Eneh Akpan Writes: Creative writing

Showing posts with label Creative writing. Show all posts

Saturday, March 1, 2014

10 Favorite Sites I Found While Googling

When I was new to the internet, I was engrossed by the internet phenomenon called googling probably, just like everybody else. I plugged words and phrases which fell in line with creative writing or literature into the popular search engine and let it go to work. Much of the stuffs I ran into on the result page were... well, search results. I didn't have much use for these but there were sites which tipped the scales and reined me in, readily. I was obliged to browse beyond the landing page. I'd like to list a few of these Googling bounties in this post. I imagine it would be the reasonable thing to do considering the great deal of insight I gained trucking with these online resources.

1. Writing.Com:

This is the premier online writing community and the site I ever signed up for. And it is ‘where the writers go.’ I googled the word writing. And this site was the first to come up on the result page. I was drilled in the art of writing on this online community.

This is where I was introduced to one of my favorite writers Stephen King.

2. Lifewrite.com:

Before I went deep on writing.com, I was all over this site. Steven Barnes, the owner of the site and a mentor reawakened my passion for fiction writing. Over 400 newsletters on the craft have been delivered to my inbox. There are also lessons on personal development.

3. WritersDigest.com:

I can'remember what exactly I was hunting for on Google when I stumbled on this site. But I know whatever it was don't matter anymore; I've been coming back for more since I discovered WritersDigest.com. 93+ years and still going strong, this website is always pulling new stunts to keep a writers’ creative juice flowing.

4. Wikipedia.org:

I don't know how popular Wikipedia was when I went online but I got my hands on this loaded web-based encyclopedia by googling. It’s amazing how much information I have accessed for articles through researching Wikipedia.

5. FictionFactor.com:

Now there's one website that's true to type. I probably googled the word fiction and the giant search engine coughed this one up. Did a lot of print outs too. Fiction writers can access abundance of writing resource right here.

6. About.com:

As the name implies, you'll find information about almost anything on this site. I'm almost certain my search term included the word about. About.com goes bores deep into the heart of its subjects with its how-to articles. No dull moments here only copious party favors.

7. NPR.org:

Here's one that takes me back full circle. I was curious to know what Stephen King sounds like so I plugged the phrase “Stephen King Audio Interview(s) into the Google homepage.” I got npr.org (National Public Radio) for my troubles and my, did it pay? It’s probably, where I heard Tabby (King’s wife) mention Stephen King married her for her typewriter. *coughs*

8. CreativeWritingPrompts.com:

I went hunting for writing prompts and got a little more than I bargained for. I kept coming back, too. I used some of my finds for my annual 30 day fiction challenge. You ought to give this site a shakedown if you’re stuck for inspiration. It’s guaranteed to thrill.

9. NaNoWriMo.org:

I know this one's really popular I could have found it without Google but I did not. A site like this one was like a dream come true for a young writer; a community which challenges writers to create a novel in 30 days was too good to be true only it wasn’t. Last year, I finally, wrote the first draft of my novel thanks to nano (or should I say thanks to Google?).

10. Blogger.com:

I discovered a few blogging sites through Google. My writing instructor had me search for them, signed up with a few actually. But somewhere down the line, I got stuck with blogger. This blog is one of the first I created and it’s gradually evolved into my principal platform.

Dare I say, I have been made better (enhanced seems the appropriate word) by these and a few other sites which I have withheld (or this post would be much longer and I’m not really up for that). So, what are your googling keepsakes?

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Monday, September 9, 2013

Allure of Paper

When I was younger, I always packed a pen and a notebook or at least, a sheet of foolscap paper (somewhere down the line I switched to A4 papers for the most part, because you could get one of these at the store round the block). Tucked away carefully within the reach of my arms in the back of my pants pocket, I trudged everyplace in the company of my writing tools. Even at that tender age, I’d featured the muse was an interestingly fickle agent of the creative genius. And I set myself up to max his erratic tendencies.

Paper Weaving (Photo credit: FeatheredTar)

Tablet phones and the IPad have warmed themselves to the hearts of millions of writers all around the world. These gadgets have somehow managed to ease off the burden of having to truck with journals thanks to ever-increasing insurgence of writing apps. Amusingly enough, I still find myself enthralled by the sight of a blank page.

