Five Words - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.6

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Always a favorite on this site, I give you five words to use however you wish. Poem, flash fiction, sales pitch - let your imagination be your guide. It is always fascinating to see how each person interprets five words differently. Today's words come from Creativity Games' random word generator.

• profit
• mat
• beggar
• mirror 
• nose

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response. 

Elevator Pitch - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.5

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Write an "elevator pitch" - a short summary of your story that would take no longer than 30-60 seconds to read or tell. Make a person want to read your story in the time it takes to ride an elevator a few stories.

If you are not writing your own manuscript, try to write the elevator pitch for a favorite fairy tale, book or movie. If you are writing your own manuscript, congratulations - after completing this exercise successfully you are well on your way to a good query letter!

Why try this writing prompt? 

When telling an agent, publisher, potential buyer about your story, brevity and clarity are two of the most important things to keep in mind as you unravel a tale of intrigue and substance. 

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, turn a book over and read the book blurb. Or pick up a DVD and read how a writer has summarized a two hour movie into one paragraph. Does it relate the basic elements of the story? Does it give you a glimpse into the genre? Does it make you want to read the book or watch the movie? The writer has done his/her job.


I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response about Cinderella. Far from perfection, it is proof that summarizing a timeless tale in a paragraph takes a great deal of time, effort and persistence. Practice, practice, practice!

Dialogue - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.4

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Pick one of the following pairs (or create your own), and create a dialogue between them.

• Bride and Maid of Honor - 10 minutes before wedding
• Homecoming King and Chess Club President - 25th HS class reunion
• Outgoing and Incoming First Lady - White House moving day
• Young Child and Grandparent - walking around the block
• Priest and Rabbi - at a Dalai Lama speech

The locations are mere suggestions. Love a pair, hate the place? Pick your own! Share what works for you!

When writing dialogue, pay close attention to the way people around you speak. Chances are, they are not grammatically proper. Don't force them to be. Use regional dialects, malapropisms, generational verbiage, shortcuts. 

Speak your characters' dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds authentic. Feel free to say "gonna" and "ain't" if that's how your character would speak.

Be aware - authentic dialogue should not match the voice or grammar of the rest of your story. (Unless told in the first person by one of the characters - but even then, the spoken word should be unique compared to the character's inner monologue.)

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response to a young child and grandmother. 

Clues - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.3

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: To improve your descriptive skills, practice viewing objects in a room not by their title, but what they are. 

photo credit: www.morguefile.com

Do not look at a roll of tape and call it a roll of tape - call it a sticky ribbon wound in a circle. Don't look at a pen and call it a pen - call it a cylinder of ink. 

For today's writercize, compose a clue about an object in your room, and see if we can guess what it is!

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response. 

Note - It is a true story about being lost in translation - based on a conversation that occurred during my first week studying abroad in Italy, in a city where very little English is spoken, after only six months of studying Italian. I figured I could challenge myself by not referring to a dictionary, and instead use the word I knew to describe whatever I wanted to say. At time, it could be quite ... interesting. On one occasion, I thought I was asking for the bill, and apparently asked for a pot of sake instead. The question below took place in a drugstore.

Boomerang: A Mirrored Beginning and Ending - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.2

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Challenge yourself to a little creative flash fiction or poetry. Throw out the traditional concept of beginning, middle and end and merge beginning with end. How? 

Begin and end a sentence, paragraph, short story or poem with the same word. 

Hence, the boomerang - send out a single word and bring it back to round out the story or poem.

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share it with the world. 

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response - a poem beginning and ending with moon.

Author Bio - #AtoZChallenge 3.1

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Every writer or author needs a bio. An author may have multiple bios ranging in levels of personalization and professionalism for book covers, author websites, blogger profiles and query letters. Spend some time crafting your Author Bio today.

Need some great tips on what to include and what to edit? Read this how-to guide by Rachelle Gardner.

Personally, I would recommend something light-hearted for a blog, but drop the hobbies and the humor for anything else.

Click "read more" to see my (third person) author bio from my freelance website.

#AtoZChallenge Kicks Off TODAY! AND Happy Birthday .@ArleeBird !!

It's April, and that means ... A to Z Challenge month in the blogosphere! Don't know what the A to Z Challenge is? It is an opportunity to network with fellow bloggers and populate your blog with amazing content during a marathon (26 posts) through the alphabet during the month of April. Check it out here. If you read this before 10 p.m. EST on April 1, 2013, you can even sign up to join me! If you miss 2013,keep tabs on the sign-up sheet for next year!

And ... even if you don't sign up, there is one way for you to participate on my blog. I am recruiting for a G guest post. Topic can be on anything writing prompt related - you don't even need to focus it on G. The post will go live on April 8, so if you are interested, get in touch with me ASAP at alanagwrites(at)gmail(dot)com.

This is the 4th (or was it 5th by now??) year of the challenge, and my 3rd year participating. (Hence 3.1) The first year I slid through the finish line blogging, exhausted but very excited about the connections I made. However, I probably only visited about 150 blogs on the list. The second year I was smarter about posts - I prescheduled several - but I was waylaid midway with my own posts thanks to a few ill-timed vacations. But, I made it through closer to 700 blogs for a visit! This year, I'm hoping to meet that magical place where I make it through the month and do a great job at supporting the other blogs, while still performing well at my "day jobs" of parenting and journalism. 

I am honored to be a part of Arlee Bird's A to Z Challenge Ambassadors, so about 150-200 of you (depending on the final number of sign-ups) can consider me your personal cheerleader, as I visit and comment and cheer you on at least a couple of times this month. The rest of you may receive sporadic visits from me during the month (more if you comment on my posts!!) but I will try to make it through the entire list for at least one hello before 2013 is behind us.

Arlee Bird is the founder of A to Z Challenge, and a blog marketing guru. He handles 4 blogs of his own, and still makes it a point to visit several blogs a day and assemble a massive team of co-hosts and ambassadors for A to Z. He is particularly wonderful when it comes to encouraging new bloggers, so if you're new to the world of blogging, I highly recommend you pay Lee a visit at Tossing It Out. Comment on his page and let him know you are new, and I can almost guarantee he will reciprocate with a thoughtful visit within a couple of days!

Rumor has it, today is Lee's birthday! 

So, before we get on with today's writercize, would you join me in singing Happy Birthday to Lee, loud and clear?

Ahem .....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR ARLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

Thank you for offering support and inspiration 

to so many bloggers around the world!!

Now, you can check out my A post on the Author Bio separately.