Chris' Christian Blog

September 21, 2019

"September 21, 2019" 

Happy Birthday in Heaven Dad
Marvin L. Schrebe
{September 21, 1934- February 19, 2015)

** Image ID #19997652 Unavailable ** "Prompt: Where or how do you find your creative spark?"

I have always felt a creative spark is something one is born with. All people have the ability to write. If we can communicate with words we can learn to write. Some people however are born with a special talent for writing. They are the storytellers, poets, and philosophers among us. I guess that includes me as I have won several awards on this site and several awards on other sites for my writing. My writing is evolving. In my poetry I am using a lot more metaphors than I once did. I try to eliminate all descriptive words and use only nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions now. I was informed that doing this allows the reader to "interpret" my work and that I am "showing" as opposed to "telling". I have found it to be effective advice and have won multiple awards as a result of following it. I am still trying to incorporate this and a :first voice" into my short stories. I want to tell what is happening as opposed to what happened as in third voice. I will see how that works out. My spark comes and goes like anything else in life. There are days I'd rather not write. I consider myself a professional after all these years and I write to compete. I am either competing for grades in college or competing for prizes on this site and others. Winning things such as Blogger of the Week lets me know to look back on those wins and see what I did different, then try to incorporate that into my writing. Some contests I won't enter because they appear to be popularity contests among friends, If you are not one of those friends you have no chance of winning. I avoid those. I write for fun but winning contests let's me grade myself. Your feedback and comments help me grade myself. My spark is strong today but on days it is not so strong I still manage to write if I find the prompt one I can respond to. Anybody can write. It's just like talking. We do it all the time. I just wish everybody would use good grammar and spelling. The only time I will omit grammar is in poetry. I find the hard stops mess up my intended flow. . So I usually leave out periods and most grammar. I do expect proper spelling though.

Prompt: "Talk about one of your favorite industry (writing) -specific books you’ve ever read. Include some of your favorite passages or quotes."

I really can't do that because I have never read any books on writing. Yes, I took some creative writing courses in school because my teachers recognized the talent in me and tried to enhance that. Most of my skills however come from trial and error. I find the best way to learn something is by doing it. Hands on experience is always the best teacher. There is a site that I use, which has taught me a lot. It is https:allpoetry.com, which has been advertised on here. It taught me the difference between "strong words" and "weak" words. Strong words are nouns, verbs, pronouns, conjunctions, and some prepositions. Weak word are descriptive words like adverbs and adjectives. By avoiding the use of weak words I "show" my reader and allow them to make their own interpretation. Weak word tell them the scene and leave nothing to the imagination. Using strong words only has won me numerous awards. So even though I try to learn by trial and error, I will listen to sound advice.





MarvinDSchrebe

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