Writing Habits to Jumpstart Your Creativity and Keep You Focused - Freewrite Store

Writing Habits to Jumpstart Your Creativity and Keep You Focused - Freewrite Store I don’t know about you, but for me, I find that creativity and inspiration are two of the hardest things to come by as a writer. Random flashes of ideas for stories are great when they happen, but what about all those times you need to intentionally create an idea for a story or an article? Today’s guest post is by  Matt Grant.  Matt is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor.  His  work has appeared in  Literary Hub,  Book Riot,  HuffPost, and  BookBrowse.  Find Matt  online, or follow him on  Twitter  and  Facebook. I don’t know about you, but for me, I find that creativity and inspiration are two of the hardest things to come by as a writer. Random flashes of ideas for stories are great when they happen, but what about all those times you need to intentionally create an idea for a story or an article? As humans, we’re all creatures of habit. But our habits are always doing one of two things: helping us or hurting us. The good news for writers is that we can leverage our tendency toward the habitual to aid us in the writing process. Good writing habits, when used correctly, can help us get into a regular rhythm that cultivates inspiration and keeps us focused during our writing time. Below are some of the best habits you can start today that will jumpstart your creativity and make sure your writing time is fruitful and rewarding. Before the Process Practice Morning Pages Morning pages were first introduced in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.The idea of morning pages is simple: the first thing in the morning, write three full pages in a journal or notebook, longhand, as stream-of-consciousness. It’s not supposed to be great writing, and you’re not to self-edit. The main purpose for practicing morning pages is to clear your mind of all distracting thoughts, tasks, and moods that might hinder your creativity that day. When it comes time to write, you won’t be thinking about the laundry you have to do or the conversation with a friend you need to have that day, because you’ve already written it out and set it aside for later. Do writing prompts I’ve recently discovered the huge benefit of writing prompts after being skeptical of them for many years. Often writers don’t think they need to do prompts because they prefer to come up with their own ideas.   But the right prompt can open up new ideas and ways of looking at things you aren’t able to see on your own. You can find writing prompts a variety of ways. Many are free online, you can buy a book of them, or come up with them yourself. Write them down to use at a later time. Try writing sprints Often the challenge for writers is to finish a piece of writing without worrying about it being perfect. That’s where sprints come in. Sprints are short bursts of writing, about 15 minutes at a time. They’re like doing repetitions at the gym. You do a sprint, then rest and do something else, then do another sprint, then rest again, and so on, for as long as you like. Similar to morning pages, you shouldn’t stop writing or try to edit your work during the sprint. Just pick a topic and write for fifteen minutes straight. When you’re done, you’ll have a finished thought or a piece of flash fiction that can then be edited and shaped into something more significant. Check out this free sprinting program  by the Freewrite team  to help you! Read voraciously I know, I know, I probably should have put this one first. It can sometimes be hard to see how reading directly affects your creativity, especially when you’re anxious to get a work in progress done, and you’d rather be writing. But the adage â€Å"a writer is first and foremost a reader† is absolutely true, so read widely anything you can get your hands on, any chance you get. Read different genres in different forms – novels, articles, essays, short stories, poetry and flash fiction. You never know when something you read will strike you as inspiring, and the more you absorb the words of others, the better your own words will get. To get started, try this reading challenge that forces you to read diversely. During the Process Pick the right time of day Once you’ve had that flash of inspiration and are settling in to get started on your work, it’s important to implement the right habits to keep you on track and focused. One of the first steps is figuring out when you’re likely to get your best work done. I’ve personally found that waking up extremely early and writing first thing in the morning has opened up the rest of my day. After I get home from work, I don’t feel as energized or as focused. Of course, not everyone is a morning person. For you, it might be at night, or in the afternoon. Pick which time of day you’re at your most alert and creative, and block out that time to write. And once it’s scheduled, stick to it! Change locales If you’re in a rut, one of the best things you can do is get a change of scenery. Often, finding a coffee shop or a nice library, surrounded by books or soothing music, can be a real boon to getting those creative juices flowing again. If you don’t have a place nearby where that’s possible, go for a walk to clear your head and come back to your work with fresh eyes. Put away distractions However, these locations can only be helpful if you’re not distracted, so be ruthless about putting distractions away! Buy a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, turn the wireless off on your computer, put away your cell phone, and stay away from your inbox. We all know the Internet is a black hole – one minute you’re looking something up for your project, and the next, you’ve spent an hour on Facebook. Set aside another time for planning and researching. Keep your writing time sacred for just that – writing.    Bonus Question: Do you really need to write every day? This suggestion is usually at the top of most writing advice lists. To be honest, I’m inclined to distrust it. I’m wary of anything that’s touted as a â€Å"must† or some mystical talisman. Of course, it’s a good idea to get into a habit of writing on a regular basis. Of course, you should often write and for long periods of time.   But I firmly believe, as with everything, writing should be done in moderation to maximize its effectiveness. More and more research is pointing out how, paradoxically, working less actually leads to more productivity. People who are constantly working are more tired, more anxious, and less inspired – all of which are deathblows to creativity. I regularly take vacations from writing, where I don’t do any kind of work at all. At the end of these breaks, I always come back to my work with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and motivation.    So, by all means, write as often as you can, but if you miss a day, give yourself some grace. When it comes to inspiration, there’s a lot to be said for being out in the world, doing other activities and experiencing things that will fuel your stories. For a writer, there’s no better inspiration than just living life. There’s no doubt that writing is work – hard, grueling, sweat-inducing work. Just as with everything, there are working behaviors and practices you can put in place to help you be more productive and less distracted. Obviously, not everything on this list is going to work for you, and there might be something I left out that’s even better. If so, please leave a comment and let me know what behaviors and practices you have that help keep you inspired! What writing habits do you swear by? Do you have any habits or routines that you love and would recommend to others? Let us know in the comments!    Matt Grant is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has appeared in  BookRiot, The Huffington Post, BookBrowse, and  Pop Matters. When he's not writing or reading, he works in youth development as an after-school program director for one of the largest middle schools in Manhattan. You can find him online at www.mattgrantwriter.com or on Twitter: @mattgrantwriter.

