Reading is largely a disembodied experience, so when we are reminded out of the blue that we have bodies—by the thing doing our disembodying, no less—the result makes our immersion in the work all the stronger.
Take the challenge. Dial up your readers’ emotional investment in your work with embodied language.
Read MoreWriting workshops can be wonderful. They can connect with other writers, build community, and add strong points to your writing CV.
But workshops can also be perplexing and downright frustrating. Whose feedback, if anyone’s, should you prioritize? Do you have to take every suggestion into consideration, even the ones with which you disagree? Read on for Jessica Hatch’s best tips—gleaned from attendance in adjudicated workshops in three different countries—on making the most of your time in the Cone of Silence and beyond.
Read MoreLife can be heavy sometimes, but you can’t beat yourself up about not showing up at the writing desk. In these instances, it’s not a lack of motivation but a lack of resources that’s keeping you from moving forward. If you get mad at yourself for that, it’d be like getting mad at your car for not moving forward if it ran out of gas. This post includes five things you can do when writing doesn’t come easily.
Read MoreI'm a big fan of drawing ekphrastic inspiration from other art forms to inform my own creative writing, and in a stroke of luck (though maybe not for my husband), I recently rediscovered some of my teenage musical theater obsessions. As such, I thought I'd bring up one of my favorite elements to borrow from the world of music—the leitmotif.
Read MoreInstead of forcing my brain to create a lackluster and possibly unconvincing beat sheet, I took my solution straight from the pages of the Player’s Handbook (Fifth Edition) and made all characters involved “roll for it.”
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