Tag Archives: reading

Writers Don’t Just Read, They Examine

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One of the most common “tips” you are likely to hear for writers is that you have to read. And read a lot. Read in your genre. Read out of your genre. Read everything.

I completely agree with this and it’s going to be somewhat my focus for this post.

If you want to be a filmmaker, you should be a fan of film. If you want to make sculptures, you should know about sculpting. If you want to be a coder, you need to know coding languages.

If you want to be a writer, you have to read similar writing to what you want to write. There’s a few good reasons for why this is so: Continue reading →

The Moment

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We’re turning things around here on Panning for Clouds this Thursday with a little walk down memory lane.

The Moment. It’s different for everyone. That second when you realize that thing you enjoy doing in your spare time is a thing you maybe could see yourself doing professionally.

I’m a writer. To be clear, that is not my professional title, but it is the title that sparks my imagination, gets me up in the morning, pushes me ever onward and upward. It is the framework through which I view the world. Some people are tactical, some are logical or a hundred other things, and some are a little bit of everything. I’m a writer and that means I write. Fiction, specifically, is my passion, but I’m always searching for a clever phrase, a funny bit of dialogue, a way to say something in a way no one has ever said it before. I’m looking to put thoughts, emotions, and ideas together in ways that touch people’s hearts and minds.  Continue reading →

1K a Day – “It Inspires Me”

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Seventh in the 1K a Day Motivational Series, in which I talk about something that happened in the previous week that could have or did prevent me from writing a minimum of 1,000 words on a given day, or possibly talk about something that provided support to get me through the day.

This past week I was working through some bad days at work, just in general feeling a little bit nonplussed about writing or creation in general. I’ve been spending so much more time writing this year on account of the challenge that I’ve been giving less time to the inspirational pursuits of reading, watching movies and TV, playing video games, and the like. By the weekend I had begun to feel particularly drained of inspiration, which is to say I wanted to stop writing.

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