Creative writing basics

5 SURE SIGNS YOU’RE A WRITER – Do this quick quiz to find out!

/ Edwina Shaw / Leave a comment

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Writer at work!

Got a feeling you might be a writer? Do this quick quiz then add up your points and see how you go!

5 Sure Signs You’re a Writer

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  1. You READ – a lot. Is your bedside table, floor, desk covered in books half-read and to be read? Writers read voraciously and widely. Reading is your safe place and your sanctuary. Not only that, when writers read we’re always looking at how the book is written, especially books we love. We’re always thinking, “How did the author DO that?” Give yourself one point for every book in your pile.
  2. You WRITE. Do you have a diary or journal you’ve been keeping for years? That’s a sure sign of a writer and the best way I know to develop your unique writing voice. Not keeping a diary? Do you write long letters, or emails or blog posts? Do you write to make sense of things? Write to bear witness? Does the act of writing give you pleasure? Does writing soothe you? Do you find comfort in shaping words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs? Give yourself 5 points if you write regularly. An extra 5 if you’ve kept a diary for over a year.
  3. You REMEMBER IN STORIES. When you are remembering events from the past, do you find yourself writing the memory in your head? Are you forming a story with words rather than images, or images and words together. Are you trying to find a way to tell this story in a way that adds meaning to the random events of life? If so give yourself 5 points. If you’ve started writing these stories down, give yourself an extra point for every story you’ve started and an extra 5 for every story you’ve finished.
  4. You DREAM IN STORIES or WAKE UP with story lines fully formed, or a CHARACTER wanting to be written. Do you remember your dreams and think, now THAT would make a great story! Do you wake up with the beginnings of stories in your head, with sentences, maybe whole paragraphs already formed? I woke up once with this: “My name is Condolezia, but I don’t speak Spanish. I was born the year after my brother who died the day he was born.” It was so strong I still remember it! Do you daydream in stories? Do characters tap you on the shoulder and demand to be heard, to have you write them into being? Give yourself 5 points if any of these nerdy, wordy visitations have happened to you. Give yourself an extra 5 for every story you’ve written from these prompts.
  5. You FIND YOURSELF WRITING YOUR LIFE WHILE YOU’RE LIVING IT! This is a sure sign you’re a writer. If, in the midst of some life drama, turmoil, blessing or tragedy you find yourself searching for the words to describe it, then you are unmistakably a writer. The day my infant son died, I found myself sitting on the loo thinking about how I could ever write this terrible story. Thinking of a title. “Of Milk and Blood” I thought was pretty good. But I thought again and ended up with my Guide Through Grief instead. So if you’ve found yourself sitting among the wreckage, thinking up titles for this period of your life, then, I’m both afraid and proud to say – You, my friend, are a writer! It’s a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I just want to LIVE something without putting it into words. Give yourself 10 points if this kind of thing has happened to you.An extra 10 for every story inspired in a similar way, that you actually wrote.
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SO, are you a writer?

IF YOU SCORED

0-5 points – you love to read, but haven’t actually spent much time writing or even thinking about writing. You’re happy to let others do the story telling. The world needs readers and we writers LOVE YOU!

5-15 points – you love reading and writing and a deep part of you is calling out to be expressed in words. All you need to do is give yourself a chance. Try getting some of those stories out of your head and onto the page! See here for a guided meditation to quiet that inner critic holding you back and get you started!

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15 – 30 points – you’ve got what it takes to be a writer! In fact, you know it in your heart but you just need a little nudge to get those stories out of your head and onto the page. See here for a FREE WORKSHOP that will help you use all those great inspirations and thoughts to create stories.

30 points and over – CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’RE A WRITER! Yes you are! You know this, you’ve been writing and getting some of those ideas onto paper. Writing is a rewarding and fulfilling lifestyle. Writers are always observing and learning and creating meaning through words. Words bring comfort and order to our lives. We can create something beautiful from all we experience, even the darkest moments. See here for an affordable live online course in creative writing that will give you all the craft knowledge you need to make your stories engaging and compelling and, most of all, publishable!

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WHATEVER YOU SCORED, if you’re reading this post, something is calling you to writing. Consider yourself on notice. Sooner or later you’re going to have to get those stories out of your head and onto the page. See my FREE WORKSHOP and then check out my UPCOMING CRASH COURSE IN CREATIVE WRITING

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Let me help you set out on the magical journey of writing! I’ve been writing and publishing for over 20 years and have been teaching creative writing at universities, schools, festivals, at the Queensland Writers Centre and in the community since 2005. I’ve helped more writing students than most people have had hot dinners, so let me help you make a start on your writing adventures too. See more about me HERE.

