NaNoWriMo: Home

Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King's critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work. "Long live the King" hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999--and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it--fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

A comprehensive guide for improving your creative writing, including contributions from David Lodge, Ali Smith, David Almond, and Sir Malcolm Bradbury.The success and popularity of creative writing courses at universities across the country belies the myth that writing can't be taught. The Creative Writing Coursebook, edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, takes aspiring writers through three stages of essential practice: 'Gathering' - getting started, learning how to keep notes, making observations and using memory; 'Shaping' - looking at structure, point of view, character and setting; and 'Finishing' - being your own critic, joining workshops and finding publishers.Fully updated and including a new foreword by Marina Warner and contributions from authors such as Kit de Waal and Amy Liptrot, this is the perfect book for people who are just starting to write as well as for those who want some help honing work already completed. Filled with a wealth of exercises and activities, it will inspire budding writers to develop and hone their skills. Whether writing for publication, in a group or just for pleasure this comprehensive guide is for anyone who is ready to put pen to paper.

This book is a practical guide to creative writing, providing advice on style and form, and help with developing work to be read or heard and how to get published. Drawing on interviews with other writers, and her own long experience as a poet and tutor, Julia Casterton examines many kinds of writing - autobiography, poetry, dialogue, short stories, writing for screen and longer fiction. The third edition includes three completely new chapters, covering preparing poetry for performance and publication, writing your own myth and how to do research. This final chapter will be based on interviews with a novelist, poet and script-writer and will provide a checklist of the stages needed to research a story, poem, novel or film.

Discover Just How Good Your Writing Can Be If you write, you know what it's like. Insight and creativity - the desire to push the boundaries of your writing - strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act- in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night. The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write, and revise like never before - without having to wait for creative inspiration. Brian Kiteley, noted author and director of the University of Denver's creative writing program, has crafted and refined these exercises through 15 years of teaching experience. You'll learn how to- .Transform staid and stale writing patterns into exciting experiments in fiction .Shed the anxieties that keep you from reaching your full potential as a writer .Craft unique ideas by combining personal experience with unrestricted imagination .Examine and overcome all of your fiction writing concerns, from getting started to writer's block Open the book, select an exercise, and give it a try. It's just what you need to craft refreshing new fiction, discover bold new insights, and explore what it means to be a writer. It's never too early to start--not even 3 A.M.

This classic guide, from the renowned novelist and professor, has helped transform generations of aspiring writers into masterful writers-and will continue to do so for many years to come. John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner's lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics-from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner's book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here.

All too many people start a writing project with grand ambitions but reach a crisis of completion. Finishing School helps writers reignite the passion that started them on the project in the first place and work steadily to get it done. Untold millions of writing projects-begun with hope and a little bit of hubris-lie abandoned in desk drawers, in dated files on computer desktops, and in the far reaches of the mind. Too often, writers get tangled in self-abuse-their self-doubt, shame, yearning for perfection, and even arrogance get in the way. In Finishing School, Cary Tennis and Danelle Morton help writers overcome these emotional blocks and break down daunting projects into manageable pieces. Tennis first convened a Finishing School so that writers could help one another stay on track and complete their work. Since they weren't actually critiquing one another's writing, there was no jockeying for the title of best writer or the usual writing group politics; there was only a shared commitment to progress. Without guilt, blame, and outside critique, students were more productive than they imagined possible. Through this program, they were able to complete novels that they'd been struggling with for almost two decades, finish screenplays drafts, and revive interest in long-neglected PhD theses. In this book, the authors share this proven and easily replicable technique, as well as their own writing success stories.

Data meets literature in this "enlightening" (The Wall Street Journal), "brilliant" (The Boston Globe), "Nate Silver-esque" (O, The Oprah Magazine) look at what the numbers have to say about our favorite authors and their masterpieces. There's a famous piece of writing advice--offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in between--not to use -ly adverbs like "quickly" or "angrily." It sounds like solid advice, but can we actually test it? If we were to count all the -ly adverbs these authors used in their careers, do they follow their own advice? What's more, do great books in general--the classics and the bestsellers--share this trait? In the age of big data we can answer questions like these in the blink of an eye. In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, a "literary detective story: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and intriguing" (Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By), statistician and journalist Ben Blatt explores the wealth of fun findings that can be discovered by using text and data analysis. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and then he asks the questions that have intrigued book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? What makes a great opening sentence? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring? All of Blatt's investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to enjoy the book. On every page, there are new and eye-opening findings. By the end, you will have a newfound appreciation of your favorite authors and also come away with a fresh perspective on your own writing. "Blatt's new book reveals surprising literary secrets" (Entertainment Weekly) and casts an x-ray through literature, allowing us to see both the patterns that hold it together and the brilliant flourishes that allow it to spring to life.