• Weekly Writing Exercise: Write What You See - Shana Ronayne

    Weekly Writing Exercise: Write What You See

    Wherever you are, look around and spend five or ten minutes writing down everything you notice.  Is there a cracked bowl on the kitchen counter waiting to be mended?  A stack of firewood beside the stove?  Is the dog sleeping…

  • Swoopers and Bashers: Editing while You Write

    Swoopers and Bashers: Editing While You Write

    Are you a swooper, or a basher? "Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way.  Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work.  Bashers go one sentence at a…

  • Weekly Writing Exercise: Random Words

    Weekly Writing Exercise: Random Words

    For many people who tend toward confessional writing, drawing from their own experiences and emotions, there’s a pressure to make everything just right, to perfectly translate their life so that readers can experience the same sensations, the same feelings they…

  • A Heap of Loafing: Why Writers Need Time - Shana Ronayne

    A Heap of Loafing: Why Writers Need Time

    So, you’ve gone out into the world with your eyes open and your notebook in hand.  You’ve noticed your breath hanging in the brisk, raw air, watched the chickadees flitting around the feeder you’re always forgetting to fill, listened to…

  • Weekly Writing Exercise: Creating Characters - Shana Ronayne

    Weekly Writing Exercise: Creating Characters

    Give them a beloved turtle.  Give them a spouse with bone cancer.  Give them a profound fear of the ocean.  Give them a lucky sock.  Make them interesting.  You might find yourself creating characters that you’ll use later in your…