Category: How to Write
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Solve Your Sophomore Slump
Have you ever thought you’d figured out the formula to success only to get crazy stuck right after? Mary Volmer hit that sweet spot all of us writers hope to arrive at when she published her first novel, Crown of Dust. But when it came to the second one, she hit a roadblock. Sound familiar?…
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How to Ditch Your Goals and Still Get Ahead
Lately, we at Conzpire have been talking about FUN. We’ve been goal-oriented in the past, we’ve worked hard and we’ve passed up opportunities so that we can live purpose-driven lives. But sometimes we get so caught up in the greater meaning of things that we get stressed out, stop sleeping, forget to eat (those guys,…
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Want to Make a Living as an Award-Winning Writer? Minal Shows Us How.
Write a kickass book proposal, hook an agent and land a publisher – every writer’s fantasy, right? That’s exactly what happened to Minal Hajratwala back in 2001. Except instead of living her dream, she felt mired in a nightmare. The book she finally wrote, Leaving India, ended up winning a bunch of awards. And Minal now does live…
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How to Write, Pronto!
You’ve written your first chapter! Hooray! At least, that’s what you thought your friends would say. Along with popping a bottle of champagne for you. Instead, they keep asking when you’ll be done already. Your throat tightens. After all, you spent five months in an isolated haze to give birth to that pearl of a…
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Curse Your Character
Has anyone else ever gotten something they’ve longed for forever and then thought, That was IT? Now what? I shot up to my present height of 5’6” by the time I was 12. Back in Malaysia, the kids at school called me “Satay Stick” or Popeye’s ungainly girlfriend “Olive Oyl.” My aunties lamented my unattractive…
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Want to Be a Better Writer? Read Like One.
Beyond the fun of it, reading writers you admire is a great way to unlock your own literary potential. You don’t have to be an English Lit major. You don’t have to write a tiresome book report. These three simple steps will get you reading and improving as a writer. Step One: Study the masters…
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Laura’s Three-Layer Cake Approach to a Tasty Career
Today, Laura Shin is in freelance writing bliss. She contributes regularly at Forbes and is author of the ebook “The Millennial Game Plan: Career And Money Secrets To Succeed In Today’s World.” Her articles have appeared in the likes of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Audubon, Slate, Yoga…
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Writing Challenge: Deepen Your Characters With This Technique
What makes chocolate the darling of the dessert world? What separates it from mere confectionary? My theory: chocolate doesn’t pander. It has the audacity to be bitter. It’s exactly that undercurrent of bitterness that swathes it in the complexity and range so worthy of food faddists and traditionalists alike. Its contradictions give it the depth…
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How One Writer Got Paid to Develop a Novel
To get answers for the Fund Your Passion Project series, I turned to Shruti Swamy. Her passion project? A fiction novel exploring themes of blindness. And as the 2012 W.K. Rose Fellow, she got paid $50,000 to work on it. Here, she spills on the habits that got her living her dream. MY WRITING REGIMEN…
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Battling Your Limiting Beliefs
Fiction writer Yuri Tanaka* thinks she’s nearing the end of her novel. When she’s busy being mom to her two kids or working part-time to support her family, she’s slaved away at this novel. Yet its completion actually worries more than thrills her. “I think I’m actually afraid of finishing my novel,” she says. “When…