: A MASTER POST OF YEAH WRITE’S ADVICE PAGES
Note: This is copied and pasted directly from our Writing Advice page, yeahwriters.tumblr.com/advice, but I thought I’d make a big post so that it’s rebloggable! :)
Also, there are like 100 more topics under the cut… hence the cut.
Here on Yeah Write, we have a lot of great discussions sparked by asks that followers send in. Having some trouble? Before you send in your own ask, check out some of the discussions we’ve had and see if they can help you!
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CONFIDENCE: How to have it when you feel like your writing sucks and everyone is better than you!
EDUCATION: I want to be a writer/work in publishing/a journalist/a writier professor. What should I study in high school and college? Should I go to grad school?
ENGLISH MAJOR!?: To be or not to be an English Major… these days, it seems like every major besides engineering and computer science means you’re not going to get a job! Am I silly to want to major in English if that’s what my gut is telling me??
…AND ON THAT NOTE, WHAT JOBS HAVE FORMER ENGLISH MAJORS GOTTEN? We polled all of our followers and asked those who’d studied English in college what jobs they have now.
INTERNSHIPS: How do I get an internship in the writing/publishing field?
JUGGLING MULTIPLE WRITING PROJECTS: Tips for keeping everything organized and choosing which project deserves the most attention.
MOTIVATION: How can I stay motivated to write when life gets in the way?
PUBLISHING: I like to write, but I don’t know anything about publishing… agh!?
RUNNING A WRITING BLOG: I get questions all the time about how to run a writing blog like Yeah Write. Here are my 8 tips!
Hi I don’t have a question, I just want to recommend If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland to everyone who wants to write ever because it’s literally everything I’ve ever needed to hear about writing but was never told until now.
but you don’t quite know what it is yet? It’s this sort of tingling feeling at the edge of your mind and the tips of your fingers, like all of your creativity is getting wound up and ready to go. I guess it’s a sort of weird separation between feeling inspired and actually having the idea, but you know that once it comes you’ll be off like a shot, just a frenzy of keyboard clicks and perfect sentences, and it’s going to be something really wonderful.
That’s how I feel right now. Can’t wait for the idea to arrive.
You know those “How To” and resource posts we do every couple of days? And the discussions we occasionally have about writing? Did you know that they’re all indexed on our Advice page?
The URL is yeahwriters.tumblr.com/advice, and you can always find it in the left sidebar of our homepage (see lovely diagram above!).
Here are some of the topics recently added to the page:
8 Tips for Running A Writing Blog
A Master List of Fiction Genres (Each linked to their Wikipedia page)
4 Ways to Have Confidence in Your Own Writing
How to Control Your Story’s TONE
To Be or Not to Be an English Major
And there are a lot more where those came from! Check it out!
(via livituppp)
To learn more about past issues, visit The Yeah Write Review’s home page.
For guidelines & to submit, click here!
(Source: yeahwriters, via livituppp)
I actually really don’t agree with this. I could not write for the rest of my life and be fine. I go through long periods of not writing and I’m okay. Not writing is like, 0 on the Y access if X is time passing, where Y is personal happiness. But when I do write (and when I feel good about what I’ve written), I go up on the Y axis! But if I don’t like it, I go down.
Wow that was a lot of math for a writing blog haha, maybe I’ll draw a graph later.
Plus wtf is a “real writer” psh?
(via whatwriterslove)
As writers, we spend a lot of time thinking about others while we write—our potential readers, potential publishers, our characters.
But what about us? We know we like to write, but why? This great article from The Outside Angle puts into words (perfect!) why writing can be so beneficial and revealing to the author herself.
The Outside Angle is a great, great Tumblr, by the way. From their About page:
The Outside Angle is a blog which simply gives commentary on various behavioral patterns as observed by the author. Specific topics are planned to range widely, but in general the articles focus on trying to recognize and flesh out any psychological commonalities between the different behavioral patterns that people or groups exhibit.
As a writer whose favorite genre to both read and write is psychological realism, all of their articles are the most delicious of resources.
tales-of-creativity asked:
What jobs can you get with an English or communications degree? I’d like these jobs to let me be a bit imaginative/creative. Sorry if this isn’t really writing related. I can’t picture a better job than being a writer, but I know I should have a back up plan.
That’s okay! We talk about publishing, being an English major, and the workforce all the time :)
Did you read our most recent post about being an English Major? I think the last couple of paragraphs might be helpful to you.
I was also thinking it’d be really cool if followers who graduated from college with an English degree could share their current professions. You can either put it in a comment on this post or send us an ask.
I’ll go first! I’m a marketing coordinator for an investment bank, haha.
With regard to English Major jobs — I have arguably an even less useful degree, a BFA (Bachelor of F—- All) in Creative Writing. I’m a writer and narrative designer on two video games, and starting my own company to create interactive/transmedia stories and develop my own story world franchise. (In other words, there’s nothing stopping you from achieving your dreams. I’m 24.)
I graduated in 2010 with a degree in English and I am an Associate Producer for a Documentary Company in Boston, Northern Light Productions.I get to do all my favorite things, read, write, research, learn and work with wonderful people.
In response to the question what English majors have as current professions, I am a TEFL teacher in South Korea at an all girl’s middle school. It’s really great!
