Visual & Written Ditties For Writer's Inspiration

I clicked on your writing tips link…lots of good tips there. One said to write your draft and then let it rest. I would add to that to write your first draft as if you're telling yourself the story.

 

I liked the tip:
"Use the right word, not its second cousin. Use good grammar. As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by". Mark Twain

 

People said I'd never be a humorous writer. Well, they're not laughing now.

 

…just thought I'd confess that I had a confusing typo in #61. I meant "good tips". Not "god tips". There are times when God tips are good too haha

 

I think at this time in my life and with the "crowd" I've been mainly conversing with...I'd better stick to writing books for infants and toddlers since my vocabulary skills have been in hibernation for the most part since I've become a Granny.

 

Typo was the other Marx brother.

 

When I studied 19th-century literature, my tutor was an American lady who was very into Gothic novels. I think that Toni Morrison's quote about familiarising the strange would appeal greatly to my old tutor. That, essentially, is what made the best Gothic novelists so good. Wilkie Collins (I love Wilkie Collins!) was brilliant at that. He understood the value of the normal, everyday setting and how to use the familiar locations as the scene for strange events. That brought the Gothic to a readership that could empathise with the characters much more than in a novel by, say, Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe's novels are good, escapist hokum, but nobody can really identify with big castles in Italy. Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is a wonderful parody of Radcliffe, albeit a quite gentle one.

 

Tom…and then of course Edgar Allan Poe. I have his 1st Edition leather-bound "Tales of Mystery and Imagination". Illustrations are equally incredible and haunting by Harry Clarke…who by the way was Irish (1889-1931) and today is St Patricks Day. The book belonged to my Great Grandfather.
Illustrations by this forgotten illustrator (he also did Faust, Hans Christian Anderson, and others): http://50watts.com/Harry-Clarke-Illustrations-for-E-A-Poe

 

Harry Clarke stained glass

 

While reading or writing….you become the character if it's good:

 

Does anyone today, still get "Writer's Cramp"?

 

When focal hand dystonia affects writing, this is called writer’s cramp. Writing can become painful and written work less legible. There are two types: simple and dystonic.