Welcome to the page that houses the 2019
#GBWRITESWITHOTHERS
guest blogging initiative! Established in April 2019, it was created to help boost writers at all levels in their careers through pure community effort.
Views and topics are those of their authors.
Putting Fiction into Context: An Archaeological Approach to Worldbuilding by Terence MacManus (@tcmacmanus)
During my first job interview as a graduate archaeologist, I was presented with an assortment of broken rocks and asked how I would separate the natural stones from the knapped cultural artefacts. Eager to impress my prospective employers I dove into the bag, examining each object carefully and placing them in either pile, describing to the interviewer which clues I found to discern their natures.
‘That’s all correct,’ the interviewer said afterwards, sweeping the rocks she’d taken from the car park into the bin. ‘Though it would probably have been easier if you’d just asked me the context they were found in.’
Conventional Wisdom by John C. Bruening (@jcbruening)
The phrase “stranger in a strange land” is something I thought about a lot this past February.
The phrase actually goes back about three-thousand years. I’m not kidding. It’s from a short passage in the Book of Exodus. It’s a reference to a son born to Moses and his wife (they named the baby Gershom, which means “stranger”). A few millennia later, science fiction writer Robert Heinlein borrowed the phrase for the title of his 1961 novel about a human who comes to earth after spending the first 25 years of his life on Mars. Stranger in a Strange Land was the first science fiction novel to make The New York Times best seller list for fiction, and it’s probably Heinlein’s best known book.
The “Rules” of Writing by Lenee H. (@leneeh4)
Developing your own style of writing, your narrative voice, is personal and important. It’s individual to each writer. Long before I ever came in contact with the online community of writers and authors, I had been writing on my own. I instinctively knew basic grammar and English rules from school, but beyond that I wrote however felt right to me. I told stories and created a narration exactly how I wanted and how best fit the character. My mind wasn’t filled with tips and rules invented by other writers who believed their way was the only way.
In Support of All Families by Ashley Jones (@AshleyA_Jones)
As a dance teacher, I have seen children come through my classes with all kinds of families. Just last year, I had one student in particular whose dad brought her to class every single week. Despite not knowing anything about tutus or ballet shoes, he helped foster a love of dance in his daughter by bringing her to class week after week.
Being a Novelist by Sheila M Johnson (@authorSMJohnson)
So, you want to become a successful author. Great! Well, where do you start? You might think that you need a two- or four-year degree in English Literature or even a degree in Creative Writing, but you’d be wrong.
What I Learned by Age...by Morgan Summer (@MorganSummer15)
5 - It is not a good idea to give the cat a bath, even if they are dirty. Cats don’t like baths.
The Catharsis of Writing by Tim Hendrickson (@TRHendrickson)
Stay with me while I string this together.
The most prominent memory I have of tapping into emotion with the intent of using it for my own purposes occurred in college. I had always played sports, and still remain as active and competitive as a husband and father of two allows me to be. Back when I was pursuing my degree, I played for the school’s rugby team. Teams loved to schedule matches against us because one, we weren’t very good and two, we threw the sickest parties afterwards.
The Unmistakable Aroma of Old Books by Zoe Tasia @ZoeTasia
Anxiety and Depression Are NOT Signs of Weakness by Elira Barnes (@authorelirab)
At the time of writing this, I am 22 years old, and I live with anxiety and depression.
My Hulkness Has No Gender: The Rage-Induced Case for Cancelling Charles Dickens by Jamie Thomas (@thatjamiethomas)
I never questioned the literature I read in my high school English classes. I respected it, I appreciated it (so much as a teenage girl can appreciate stories written by dead white men with primarily male characters at their center), but I never questioned it. There was, I assumed, a reason those particular pieces had been chosen; that the knowledge I would obtain from the study of them would provide the greatest benefit to my education both as a reader and writer and as a member of society. This is, after all, why we read novels.