I can’t shake the feeling that swallows me up and runs me over when I spot a conventional notebook or a sheet of paper. My fingers become itchy and I grow restless; paper confronts me with a throbbing nostalgia for the good times I’ve had when I was scribbling poetry in entirely remote orbits when I was just a kid trying to perfect my act. I don’t think I’ll ever really get over the allure that paper has on me.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Good Writers Are Exceptionally Good Liars

Photo credit: blog.mjscott.net

You pick up a good book to read it (fiction in this case) and you find the story too close to the bone to be anything but a record of a real life situation. I sometimes, catch myself beating my tracks back to the front page trying for the 'Disclaimer' (This is a work of fiction blah, blah, blah).

A good book translates you to a space where fiction no longer reads like fiction. You start making illogical assumptions and arriving at ambitious conclusions-naive contrivances to the objective mind. This is too real to be make-believe, you tell yourself.

I started this blog back in '09 on the heels of my creative writing instructor's suggestion. I appreciate her for going to such trouble to make me see reason: she wanted me blogging so I could develop a personal writing voice in point of fact.

Her second reason was quite intriguing; regular bloggers are offered a rare privilege of grooming a faith in their writing voice which they then, transport into their fiction. The credibility of their story is reinforced, as a result.

My instructor said blogging is like the laying of a foundation. You post anything you want on your blog; it's one surefire way to discover your writing voice and fix the timidity of the guy on the inside. There is also the issue of the authoritative voice to deal with. And that's the point I'm driving at.

The attitude of authority is the boost that feeds your fiction and sends it in over the transom, yet, maintains a ring of reality. The mindset of belief in the real things you blog about used to sharpen the unreal stuff in your fiction.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Mark Twain

That's the beauty of it all. The pivotal thrust of fiction. The ability to 'distort' known fact, to cook up a story and still deliver on the payload. I've made something of a lifestyle from reading the introduction/foreword to novels before setting myself up for the main event that is, the story. I am often than not fascinated by the ordinary, uneventful occasions, which inspire a 700 – 1000 page-turner.

Writers never call what they do "lying". Such words don't do it for their trade. A writer's job is not a profession of deceit rather it's the writer's duty to take the reader by the hand and lead him/her into a world of might-have-beens. Taking pains to dig into the depth of things, tackling the utmost degree of the "what-if" question.

There is an element of truth in every genuine work of fiction. But unless the story is presented as the narration of a eyewitness, the theme and the overall purpose of plot is defeated.

A good writer brings his experience to bear on his competence to warp the facts and present a story that plows through the brain and reaches straight for the heart without putting his foot in it.

However, it is always the best policy to speak the truth unless of course, you can spin an exceptionally good yarn on a string of lies.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Short Story: Best Route to Mastery of Fiction

‘Young writers shouldn’t kid themselves about learning to write. The best way to do that is to train yourself in the short story.’

– Ray Bradbury

Writing stories is the same as trying to create a universe off-the-cuff. The game of fiction writing can be a trifle seedy sometimes. What’s more? Plenty of times, a writer gets stuck in a work with a goodish length, loses the rhythm that set the story in motion in the first place and then quits, altogether.

Here’s a tip, if you’re new to fiction writing, the short story would be a good place to start. The reason is simple enough: a novel requires more energy and skill, more commitment and time. But a short story can help you get a taste of story structure.

A novel is a series of short stories lumped together to create a bigger piece of literature. Many things happen in a novel–many lives erupt and must settle into a rich and meaningful stew by the time the script arrives at the resolution. Only a writer drilled in the tool of fiction can achieve such feat.

‘A novel is like running a marathon. Would you run a marathon if you’d never successfully run around the block?’

– Steven Barnes

Nevertheless, the basic concept of story remains the same for both forms of fiction. Description, narrative, dialogue, character development and other intrinsic aspects of plot, which are curtailed in short fiction become magnified and refined in a longer project like a novel.

Photo credit: Flickr

You can better teach yourself the art and craft of story while experimenting with plot, dialogue, theme and character development if you exercise with the short fiction.

Without a foretaste of the shorts, you might very well quit half way through your novel manuscript. In point of fact, starting with a novel might be an excuse to avoid writing anything to completion.

You’ll learn greatly if you stick with short stories. Going for lengthy jobs like novels might mean setting yourself up for disappointments–you may come to despise fiction as a whole.

Save yourself the time and the trouble.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Sunday, August 26, 2012

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing A Story

Story is about story. And no character is indispensable.

If you can remember these two rules, you will hurt fewer people in your art of story writing. Writing a story sometimes, is like telling on people. However, how the writer handles sensitive situations and, on the other hand, delivers a wonderful story into our bosom is an attestation to the storyteller’s mastery of human emotions.

For every writer, at some point, the bulk of the worry shifts from how to write a story to how to write a story and not hurt people. I think what I have here is a fair bargain if the only thing you yield is your time.