Now, stop reading and start writing!

Wishing you the joy of creativity this holiday season. May you and yours connect in love and harmony and may the year ahead be filled with fun, creative adventures, lots of laughter and friends and fantastic good luck! YAY!

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Lots of love

Edwina xx

PS. Remember to check out my UPCOMING CRASH COURSE IN CREATIVE WRITING

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ANECDOTE vs STORY – What’s the Difference?

/ Edwina Shaw / Leave a comment

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When I first started writing I got a few rejections saying my pieces were anecdotes and not stories. After I’d dried my tears, I began to wonder what the difference was?

What is it that makes a story a story, and an anecdote something you tell your friends but don’t get published?

MEANING.

An ANECDOTE is an incident from our lives that we tell our mates down at the pub or over a cup of tea. This tale may have many of the elements of a story – setting, characters and action – but usually that’s it.

For example –

When people notice the scar running from my forehead down along my left temple beside my eye, I tell them an anecdote about how, when I was fourteen, I was searching for organisms out on the rocks at Deadman’s Beach (true!) during my school biology camp on Stradbroke Island.

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A huge wave came hurtling towards us and I braced myself by facing into the barnacle covered rocks, gripping on for dear life. The wave crashed over me and my classmates, and smashed my face into the rocks, dragging me as it fled back out to sea, grating my face against the barnacles. Adrenaline pumping, I scrambled to my feet and leapt  over the rocks, racing to shore where my poor teacher was greeted with a bloody mess like Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie.

I was almost helicoptered back to Brisbane, but the local island doctor was used to shark bites and stitched my face back together again – sixty stitches in all. I wasn’t a pretty sight. Once I got back home my friend took some photos and we entered me in a Dolly Magazine Covergirl Competition. We thought we were pretty funny. Needless to say, I didn’t win 🙂

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As you can see, this anecdote has plenty of action and drama and even a happy ending. But it’s not a story. WHY?

Because it only tells what happened. An anecdote doesn’t reflect on the events and dig deeper to find meaning.

STORIES on the other hand are how humans make sense of the world and what happens to us. They delve deep into the emotional heart of what that incident meant to us and how we were changed as a result. A story creates MEANING from the meaningless.

For example –

What if I told you this accident happened only a couple of months after the death of my young father? What if I told you that when the wave hit something inside me hoped that it would tear me away and take me to where my father was. What if I wrote about how, as the doctor stitched my face back together again, he sang the Death March. What if I wrote about how my best friend tenderly helped me wash the blood out of my hair that night as I sat in a cold bath. What if I told you that I lay awake for hours in my bunk, trying to convince myself that my father’s death had been a bad dream I’d had while knocked out, that he would be waiting for me on the other side of the ferry?

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Then we’d have a story.  A story I haven’t written yet, but just might.

“Dig deeper,” I tell the memoirists I edit and teach. Don’t be afraid. Go deeper and find the true heart of your story. Turn that anecdote into something that touches people.

Have you got an anecdote or two you could dig deeper into to create meaning? Search hard enough and everything that happens has another layer of story reflecting human experience.

Want to learn more? Come along to my next retreat in the mountains with a special focus on memoir writing. Great for beginners too, and anyone needing to reboot their writing mojo!

That’s what we writers do, we write to make sense of the world.

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Let me know how you go!

Lots of love

Edwina

What is a writer’s “VOICE” and how to find yours.

/ Edwina Shaw / 4 Comments

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When I first started writing I kept hearing this mysterious term “voice”,mainly in the many rejections I received. Publishers would inevitably say something along the lines of, my “voice wasn’t developed.” It drove me mad. What did they mean? It was me writing, not anyone else. It took me a while to figure out that voice in creative writing terms just means a writer’s own particular style.

Put simply, which is how I like things, it means unadulterated plain old you on the page. Not you trying to be smarter or funnier or fancier than you are. Just you – the way you would talk to your best friend, the way you’d write a letter to someone who’s known you all your life. In my work with new writers I often come across people who think they have to use a whole lot of big words and mountains of adjectives and metaphors to sound “Writerly”. Which brings me to my first point.

Forget about being Writerly!

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Fancy may work for some people who are born that way, or lived a hundred years ago but these days it’s best just to write as you would speak. Of course you can throw in the occasional unique metaphor and fabulous big word, but most of the time, keep it simple.

YOU are enough just the way you are.

Yes, that’s you. Your life and all you’ve lived and who you’ve become because of it is totally unique in the whole world. No one else can write your stories because only you can tell them in your own special way echoing all those experiences. If you grew up swinging around on a hills hoist washing line being sprayed with a hose, the story you tell about childhood is going to be very different to the person who slammed face first into a tree in a tobogganing accident. Claim who you are and let that shine through. The specific details of your life can reveal universal truths.