I wondered, of course, at the shocking lack of female authors in the curriculum when there were plenty in the classical literary canon, but I never questioned the wisdom of my teachers for excluding them. I was a very different person then. Needless to say, I pissed off far fewer people than I do today and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
Literature and Digital Age: Flipping the Coin by Damilola Oladimeji (@DamiOladimeji)
Sighs...this follows every thought about world's reading culture as it plunges. Sometimes one does not even know what to tag as a cause to such setback. While we can consider money as a problem, distraction from the 'spoilers' that technology churns out to society is complicit. People spend a lot of time surfing the internet just for the fun of it and time is not much of a faithful friend. It leaves if you can't keep pace.
What’s in a Name? Character Naming by Cynthia Vespia (@OriginalCynergy)
The time has come to unveil why the lead character of my new novel Karma is named Silke Butters.
Five Reasons Why Writing Fanfiction is a Waste of Time by Sylvie Soul (@sylvsoulwriter)
From 1998 – 2018 I wrote Hey Arnold! fanfiction.
Yes, that’s 20 years of stories about a kid with a football-shaped head.
Do I regret it? Not at all– in fact, I attribute my years of writing about the 90s nicktoon to be a stepping stone into my writing habits and style today.
How to Keep a Writer’s Journal by Alyse Bailey (@abaileywrites)
The biggest problem I deal with in my writing is disorganization.
Whether it’s disorganization of my thoughts, disorganization of my notes, or just a general disorganization of my life, I struggle with maintaining order.
This is why, of my entire arsenal of writing tools and resources, there is nothing I value more than my writer’s journal. I could manage without my laptop, my phone, even my books! But my writer’s journal? That is my one true essential.
Where Am I Going? by WB Welch (@authorwbwelch)
I actually struggled quite a bit with the topic for this post. I blog often enough. I contribute to Tory's blog all the time. For me, ideas tend to show up out of nowhere - some happening will inspire a series of thoughts, which ultimately leads to an 'aha' moment, then I whip out my phone and type notes like a madman. However, the thought of writing a guest post for someone else's site added a new element of pressure for some reason, and I couldn't figure out why. I pondered this over my morning coffee (on the due date for this post, with nary a word written), and I ultimately related this to a similar experience I’ve had when writing fiction. It all came together at once, then I knew what I wanted to write about.
Death of an Indie by E. J. Dawson (@ejdawsonauthor)
“I’m done.”
It was the title of a post I read three years ago. A woman had written her cozy, romantic mystery, self-published it, and didn’t have anything left.
“I’ve invested everything I can in this story, and now it’s done, I’m shutting down all my social media platforms. There just isn’t another story inside me, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
She wasn’t the first one, and she won’t be the last.
Relative Discontentment by Samantha Dodd (@AuthorDodd)
When I say relative discontentment I’m not talking about being discontent with your relatives, although I fully understand that for some people that particular struggle is very real. What I’m talking about here is being discontent compared to those around you. This is something I have observed and pondered over for many years and goes hand in hand with some rather odd human behaviour.
Why Do I Write Two Works at Once? by Victorique Crawford (@EndlessMidnigh1)
There is one thing that stands about about my writing process when compared to others: I write two works at once.
To most, this probably seems like a really bad idea to attempt. But hear me out, there are reasons why this works for me, and benefits to such a method.
Hi, I'm Trey Stone, author and writer of things by Trey Stone (@TreyStoneAuthor)
Hi, I'm Trey Stone, author and writer of things.
I always liked writing, since I was very young, and I recall writing my first little folded-paper-stapled-together book when I was around 8. I started my first real story when I was a teenager, but it never got anywhere (which I'll honestly say might be have been for the better). In 2015 I started writing my very first book, which I self-published in 2017.
I'm very grateful that I was considered for a guest spot on this blog session. I try to do what I can to carve out my own little space in this vast world of writers, and when things like this happen I feel like I'm doing something right.