1. Randomly Selecting Names for Your Characters –

For the love of God, do not pick names associated with your locale. In deference to people’s feelings and if you honor your integrity as a writer. Nobody would like to read about their obituaries or scenes describing their termination in the hands of some monstrosity in your story.

If you write horror like I do, do not slaughter your neighbors in your story if you want to live to tell another story.

2. Duplicating Sexual Characteristics –

I started typing How to Write a Story and not Worry about Hurting People as the title of this post and then opted for the one you now have, instead. The basic idea the former title represented is still the bottom line of this post.

Injecting the personal experience into your stories means you can’t not talk about people you meet each day. In the special cases where your story involves embarrassing scenes, which you can’t afford to toss out because it is relevant to the flow of story, here’s one positive step you should take: change the gender of the real people when adding them into the story. It’s one sure-fire method of loosening the impact of discomfort on the real people recreated in your story.

3. Using the Original Setting –

Unless you’re writing a personal essay or a memoir (which, in any case demands that every rambling around other people’s private business be severely curtailed), you don’t have to reproduce the original setting of incidence as your fictional geography.

The month of June had me buried up to my elbows in a writing challenge I set up for myself. I called it NaShoWriMo and challenged myself to write 30 short fiction in 30 days. I think I came off with about 30,000 words in all. Much of what came out was crap but I guess I can live with that. The stories were all drafts, anyway. Now, here’s the real whopper; I can tick off the fingers of my left hand those occasions I mentioned Nigeria in those whacky thirtysome short stories (and I assure you those fingers are not more than five).

I write speculative fiction with emphasis on horror. And since I couldn’t predict how my fellow countrymen would buy into the idea if I murdered them over and over again in my stories, I improvised. If that sounds loco to you, I won’t argue.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that where you choose as the setting for your stories matter. People who live in those places might react. For better or worse. The accent is on worse.

4. Tinkering with Peculiar Personality Traits –

Everybody in the neighborhood knows Papa Jones loves fingering his prick after five or six beers. And here you are a young fine writer, writing a pretty good short story about an aged protagonist who exhibits traits similar to Papa Jones’. The irony of the whole business is that Papa Jones’ son is the local law.

If you’re lucky, you might end up with a broken jaw. On other hand . . . they don’t exactly build those lock-up cells for nothing, do they?

It’s best to focus on story. Leave off any explicit description that might earn deserved chastisement. And ‘thou shalt not get paid for your stories in cuffs and blows.’ That’s in the Bible, Egyptians, chapter ten.

5. Choice of Genre –

You really have to take special care when you pick a genre to write in. Many people don’t care if the story gets a happy ending or not. The genre you select can make the difference between like or dislike for your work.

Writing for yourself is still the best approach to writing terrific stories. The story is always your story whether people accept it or not.

Write for yourself!

Let your pen bleed.

Akpan

Friday, December 4, 2009

Write Everyday

Write everyday!

This advice has not been stressed enough. Anything, everything that's worth reflecting on deserves a place in your journal!

All around us we find opportunities to be distracted. Whenever we access the coven of tranquility these distractions could become nuggets.

What do you write about?

How about, 'Time and again I tried to immerse my soul in the velvet caress of silence, but the madness of commotion held my thoughts aloof . . . feet dangling like a man in a noose. Impossible to communicate with my inner self I gave up and yielded in total helplessness to noise. Disconcerted, I became a subdued prisoner or captive of the writer's foremost enemy . . .

The point is anything you jot down in an attempt to perfect your writing style, to keep your muse fired, stretches the capacity of your imaginative genius.

Pick up your pen and write away, or flip open your laptop and stab at the keyboards like you are falling behind schedule 'cause you are if you haven't been at this.

Bestselling novelist and screen writer, Steven Barnes said:

'Any skill you wish to master must be addressed everyday'

Everyday.

As naturally as you consider eating and taking water. Chew on that for a while . . .

Did you know that the reason you remember to nourish your body by feeding it is because you have made a habit of it? It wouldn't be that easy if you had to remind yourself to eat before you could fill your tummy. But you have by persistent practice subjected your body to respond to nutrition by stimuli.

You can train your senses too to surrender to your muse. You can conquer those inner struggles that try to curb your enthusiasm.

The world is waiting for the birthing of a genius. Do not restrict your liberty to express your innermost being, that solitary opportunity to be one with the inner mystery by reducing your destiny to a game of chance.

Write Everyday!

And you must. It's your only ticket to perfection!

Akpan