Posts Tagged ‘creativity’
Posted on June 18, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
My New Guest Series at Apex: Creating an Alien Language
Blogging for Apex Book Company has been a lot of fun, in part because I get to talk about things that interest me and loosely relate to things that I’m working on as well. I decided to write a series of posts about creating your own alien language, in part because I have to do [...]
Posted on May 31, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
Inside VioletWar.com
One of the things that I’m always conscientious about is providing an image that is both professional and creative at the same time. While I enjoy writing and sharing posts with you on my blog, it’s not the same as what I write for VioletWar.com. There, I can be more personal because people are investing [...]
Posted on May 25, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
A Noise Detox
If you’ve been following my blog, you may have read some of my posts about writing and depression. One of the things I talk about there, is that writing is a solitary activity that is part and parcel to a writer’s ability to focus on what they’re doing. As you know, depression can be caused [...]
Posted on March 17, 2010 - by Monica Valentinelli
Is Blogging and Social Media Affecting Your Ability to Write What You Want?
If you’ve been following my blog, you may have seen my earlier post about Write First, Sell Later where I express how I feel it’s important to separate your promotional time from your writing time.
One of the things that I’ve found is that a timer isn’t “enough” to discipline me to get off of social media or blogging channels to write, write, write. Why? Well, blogging requires one mindset for me; social media requires another. In many ways, blogging requires a “voice” which may vary depending upon the blog.
Posted on October 7, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Writer’s Block? Check out this Horror Plot Generator
It’s often funny how I get ideas from the weirdest places. Last month at a writer’s meet-up, we were presented with some word lists to help foster our creativity for character types. Before I went to the meeting, I was having a terrible week. (I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about.) I was [...]
Posted on April 14, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Not Happy with your Writing? Pick Up a Pen instead of a Keyboard
One of the things that I’ve discovered, is that if you overload yourself on the business of writing and the essentials of everyday life, your writing can be affected in ways that you don’t even realize. I find that this is especially true if you “rush” toward a deadline.
If you find you’re not enjoying your writing anymore, or if you realize that your writing has become crunchy and mechanical, I recommend putting away your keyboard and picking up a physical pen instead. Sometimes, all it takes to create a great story, is to channel the writers of old by getting back to the basics of writing implementation. Sometimes, all you need is a great pen, a journal or an old typewriter and some fancy paper to remind yourself that writing is not just about typing away on your computer. Often, the way we put the words down on the page can have as big of an impact on us as what we’re writing.
Posted on March 28, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Book Trailer for Argentum, My Online Serial Novel
This is the first time I’ve delved into producing video. I’d appreciate you providing me with feedback if you have the time to check out this short book trailer for Argentum, Book One of the Violet War series I’m writing.
Posted on March 14, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Genre Fiction and Why I Can’t Look at a Piece of Pie
As a writer, I’ve found that I really enjoy experimenting with different themes in fiction. My personal preference is to write in the horror, dark fantasy and science fiction genres because of the freedom and flexibility they provide. The settings I create (or write for) offer me the chance to explore heroic and villainous characters in new and interesting ways. You won’t find me writing a lot of gore or stories about “abuse.” I’m more interested in that little bit of light that resides in all of us — even the characters you least expect to see it in.
Posted on March 6, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
The Importance of Chasing Rainbows
“Chasing Rainbows” is a phrase that describes someone who’s going after a dream that’s impractical and foolish. The phrase has often been used to describe writers who have unrealistic expectations of how well they can write and what they are worth. “He thinks he’s Hemingway, but he’s never published anything before. He’s just chasing rainbows.” “Can’t believe she thinks she’s going to make $100,000 off of her first book, she’s just chasing rainbows.”
No one can catch a rainbow, right?
We’ve all known writers who had unrealistic expectations. By “unrealistic” I mean that they expect to make millions of dollars on an uncompleted project or believe that they’re famous and everyone knows who they are — even though they’ve only written one short story for a free magazine. We’ve laughed at them, we’ve made snarky comments privately, and we’ve all rolled our eyes at them — up until one of them does “make” it. Then we wonder how the heck that happened. Was it luck? Fate? What?
Posted on February 14, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy Your Love Haikus!
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today’s the day to celebrate all things love and I can’t think of a better way than to share with you the love poetry from Twitter.
Poetry is a great way to get those creative juices flowing, especially if you need to flex those “descriptive” muscles. Here are the love haikus from [...]
Posted on February 5, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
Spread a Little Love with Haiku Day on Twitter! #littlelove
Posted on January 19, 2009 - by Monica Valentinelli
10 Things You May Not Know About Me
It’s been pretty frigid here the past couple of weeks, and I spent a lot of time embracing Twitter and Facebook moreso than I had in the past. Part of that “social media” hug was to keep up on the tools since I’ve been using them for work. The other part to that online touchy-feel [...]
Posted on May 11, 2008 - by Monica Valentinelli
How to Infuse your Creativity by Researching Tropes, Myths and Beliefs
As promised, I’d like to give you all a little exercise that my fantasy author friends might appreciate and immediately recognize. This is an example of how I do my research, and I’m offering it to you to put more questions in your mind than answers, to challenge not only what you write—but how.
For [...]
My Recent Releases
The Queen of Crows
Download THE QUEEN OF CROWS e-book at DriveThruHorror.com
Watch the Promo Video
Family Games: The 100 Best
Order through Amazon.comThe Bones
Available at Gameplaywright.netRecommended Writing Music
Violet War
Click for Literacy!