Forming Plurals with s

Forming Plurals with s Forming Plurals with ’s Forming Plurals with ’s By Maeve Maddox This reader’s lament prompted the recent spate of apostrophe posts: Could you please do a post on possessives versus plurals? Im seeing this mistake more and more, to the point where I saw someone use an apostrophe for a plural on a billboard. Because people are easily confused by the apostrophe, I have treated possession separately: The Singular Possessive Apostrophe The Plural Possessive Apostrophe Now, I’ll focus on the reader’s main concern: the use of the apostrophe to form a plural. Some English speakers associate the apostrophe so strongly with the letter s that they compulsively hurl it at every s that occurs at the end of a word. For example: 20 Craft Idea’s for Kid’s Three Barber’s on Duty My Cat Love’s Me All Product’s Updated Frequently Puppie’s For Sale Open Sunday’s Our Preschooler’s Can Read In deference to another reader, who has asked me to supply corrected versions of cited errors, here are the correct forms: 20 Craft Ideas for Kids Three Barbers on Duty My Cat Loves Me All Products Updated Frequently Puppies For Sale Open Sundays Our Preschoolers Can Read I wish that I could state the rule that one must never ever use an apostrophe to form a plural. All I can say is that one must almost never ever do so. Certainly, an apostrophe is never used to form the plural of an ordinary noun. Someone who sports a bumper sticker that says, â€Å"Our preschooler’s can read† or letters a sign that says â€Å"Puppie’s for sale,† has a feeble understanding of how noun plurals are formed in English: one preschooler, two preschoolers one puppy, two puppies Someone who embroiders â€Å"My cat love’s me† on a cushion has never learned the difference between nouns and verbs. Third person singular verbs in English end with s: He runs, she sings, it barks. Apostrophes are never used with verbs. We can postulate a rule about words that end in s: If a word ends in the letter s, don’t put an apostrophe anywhere near it, unless you wish to indicate possession. So, when is it all right to form a plural with ’s? Usually, the only time to use ’s to form a plural is when pluralizing letters and symbols like and %. Authorities differ. The Plural of Capital Letters The Chicago Manual of Style states the rule that most capitals may be pluralized by adding s without an apostrophe and gives this example: â€Å"Children need to master the three Rs.† The AP Stylebook, on the other hand, recommends using the apostrophe to form the plural of all capital letters and gives the example â€Å"the three R’s.† The AP recommendation makes practical sense because some capital letters do require an apostrophe for clarity. Compare: Your Ss, Is, and Us are illegible. Your S’s, I’s, and U’s are illegible. The Plural of Lowercase Letters Lowercase letters require an apostrophe for clarity. Compare: There are two is in liaison. There are two i’s in liaison. The Plural of Numerals Numerals form their plurals by adding s only: He bowled three 300s. His parents grew up in the 1950s. Both CMOS and AP agree that numerals may form the plural without an apostrophe. OxfordDictionaries online does allow the use of the apostrophe to show the plurals of single numbers: â€Å"Find all the number 7’s.† The Penguin Guide to Punctuation (first published 1997), states that American usage calls for an apostrophe with a date and admonishes British speakers: â€Å"You should not adopt this practice unless you are specifically writing for an American audience.† The use of an apostrophe with a pluralized date may once have been American practice, but now both the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook state that dates are pluralized without an apostrophe: â€Å"the 1950s.† The trend globally is against the use of the apostrophe to form the plural of anything. Using an apostrophe to form the plural of a word, letter, symbol, or numeral is justified only if leaving it out would interfere with reading comprehension. I’ve yet to exhaust the topic of apostrophe use, but this will have to do for now. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:5 Uses of Infinitives8 Types of Parenthetical PhrasesTitled versus Entitled