Creative Writing

One of my favorite ways of coming up with ideas to write about start with a single word. There are many times when just one word can create a great scene, or even an entire world. These are called One Word Prompts, and anyone can create their own list of ideas.

It all starts with a blank computer screen, or a sheet of paper. Then it’s just a matter of letting your mind wander, one word at a time. You can number your list, or just do bullets, whatever makes you happy. And don’t limit yourself to single syllable words, get wild. Use nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, anything goes, as long as you’re writing. Sometimes, just writing that list will get things moving.

Now get inventive. Create new names, ideas, places, and even diseases. It’s your world, use your own words. I once created an entire list of mythological creatures, based on different sounds. For instance, off the top of my head, let’s create the Morphadonalite. A creature that appears as one being during the day, and another at night. Whatever you want, it’s right.

Even when you feel like there is nothing to write about, make yourself write. One word prompts will get you motivated and will start the creative process. And keep that list for future use, add to it as the days go by, and see what genius creations you can come up with.

Do you have a creative personality? I’ve heard it said that in order to be a great writer, you’ve got to have a creative personality. How many times have you used the term, “She’s so creative”, or “Man, I wish I could be as creative as he is”? The thing is that most people are creative in one way or another.

I’m sure you’ve come across a few people out there you were sure just couldn’t create anything if they had to. But if you think about it, in their own way, they were. I used to think that my husband didn’t have a creative bone in his body. He doesn’t write poetry, he’s not the intellectual type, and he hates to watch Jeopardy with me. But in his own way, he is very creative. He’s a mechanic, and has a knack of making things work that probably shouldn’t. He comes up with creative ways to keep our cars running, without spending tons of money.

Being creative doesn’t just fall into one or two categories. When you come up with a new idea for dinner, you’re being creative. When you put together an outfit for a dinner or casual gathering, you’re being creative. When you post to your blog, you’re being creative. It just depends on your personality, as to where your creativity lies.

As you go about your daily life, think about all the different ways your creativity comes through. From the time you start your day, until you get ready to call it a night. You might just be amazed at all the different ways you show the world your creative personality.

It seems that almost everyone out there has a blog these days. Some of them are still used for their personal use, but more and more blogs are being made for the publication of information. The main reason is that they’re much easier to maintain than a traditional website, but it’s also because you can post just about anything you want. So, what does this have to do with creative writing? Everything.

Most people create what are now known as “niche blogs”. These are stylized sites designed to discuss one particular topic, such as creative writing. However, when it comes to making money from these sites, you have to know which keywords or phrases are bringing in the most traffic. The experts will tell you that you’ve got to buy expensive software to find out what these words and phrases are, but no me. I’m cheap and I’ll admit it.

There is a site that you can sign up with for keyword answers. It’s called NicheBotClassic.com and it is 100% free. You can become a member for free, but you don’t have to be a member to use this tool. How it works is this, you simply put in your choice of keywords and/or phrases into the little box provided, and they’ll give you the 50 most popular searches that coincide with your words.

You will also be given a daily predicted search total from the 3 major search engines. Meaning that they’ll tell you how many searches they “think” this keyword(s) will get from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You can also check each of these sites to see how well your competition is doing and who they are. Now, I know what you’re thinking. What in the name of Grandpa Gus does this have to do with creative writing? As I said before, everything.

With some keyword searches, you’ll only get a couple other ideas or phrases that are similar to yours. However, for the most part you’ll get a lot of different terms, and with that, a ton of new ideas. Yes kids, you can use this tool as a way of coming up with new and improved writing ideas. You can also us it to see what others are writing about, and that will give you some idea as to what people are looking for. And when you know what the people want, you’ll know what to give them.

Being a creative writer is only part of the game. You’ve got to be creative in everything you do. Be creative in finding new ideas. Be creative in getting your name out there to the world. And, be creative in keeping up with your competition. After all, you’re creative one, remember?

I am a huge fan of writing exercises. I’ve found several around the Internet that were fun and very helpful, but I’ve found that creating my own exercises can be much more satisfying. Why? Because I’m taking the initiative to keep myself writing. However, I love helping other writers come up with things to write about.

One of my favorite writing exercises is to interview someone I’ve never met. I don’t mean like someone I’ve been fortunate enough to meet online, or a big wig in my region. No, I’m talking about interviewing someone from history, or a literary character who never really was. This is a fun way to get both sides of your brain working as one.

Ok, here’s how I do it. If you try this, do it in whatever way makes you happy. This is just my way. So, first of all, I write out a list of about 10 or 15 questions I’ve always wanted to ask the “interviewee”. For instance, I’ve always wanted to interview someone like Gregori Rasputin. Now it’s a matter of coming up with the questions.

This is where the process takes on a more personal feel. After all, what I want to know from this person may not be interesting to another. It all comes down to what you’d like to know. Write out all the questions ahead of time. Think like a non-fiction writer, do research about the person or character, and inner critic have some say in this.

Once the questions are written, it’s time to send the inner critic away and bring in the creative muse. If you’ve done the research, you’ll have an idea about your choice’s personality. Now go back and answer all those questions from that point of view. You can make your interview serious, educational, or just plain silly. It’s all up to you.

This little exercise will get your creative side motivated. Want a little harder chore? Trying interviewing yourself from 2 different perspectives. Or, let your creative muse interview your inner critic. Sometimes, that’s good for a laugh.

In the end, if you find that you enjoy doing these little interviews, you might think about doing interviews for your own site on real people. It’s a great way to bring traffic to your site, and will give you tons to write about.

There’s an old saying about not judging a book by its cover. However, most stories get judged based on their titles. A story’s title is the initial hook that brings a reader into a virtual world. The same holds true when writing non-fiction. An article’s title is it’s key to success.

I’m always looking for ideas to write about, and sometimes all I need is a little spark to get my creative juices flowing. So, what I do is sit down and just write out different titles. After a while, I hit on something that sounds like a great idea for a story and run with it. However, I have several would-be titles left behind.

Instead of just letting some of these homeless little things sit around with nothing to do, I’ve decided to pass them along to anyone else who might want to use them. No charge. Why? Because it’s what I do. I have another blog called The Prompt Writer that offers writing prompts (ideas) to my fellow writers to do with as they like. I invite you to stop by and check it out. In the mean time, I offer you a few titles of inspiration. (Warning: not all of these titles are great, some aren’t even very good, and a couple might down right suck. But hey, they’re free).

1.) Nothing But The Moonlight
2.) The Daze of Knight
3.) Blue Rose of Tomorrow
4.) Making the Most of Mondays
5.) Wealth of the Poor
6.) The Temple Tablets
7.) Grandeur in a Tiny Room
8.) Beyond the Sailor’s Dream
9.) An Unchained Beacon
10.) Rowing to Rainbow’s End

As I said before, they might not be Pulitzer Prize winning titles, but they might help to get some of your own creative juices flowing. Sometimes, it’s nice to just get a nudge in the “write” direction.