Writing Tools:  WEbook Writing Secrets

     Secret Habits of an Effective Writer
     By Laura Zinn Fromm

     Keep a spy notebook. Write down anything that inspires you or captures your interest. If it appeals to
     you, chances are good it will appeal to your readers as well. Don't be afraid of copying out someone's conversation word-for-word.

Let your unconscious be your guide. Sometimes, when you sit down to write, you have no idea where you are going. That is fine. Don't worry about. Your unconscious has a plan.

Underline in books. Paste poems to your laptop. Inspire yourself whenever you can. Cut out little poems or interesting paragraphs from the newspaper, and leave them in your drawer. Writing is lonely work, and examples of other people's great writing will keep you company.

Write every day and save some for tomorrow. Even email is writing. If you have no time to write creatively, write the best email you can. Be as funny or observant or as trenchant as you can in three lines. If you are working on a short story or a chapter, stop while the writing is good. And make yourself a list of one or two ideas to work on tomorrow. This way, you will always have something to look forward to.

Keep a "Save/Salvage/Use/Recycle" Folder. Sometimes we write a short story, a poem, a novel or an essay, and it just doesn't work. But there are great lines in it - great, memorable, reusable lines. Sometimes, there are crystal-clear paragraphs, vivid descriptions, funny punch lines, clever puns - all sorts of wonderful combinations of words that you wrote. Save these. These lines/observations/thoughts will be your breadcrumbs on the path to writing. If a story/paragraph/essay/novel doesn't work, you still have great stuff in it. Save that work and use it in something else. Either cut the good work and paste it into a notebook, or just highlight it and stick it in a folder. You can also paste it all onto a document and save it in the computer, but you are better off having it printed out. You will find a use for your good, unused work someday.

Wherever you go, take notes. Geography is key. Whether you go to the Jersey Shore, a strip mall in Pennsylvania, the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, the rolling hills of Southern Vermont or a café in Paris, write what you see. Take specific notes on the light, the trees, the flowers, the mountains, the beaches, the ocean, the lakes, the animals, the buildings, smells, the roads, the food, the people---and keep these notes. You never know when you might need geography or topography to give your work a sense of place, and physical descriptions of places you visit now will be very useful for you are trying to vividly describe a place.

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