I have a BA in Political Science and English (Creative Writing) and am now in law school! We do a lot of writing and a major part of a trial lawyer’s job is getting the narrative across. Similarly, many types of lawyers must tell their client’s stories and act as their legal voices. I’ve also been able to help people already in my first year and met lots of interesting people!
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This post will be indexed on our Advice page, under the heading “The Writer’s Life”.
Is it okay to write fanfiction? And by saying that, I mean… One of my friends is a really talented writer and she constantly ridicules me because I do write fanfiction. She writes her own “independent” stories and says that writing fanfiction is not a proper way of writing. I disagree. What do you think?
Arighty. These are my personal feelings about fanfiction. So just remember…personal opinion! Also, disclaimer, I’ve never written fanfiction and I’m pretty removed from that scene!
The “properness” of fanfiction largely depends on what your writing goals are.
If your goal is to be published, obviously writing original work is preferable. Not only are literary magazines and publishers looking for original work, but there are also legal issues with using another writer’s characters, settings, etc. for monetization purposes. (I try to pretend that 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t exist, btw. *Shudders*.)
I also think (again, opinion!) that writing “independent stories” and coming up with your own characters, story lines, content, etc. is more of a creative expression. But that doesn’t mean that your friend should ridicule you.
And! If your goal is to just write for fun, or to improve your writing without the purpose of being published (maybe you don’t feel ready to attempt publishable work yet, and you just want to practice, start with pre-established characters, etc.), fanfiction is awesome! Anything that gets you writing is a good thing. I read a post the other day that said “The worst thing you ever write is still better than the best thing that you didn’t write”.
Plus, from what I’ve experienced here on Tumblr, the network of fanfiction writers is even stronger than any other kind of writing network on the internet, since fanfic writers bond over their fandoms. And I do think that having a support team is a huge asset to the writing life (whether it’s classmates or friends or fandom friends or, you know, all 24k of us yeah writers!!).
Here’s what some fellow yeah writers had to add:
Ummmm this is the coolest infographic I’ve ever seen. Click on the title or the image to see it bigger!
IT’S HAPPENING.
I’m doing it. I’m writing a novel. Not my NaNo novel, which basically went like “Once upon a time lkasjdfalks;jdfa;lskdfjasd”, but a real live novel that I’m going to try to get published.
So, I’d figured I’d update you fine folks with how it goes! I won’t overpost about it, just every once in a while. Think of me as your SPECIMEN.
Here’s a preview of what it’s going to be about, as told through a conversation I had today with Zach:
Zach: You’re writing a novel??
Zach: WHERE DO YOUR IDEAS COME FROM
Me: I dno… my butt I guess
Zach: Yeah, they smell that way.
Zach: What’s it about?
Me: It’s about a slut and an albino and Native Americans
Me: And weed and domestic abuse
Me: And the logging industry, and brain aneurysms
The working title is Dreamcatcher, which definitely won’t be the actual title, but hey, you have to tag your posts with save your documents as something ;)
Wish me luck!
A while ago I did a little post about how I love BabyNames.com for helping me scheme up character names (which, as we all know, can be a kind of stressful process!!).
Today I was doing just that and I found this great little post they have with tips just for writers using their site to name characters—how kind of them! And it’s actually really helpful, there were definitely some where I was like “D00000d why didn’t I think of that!?”
So ummm check it!
viperslut asked:
Good Evening! So, I write in a variety of different forms including screenwriting, memoir-esque film criticism, creative nonfiction and prose (the first two being my greatest passions). Unfortunately, I have a problem where I have a lot of ideas I am passionate about in different forms and I end up trying to juggle too many projects at once. So, any advice for focusing and handling multiple projects? Also, any advice on deciding which project deserves my attention the most?
This is definitely a question where I’d love if other yeah writers would chime in. I’m a very one-project-at-a-time person so I don’t have a lot of experience juggling writing projects (when I try, I look like Honey Boo Boo does in this gif^).
Oh, and I did ask people if they juggle projects a little while ago. You can read their responses on this post (although I’m having some trouble getting the background of post notes to show up so right now it’s hard to read unless you highlight it, ugh, sorry about that. Tumbly so glitchy).
When I do feel overextended, though, I like to make lists.
Advice for those looking to tackle NaNoWriMo or just starting a novel in general by Chuck Wendig:
- Get your expectations firmly in check.
- Find your own personal “give-a-fuck” factor.
- Draw the map for the journey ahead.
- Become wild west scrivening inkslinger, “Quick-Note McGoat.”
- Know thy characters.
- Build an (incomplete) world.
- Test drive those imaginary motherfuckers.
- Dig up all the glittery conflict diamonds.
- Identify the major rules.
- Find your way into the tale.
- Also: Identify the Great Egress.
- Learn all the appropriate things.
- Suss out the fiddly bits.
- The 13-Second Closing-Window-Of-Opportunity Pitch
- Hell, write the whole goddamn query.
- Know your word processor intimately.
- Establish a daily schedule.
- Build a timetable.
- Ensure that life accommodates the book.
- Have a publication path in mind.
- Clean your shitty desk, you filthmonger.
- The Backup Plan
- Set it and forget it.
- Commit, motherfucker.
- Stop doing all this other stuff and write already.
Read in detail about this list at Chuck Wendig’s blog: terribleminds.
I really needed this! Since I started planning my new novel… TODAY! What a good omen.
(via fuckyourwritinghabits)
