August | 2016 | Uniquely Yours Craft Journal

Word Ghosts and Dreams

12 Aug 2016 Comments Off on Word Ghosts and Dreams

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Word Ghosts Tags: Ghost words, Harry Potter, lindbergh, Roosevelt

“It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.”

J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Living in dreams of yesterday, we find ourselves still dreaming of impossible future conquests.”

Charles Lindbergh

Ideas

10 Aug 2016 Comments Off on Ideas

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Your Next Novel Tags: 5 senses, Ideas

Dear Fellow Journalers,

Without ideas, there are no words. Without words, there are no books. Ideas are the things that drive your writing. You can have all the skills and experience but without ideas, your pages will be empty. So where do you get ideas?

1. Take a popular idea and add something to it.

2. Think like a kid by asking questions over and over again.

3. “What if?” What if your main character narrated the story? What if you interjected a major event into the story?

Before you “go crazy” with this theme, get out a journal page and write Ideas on the top line. Your next great idea will not live long in your mind unless you write it down.

4. Employ your five senses in creating the setting for your book. Start by reading a poem or story that’s rich in expressions of locale. While I absolutely love the “Murder She Wrote” series by Donald Bain and Jessica Fletcher, I relish the descriptions of the places the main character finds herself, the clothing of the characters, the sights and sounds

5. Next write about taste, smell, sound and touch. Finally in one sentence, sum up the mood you want to convey in your setting.

Some more idea sources are:

A television program or movie, a painting, conversation, people-watching, lecture, holiday, family relationship and beautiful landscape.

One thing can lead into another. For instance:

Romeo and Juliet became West Side Story.

Pygmalion became My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady became Pretty Woman.

What are your ideas?

‘Til next time,

~Sallie

Word Ghosts and best friends

05 Aug 2016 Comments Off on Word Ghosts and best friends

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Word Ghosts Tags: friends, Ghost words

“….. what a best friend did was hold up a mirror and show you your heart.”

Kristin Hannah (Firefly Lane)

“a best friend is your voice when you can’t find it.”

Ellen Hopkins

“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”

Henry Ford

Warm Ups

03 Aug 2016 Comments Off on Warm Ups

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Your Next Novel Tags: inner critic, Murder in Time, music, The Big Read

Dear Fellow Journalers,

Do you warm up your mind before writing? I struggle sometimes in writing this blog, especially this year. It’s easy to skim articles and write blithely about topics related to journaling. It’s quite another thing to plunge your mind and body into content journaling.

I had help though this year in that I taught a journaling class at a local library and my students shared their stories with me. I picked the topics last December and figured I’d always be upbeat and enthusiastic however, not this month! Maybe it’s the weather, temps over 85°, illness – whatever the reason, Your Next Novel remained illusive.

The kaleidoscope of ideas crowed my mind and I found it hard to focus. The inner critic reared its head big time – “You are an imposter!” “You’ve never had anything published!” “You can’t write a novel.” Hmmmm.

I literally threw the critic’s ideas in jail and checked out for warm ups for writing. Here are some of my tips:

Listen to music. Music is a great way to free your mind from conscious thought, especially if it’s a tune you like.
Drag out your adult coloring books. You have to focus on composition, color wheels and your creativity.
Do a crossword puzzle. You’ll broaden your vocabulary as you wordplay.
Write about how you can’t focus. (Basically that’s why I am writing now!) Write about all the things that you’d rather be doing right now.
Play a brain game on the internet.
Here’s an interesting thought: take your main character out for a spin. Write about his/her adventures in another genre, time frame or relationship. I just finished reading Murder In Time by this book is the summer read for the Big Read (an international ebook Club). The murders are set in England in 1815 and the heroine is a modern FBI agent who got sucked into a time travel tunnel. Imagine if this murder mystery was set in 2016 in America – different huh?!

Flex your writing muscles, gang and let’s go!

‘Til next time,

~Sallie