I’m a nerd. I write about writing. I try not to do it too often, but I’ve been publishing here long enough that the – ahem – “few” have added up. So I thought a comprehensive list of all of these kinds of posts might be helpful.
Instead of trying to dig through all the archives or just giving up in hopeless despair, here’s my attempt at helping you wade through the mess of writing I’ve written on writing.
My writing journey
This is how I got into writing in the first place:
- My first class in college
- “Um… this is a message for Marshall Jones“
- How my English professor challenged me
This next series I wrote as a bit of a manifesto on how I wanted to write in the future. If you’re a writer, you might find it helpful too:
Finally, a more practical series on my style. In this one, I tried to analyse how I speak and turn that into writing:
- So yeah, this is (kinda) the way I actually speak
- So yeah, here’re some words I use
- So yeah, my sentence structure and grammar. Fun, right?
- So yeah, this is how I punctuate
And this is where I’ve been since then:
- Write your own timeline
- Monthly life stories
- I forgot I wrote that
- I didn’t write a story last month
- 100 posts I’d like to write
- Penzu: Bringing my journals back online
- Journal prompts: How I start writing each day
- One old journal online: A milestone
- Learning to write dialogue
- 10 reasons I released a pretty lame ebook
- Writing during the day
- WordPress as an online journal
- Why I don’t feel bad writing about Korea anymore
- No, it’s actually how I think
- My NaNoWriMo novel: Revealing what it’s all about
- How I’m learning to tell myself my story
- Can I write a book from posts
Philosophy of writing
Beyond the mechanics of writing day in and day out, this is some of broader thought behind my writing:
- Conversation over writing
- Why I like quotes
- How to sell a butt-load of books
- Darren Rowse’s 4-year-old son’s advice
- The problem with stories
- Writer tension
- Past tense vs. present tense: Two first-person experiments
- The beauty of madeup words
- Create your language
- The art of noticing things
- Language structures and the best way to learn
- How to say something important every day
- Why to write everything down
- Pamphlet: An attractive piece of propaganda
- Writing: A way to scrutinize your thoughts
- A half-baked post about half-baked ideas
- Ready to write
- The importance of including action
- How is your world different?
- Who’s a writer?
Writing tips
These are my suggestions for writing better (or just starting out all together):
- Write a novel with NaNoWriMo
- Talking out a paper: The best way to create a 1st draft
- A fan-spaz-tastic tip for learning to write the way you speak
- How to write about a topic when you don’t know what to say
- How to write quickly
- 4 factors that lead to great stories
- How to create a great quote
- How to sound profound
- 20+ notes from a writing seminar
- How to write a story I’ll enjoy
- Listening for personal vocabulary and phrases
- George Orwell’s advice on politics and the English language
- Having trouble getting started? Some ideas…
Paper tips
Finally, here’s a series I wrote on writing papers, particularly the kind you need for university:
- Papers: A series
- Papers: How to think about the process
- Papers: How to choose a topic
- Papers: How to set up a template
- Papers: How to research
- Papers: How to outline
- Papers: How to write an introduction
- Papers: How to sound academic
- Papers: How to use sources
- Papers: How to write a conclusion
- Papers: How to up a page count
- Papers: How to end
“For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I’m surprised where the journey takes me.” -Jack Dann