31 Mar 2012 Jodi Cleghorn

PROMPTed #9 Staring Into The Darkness

PROMPTed is a weekly collection of writing prompts to inspire your writing week. The prompts are loosely grouped under a common theme and include a random line prompt, a photograph, a song/music video, a sensory suggestion and a famous quote. This week our prompts come compliments of  Alan Baxter (@alanbaxter), conesisseur of the dark and disturbing. My writing always ventures into the darkness. I like to... read more

31 Mar 2012 Paul Anderson

Reminder—call for submissions

A reminder for those who may have missed last week’s announcement. We are looking for people familiar with the forms and genres we are using for the Form and Genre Challenge 2012 who would be willing to write a short introductory post to aid those unfamiliar with the form/genre who are taking part in the challenge. The forms and genres we need articles for are listed below. If you want to claim one... read more

30 Mar 2012 Jodi Cleghorn

Friend or Foe: The Impact of Your Belief System on Writing

“If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” ~ Aldous Huxley, (Brave New World) In the early weeks of January I set off to find the person I knew and loved as ‘writer’. It meant a harsh process of... read more

29 Mar 2012 Adam Byatt

Deep Reading

As an English teacher, my colleagues and I often have discussions about the texts we use for study in our classrooms. Some texts are prescribed for us to teach while other texts are chosen by staff based on knowledge of our students and their interests. Many of these texts are contemporary fiction. Canon vs Contemporary Invariably, there is a question raised about the ‘canon’. We all have our... read more

29 Mar 2012 Paul Servini

Who Am Write I?

I was brought up in a home where we taught never to sing our own praises. That’s why I find it hard to step back and look at what is good in my writing. I’d far prefer to write “it’s all bad”, and leave it at that. But that would be doing myself a disservice. There are both good and bad things in my writing. And to improve, I need to identify where improvement is needed, and... read more

28 Mar 2012 Jim Bronyaur

The “hybrid author”

In today’s wild publishing world, there’s a new, fun term floating around. Meet… the hybrid author. Just think, two years ago, if you were querying an agent and you mentioned you had a self-published book, it would probably work against you.  Sure, there are those rare cases when someone makes it big with a self-published book, but generally speaking, you queried an agent about a new project and... read more

28 Mar 2012 Matt Robb

Two Tips to Accelerate Completion of Your Writing Projects

The editors at Write Anything asked each regular contributor to perform a skills audit and gap analysis; a reflection on what we do well today and where we see need for self-improvement as it relates to our writing. Here’s exactly how it was postured to us: “What do you do well?  What do you do poorly?  Are there genres you don’t feel equal to?  Do you leave spelling and grammar for later... read more

27 Mar 2012 Paul Servini

Hanging Up My French Pen

2011 saw one bright star on the writing horizon. Against all expectations, I was one of the prize-winners in the Literary Correspondence competition organised by the local media library. And no, against all expectations is not supposed to indicate some kind of false modesty. I really was surprised. You see, I live in France, so the competition was in French, not English. True, it was only third prize but I... read more