Word by Word

Practical insights for writers from Jessica P Morrell

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Needed: Milestones that Create Change

As your story moves along, each milestone the protagonist encounters will test, stress, and shape him or her in a new  way. It will force a reconsideration or recalibration of who he is. A milestone can be an emotionally-charged event or life passage such as a wedding, funeral, a harrowing childbirth, or death bed scene. […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Jeanette Winterson: Language is freedom

“For me, language is a freedom. As soon as you have found the words with which to express something, you are no longer incoherent, you are no longer trapped by your own emotions, by your own experiences; you can describe them, you can tell them, you can bring them out of yourself and give them […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Short Story Contest

The Writer short story contest kicks off soon, and we want to give you a head start. Choose one of the ocean-themed quotes below as a launching point for your 1,000-word fiction story: “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself […]

Read the rest of this entry »

February

Read the rest of this entry »

Advice to you writers from Kurt Vonnegut

November 5, 2006 Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta: I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Motivational Mondays: Oscar Wilde on happiness

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?” ~ Oscar Wilde

Read the rest of this entry »

Thought for the day:

“Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn’t the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that’s actually the easy part. The hard part is what’s right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also […]

Read the rest of this entry »

A poem for the dark days of December

THE WRITING LIFE Give me the names for things, just give me their real names, Not what we call them, but what They call themselves when no one’s listening – At midnight, the moon-plated hemlocks like unstruck bells, God wandering aimlessly elsewhere. Their names, their secret names. December. Everything’s black and brown. Or half-black and […]

Read the rest of this entry »

December

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick Take: Treasure Nothing

Treasure nothing, be willing to throw out anything. The story you just wrote that you are proud of should not be coddled and worshipped. You can do it again. If your house burned down with all your work inside it, you would still be the writer you are, and you would continue to be worth […]

Read the rest of this entry »