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Archive for October, 2006

How to refine a story plot idea?

Posted on October 19, 2006, by dazzer67, under inspiration, links, preparation.

There is a wonderful article by fellow Nanowrimo participant Innowen, at DIY planner. If you need some advice on sorting out the plot then there are some great ideas here, and as you can see, they havn’t simply been plucked out of the air, but have been of practical help…

… now where are my plot cards?

Actually, I’ll be telling you all how I’ve pulled together my ideas for Nano in the next few days.

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5 quick tips to break creative/ writer’s block

Posted on October 13, 2006, by dazzer67, under inspiration, quick tips.

Something nice and simple to get us going; or more accurately something that casues great stress and anxiety and completely stops us from going. Here are five quick tips to help break writer’s block, or any sort of creative block.*

  1. Find a blank piece of paper and doodle; shapes, faces, poses - free your brain from the rut it is currently in. (If you are in an art rut, then doodle with words, creating associations.)
  2. Go for a walk, get back to nature if you can. Even in the city you should be able to find a small park, canal or even a tree where you can focus on natural creative ideas.
  3. Put the current project/ idea/ paragraph to one side and do something completely different for 5/10/15 minutes. This won’t destroy a deadline if you have one.
  4. Find your favourite music track and play it loud, (it’s a lie, you are never too old for loud music) while it is playing listen to its structure, melody and/or rhythm and understand why you like it. Bring that reason into the project you are stuck on.
  5. Leave it! Seriously, unless you have an unmoveable deadline** sometimes the muse simply isn’t there - it may even be your creative self telling you to take a rest.

Does anyone else have any cool tips for breaking creative block?
* BTW I am currently stuck here desperately trying to solve a problem with a creative project and so I am making use of tip 3 at the moment.

** If the deadline is immoveable try one of the other tips, and I wish you luck. However, very few deadlines are totally immoveable and if you have left things this late, you may need to take a little look at the other articles coming here soon.

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Nanowrimo

Posted on October 6, 2006, by dazzer67, under perspiration, preparation.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month and can be found here. Basically you sign up and attempt to write a 50,000 word novel (novella?) in the month of November, along with a whole bunch of others who are wanting to do the same thing - visit the site as they explain it much better than I can.

You’ll either love the idea or hate it, depending on your personality type, however, if you really need a little push to get writing then this could be just for you (and all the others who sign up).

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