Writing Practice
I learned about the concept of a writing practice from the Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones. I am really grateful that this concept was introduced to me this year, because it has helped me to produce a lot more writing than before. The idea of a writing practice is having a commitment to write every day, even if you are not always working on the same project - the goal is to JUST WRITE. I started doing this at the end of last year with my commitment goal of writing at least a sentence every day, and this year I have done my best to continue that (except for the week after I finished NaNoWriMo, when I was exhausted after writing so much every day for a month, and had to take a little break).
Meeting with Linda
Ella, Leela and I have had group mentor meetings with the author Linda Urban. Last year Ella and I met with Linda several times, but she wasn't our official mentor, so it is really nice to meet with her consistently this year! At our meetings, we usually give Linda an update on our writing projects (mostly our novels), and then sometimes we ask her questions about writing. I have asked her about details such as dialogue, and the difference between editing and revising, and her answers have been very helpful and enlightening. Then we usually also do a writing exercise, and Linda gives us a prompt, walks us through an x-page (a brainstorming technique) to help us get ideas, and then she times us as we write. It is really fun to meet with her, and I have learned so much. I am really excited to continue this mentorship in Semester 2. Next month is going to be Short Story January - we are all going to read some short stories and discuss them together, and we are each going to write a short story as well!
Quarter 3 update: I started working on a short story. Unsurprisingly, my first draft was working with a novel length idea, so Linda had to convince me to focus on writing about one moment of the larger story, which I have been working on.
Quarter 3 update: I started working on a short story. Unsurprisingly, my first draft was working with a novel length idea, so Linda had to convince me to focus on writing about one moment of the larger story, which I have been working on.