Once you’ve claimed your voice, everyone who reads your stories will say, “Oh that’s so and so, I’d know her voice anywhere.” Editors will accept your work for publication and say, “Great unique voice”. YES! That’s what we’re aiming for.

 

 

 

But how to do it?

Read on.

TOOLS for developing your unique voice
1. Free writing

Write whatever comes into your head, stream of consciousness style. No stopping, don’t let your pen leave the page. Set a time for five minutes and just go for it, no editing, no fiddling with grammar, no checking spelling. If you don’t know a word then just put a question mark beside it. Even if you’re only writing “I don’t’ know what to write, this is silly, that’s fine. You can complain as much as you like, just keep writing. Find a writing prompt, set a timer, and go for your life. Write as fast and as much as you can in those five minutes. You’ll be surprised what you can do. Get used to writing rubbish 😊 Once you’re used to that, then you’re free to go! You will need to edit what comes out later, but just think of all the words you’ll have to play with.
2. Keep a journal

Use the free-writing technique to write a journal. Every day write at least an A4 page by hand, letting words flow off the top of your head onto the page. The more you write, the more natural your voice becomes. If you are too busy to do this every day, every second day will do. Writing, like anything else, is all about practice. The more you practice the better you get. The more you get used to writing completely naturally without thinking about sounding flash or clever, the more your natural voice will emerge.
3. Look at emails, letters or texts you send friends

Are they different to the way you’ve being trying to write stories/ poems etc? Do you sound like you? If you feel uncomfortable writing in any form it may not. But I’m guessing if you’ve picked this book up then you’re a writing kind of a person and those messages to your friends and family are lighter and more natural than the artificial voice you may have been trying to put on for your writing. Next time you write a story pretend you’re writing to a friend instead of some imaginary publisher.
4. WRITE!

Write every day, whenever you can. Scribble down what you see while you’re on the bus. Who is that strange woman in the purple hat and too much pink lipstick? What’s her story? Play with your imagination. Write down your dreams and give them another chapter. Fill notebooks with lots of messy writing about anything that takes your fancy. Write until it comes naturally.

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Have you found your voice yet? How do you know? I’d love to hear from you if you’d like to leave a comment.

If you’d like to receive more writing hints and tips, drop me a line here.

And if you’d like a whole weekend of writing and yoga to get those creative juices flowing then see HERE for my next retreat.

Until next time – HAPPY WRITING!

Lots of love
Edwina xx

TWO FREE WRITING WORKSHOPS!

/ Edwina Shaw / 1 Comment

 

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I’m thrilled to announce that I’m facilitating two free creative writing workshops in March. I love it when things are free so everyone can come!

2nd MARCH 2019: DEVELOPING PLOT THROUGH CHARACTER 10 am – 12:15pm
ROBINA LIBRARY

On the Gold Coast in Queensland, at Robina Library, I’ll be running a session how to craft a meaningful plot based on your characters’ scars, secrets and desires. Delve deep into the art of writing with this workshop. Whether you’re writing fiction or memoir, it will help you know your story people better and develop a compelling and emotional narrative.

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9th MARCH 2019: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING 1pm – 2:30pm
NUNDAH LIBRARY

In Brisbane’s inner northern suburbs, at Nundah Library, I’m facilitating a class covering the basics of creative writing – Character, Setting, Plot, Point of View and Voice. Suitable for both beginners or for those wanting to refresh their writing practice.

To book see HERE and call the library directly on 07 3407 8701 to reserve your place.gympie-workshop-october-2018.jpg-writing.jpgThese sessions are always a lot of fun and you’ll come away with at least part of a story done, your mind racing with ideas and your hand sore from writing so much!

 

Every workshop I teach includes a deep relaxation designed to quieten your inner critic and free your creative voice. You’ll be surprised the difference it can make.

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And, because it’s important for writers to keep moving, we’ll even do some simple yoga moves to straighten out those sore shoulders and hands from all that writing.

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Come along and say hello, get that story idea out of your head and onto the page. Make sure you let me know you’re there!

These workshops will give you a taste of what it’s like on my retreats, where we cram in so much relaxation, writing and fun you can’t help but feel inspired and motivated to get stuck into your writing projects.

The next retreat is in the mountains near Toowoomba – see HERE for all the details.

 

Any questions about any of these workshops or my retreats? Or want to get regular writing hints and tips, and keep up to date with writing opportunities? Contact me HERE. I’d love to hear from you.

Hope to see you at one of these workshops. Book your spot soon as places for these freebies fill fast!

Lots of love
Edwina xx