Endings and Beginnings – Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SoCS #Poem

 

The ending of something

Often is saddening,

Bringing with it

Feelings of loss

That we think

Will never go away.

But we are all stories,

And stories never

Truly ever end.

As one story ends

Another story begins,

Just as one door closes

And another door opens,

Revealing to us new beginnings.

Embrace the ending

And cherish the memories

It gives you while

You embrace and

Embark on

The beginning of

Your new story.

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This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, “the beginning, the end”:

The Friday Reminder for #SoCS & #JusJoJan 2021 Daily Prompt – Jan. 30th

Be weird, be random

Random Short Stories

My favourite people are the ones who can laugh at themselves. The ones who are still able to be slightly silly.

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Pesky Words

Story Empire

Hey SE Readers. Joan with you today. I’m going to preface this post by saying I’ve probably made every mistake I mention and then some.

I tend to read with a more critical eye these days. It isn’t intentional, but as a learn more about the craft of writing, I pick up on things in other author’s works. Too bad I’m not good at finding these pesky things in my own writing, but I’m thankful for my critique partners who do.

As writers, we want to draw our readers into the story. Useless words, passive phrases, and what I call crutch words or phrases can distract them.

Before we send anything to beta readers, editors, or critique partners, there are a few simple steps we can take to tighten our writing and eliminate unnecessary words.

Look for “crutch” words or phrases

Crutch words or phrases will differ with every writer…

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Procrastination: Dump Old Myths and Discover a Fun Solution – by Rochelle Melander…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Fiction University:

Do you struggle with procrastination?

Maybe you’ve always dreamed of writing a book. You’ve thought about the cover and imagined the content, but you can’t seem to write anything.

You know that you need to revise your book before you can sell it, but you’ve started a new book instead.

You need to approach bloggers about marketing your book, and you write the task on your to-do list every week, but you never do it.

Perhaps you think, I’ll do it when I:

• have a big block of time
• know more about the topic
• feel inspired
• received more education
• am closer to the deadline

This is procrastination.

We delay the task we want to or need to do in favor of doing less important work.

People have many beliefs about why people procrastinate. Here are some of the common ones. Perhaps you’ve heard some of them from…

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Quiver – Tuesday Use It In A Sentence #tuesdayiseitinasentence

As he approached the throne room, a quiver went through his body. Everything was riding on this. Fighting down a mixture of emotions, he took a deep breath, pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back, and kicked in the door.

This late post is part of the Tuesday Use It In A Sentence prompt, “quiver”:

#tuesdayuseitinasentence ~ Quiver

Dare to Dream!

By Hook Or By Book

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The 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2021 – by Farrah Daniel…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on The Write Life:

Now that we’re a few weeks into 2021, let’s all breathe a deep sigh of relief together for overcoming what has to be one of the hardest years we’ve experienced in modern times.

And you made it through! That’s a victory worth celebrating, especially with the people who helped you navigate the chaos with websites filled with guides, tips and tricks, blog posts, podcasts and newsletters to help get better at the one thing you love the most: writing.

If you wrote a novel while under lockdown, good for you! And if you didn’t? Good. For. You.

When it comes to writing, output isn’t the only critical part of the process — it’s just as important to reset, refresh and reinvigorate your writing brain with new techniques that help you write better.

Wherever you’ve landed in your writing journey, we have just the websites that’ll help…

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Ways to create a writing habit, even when every day is unpredictable

M.L. Davis Writer

Last week, I spoke about how my writing habit had been crushed and re-shaped by the pandemic. And as part of the re-adjustment, I’ve been thinking of different ways to make a writing habit. The thing is, every day is unpredictable at the moment. And so the typical habit-making behaviour of picking a set time each day to write isn’t working. In fact, I’m often finding that my other commitments (work, uni, health) mean that my timings change day to day. So I’m trying the methods below instead, and it seems to be working! Have a peek;

Weekly goals, instead of daily
I used to focus on daily goals. Set word counts or time goals. The issue with daily targets, is if you don’t reach it one day, it sets you on a downer for the rest of the week. So it’s well worth considering setting weekly targets instead. This…

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Found: One of the First Books Ever Printed in England

Nicholas C. Rossis

The pages were instantly recognizable due to black typeface and hand-painted red paragraph marks. Image: University of Reading/The Independent

Pages from one of the first books ever printed in England were recently found by librarians at the University of Reading. The pages, which were hidden away for decades in the pages of a different text, were meant to tell priests how to plan feasts.

Sarum Ordinal

According to Atlas Obscura and The Independent, the librarians found two pages from a priest’s handbook called Sarum Ordinal or Sarum Pye, which had been pasted inside of another book to reinforce its spine. A librarian working to restore that book noticed and pulled out the pages from the priest’s handbook; they date to between 1476 and 1477.

The librarian said she instantly noticed the “trademark blackletter typeface,” the layout, and red paragraph marks, which were typically added by hand after printing and…

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The Writer’s Burnout Effect – by Chiara Talluto…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

The worst thing that can happen to a writer is becoming “blocked” in their writings.  If you do a search on “overcoming writer’s block” on the internet, you’ll find almost five million results.

What about writer’s burnout? I did a search and found over thirty-nine million results. That’s extraordinary. In my author circles, being blocked seems to supersede burnout. It looks like I may be wrong according to the web or maybe nobody wants to talk about “burnout” because that would mean you’ve failed or are a quitter.

Thinking of the difference between blocked and burnout has led me to do additional research.

Continue reading HERE

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