effort, and it's within reach of everyone who wants to achieve it. All it takes is the willingness to make creativity a habit, an integral part of your life: In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative. In The Creative Habit, Tharp takes the lessons she has learned in her remarkable thirty-five-year career and shares them with you, whatever creative impulses you follow -- whether you are a painter, composer, writer, director, choreographer, or, for that matter, a businessperson working on a deal, a chef developing a new dish, a mother wanting her child to see the world anew. When Tharp is at a creative dead end, she relies on a lifetime of exercises to help her get out of the rut, and The Creative Habit contains more than thirty of them to ease the fears of anyone facing a blank beginning and to open the mind to new possibilities. Tharp's exercises are practical and immediately doable -- for the novice or expert. In "Where's Your Pencil?" she reminds us to observe the world -- and get it down on paper. In "Coins and Chaos," she provides the simplest of mental games to restore order and peace. In "Do a Verb," she turns your mind and body into coworkers. In "Build a Bridge to the Next Day," she shows how to clean your cluttered mind overnight. To Tharp, sustained creativity begins with rituals, self-knowledge, harnessing your memories, and organizing your materials (so no insight is ever lost). Along the way she leads you by the hand through the painful first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work, and getting out of ruts into productive grooves. In her creative realm, optimism rules. An empty room, a bare desk, a blank canvas can be energizing, not demoralizing. And in this inventive, encouraging book, Twyla Tharp shows us how to take a deep breath and begin!

    Ken Rand offers his own advice and twenty-five years of experience for the benefit of other writers.His no-nonsense approach to editing fiction will do more to make writing more professional.

    This is a key to raising your work from just being a commercial book or movie to becoming a bestseller.Dave has trained authors in conjunction with his role as coordinating judge of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Program, as a creative writing instructor at Brigham Young University, and he has honed his skills in dozens of writing seminars and classes.In this eBook, Dave teaches new writers the basics of how to analyze an audience, and outline, draft, and polish a novel.The secrets found in his unconventional approach will help you understand why so many of his authors go on to prominence.