Why You Should Go To Great Beach

Writing is one of those endeavors some people love, some people hate, and some people love to hate. You may have scoured the internet for writing advice, and stumbled here. My friends, Instead of the same ol’ same ol’ I bring you something new:

5 (not so) unorthodox writing tips to spice things up

Go and live life – do fun stuff

I know you’re full of great ideas! I know it’s tempting to burrow in your own little corner of the house on your computer – I’ve done it plenty of times. But I am a firm believer that the more life you live, the more about life you can weave into your writing. Don’t neglect the things that are your life. Family gatherings, friendships and outings, vacations, missions trips, field trips or spontaneous adventures with kiddos. Go and do life. Your future writing projects will thank you for it.

Go outside

What better way to experience the beauty and colors of this world than to go outside? I often look at writing from a visual and artistic perspective. I ask myself: how can i infuse the beauty of nature into my writing? Sure I can look at photographs of the ocean or gardens or different cityscapes for hours, but there’s nothing like experiencing nature first hand. I can’t hear or smell or taste photographs. Even if you write historical, fantasy, sci fi, or speculative fiction, you can take what you see, hear, smell and taste in real life, and still weave it into the world you are building with your novel..

Posts like this one by Hallee Bridgeman on Writing the Seasons, highlight, the beauty of why it’s important to go outside and experience weather and nature and all the beautiful colors, sounds, and sights that go along with it. The more you do, the more you can weave it into your writing!

Tackle your (non-writing) to do list.

There is something about doing the mundane that allows the mind to wander. It’s like a redirection for your brain. Taking the pressure off of stressing about that plot hole,  or lack of character motivation or conflict suddenly relieves the brain for a moment and gives it space to breath and think – and poof, random story ideas and/or solutions may happen to pop in and say Boo!

Go to church and pay attention

This one comes straight from personal experience. A majority of sermons during 2018 for me, I found applicable to my characters’ lives (and my own!) If you write Christian Fiction in any form, this is an important tip that will help you enhance that inspirational arc / theme in your writing. I tend to go into services now, not only praying that God would reveal how I can apply the sermons I hear to my own life, but how can I apply them to the stories I’ve already set forth to write? (I have like 5 WIPs though so that’s quite a lot) I keep a notebook with me and write down quotes and verses I can refer back to. For me, this has not only helped me fill in character arc holes, it has also validated that what I’m writing about is something Christians need to hear and read about.

Read ALL the things

Ok, so this isn’t unorthodox – if you’ve read any amount of writing tips online, you’ve probably read this one, too! But somewhere alone the line, some people have decided Reading isn’t important anymore for ‘experienced’ authors. That you shouldn’t read to compare yourself to other authors. You should instead, find your own voice, and write your own way.

I disagree. Reading is essential if you are a writer. But read more than just books. Read everything. Read in your genre, out of your genre, read non-fiction, fiction, online writing blogs, newsletters, the bible.

Reading inspires us, challenges us, teaches us. Never let a bad book stop you from reading. Even a book you disagree with has succeeded in making you feel and think. Never let a badly written book keep you from reading more books, or you could miss out on so many great new authors! Instead, use it as a learning tool for yourself.

If you want to here more about how much I love reading, I wrote an entire blog post on it here.

Now, I’ll leave you with a few reading quotes.

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