Using Humor in Your Writing
Leigh Anne Jasheway is a stress management and humor expert, comedy writer, stand-up comic, and comedy instructor/coach. Her article, “How to Write Better Using Humor,” recently appeared on Writer’s Digest.
As creative writers, we are always looking for ways to improve our craft, and learning from experts in other artistic disciplines—including comedy—is a fantastic way to do so. Writing is about exploring and representing the human experience, and humor is an undeniable part of that experience.
With that said, please welcome Leigh Anne Jasheway! ...
The Cycle of Writing
We live in a cyclical world. The seasons change. The Earth rotates around the sun. Our leaders serve terms and are replaced. The young grow old. The economy rises and falls. There has always been and will always be a natural cycle to our lives.
We don’t doubt that winter’s bare trees will eventually sprout leaves again. Why do we doubt that a spell of difficult writing will eventually turn fruitful?
We’ve all been there. The words aren’t flowing. Letters look like hieroglyphs. Our characters evade us, and our plot lines twist and tangle like intertwined necklaces. We are creatives, which means our work is dependent on a variety of factors. ...
Top 3 Tools for Building a Readership
Most of us write with the intention of being read. That’s not always the primary goal. Perhaps we want to simply write the stories burning inside us. Perhaps writing is cathartic or even (dare I say) fun. But in our core, we are storytellers. We want to reach humanity with our words. And to do that, we’ve got to find a way to put our words and stories in front of those who will read them and be moved by them.
Thankfully, we live in an age of constant communication. The Internet provides infinite outlets to reach potential readers. But it’s easy to get lost in the chaos of websites and forums. It’s best to focus our attention on a few effective tools to meet and engage readers, remembering that the goal isn’t to reach as many people as possible, but to get to know people and to earn their trust through honest engagement. No one will take the time to read your writing if they don’t trust that you have something to say. ...
The Writing Process in GIFs
If you’re a fledgling writer, or perhaps a non-writer looking to make the leap into our crazy world, you may have some questions about the writing process. Where do I start? Do I need a permit?
In recognition of these harrowing questions facing new writers, I’ve compiled a step-by-step guide to the writing process. Follow these to the tee, and you, my friend, will enjoy crippling self-doubt, unhealthy attachments to characters, and fabulous days of writing five thousand words in twelve hours before collapsing into a pile of notebooks.
This is the life. ...
12 Tips for Protecting Your Writing Time
Writers write, right? Then why is it so hard to carve out time to follow your passion and to do what you do best? Here are 12 tips to make sure your writing time remains your writing time. ...
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3 Prompts to Break a Writing Rut
Writing prompts are a fantastic way to get out of a writing rut. We’ve all experienced them. Sometimes every story you write seems to have the same settings, the same characters, the same conflict. Sometimes you feel like you’re writing the same story over and over. ...
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