Write because you want to write, because you need to write, because you are driven to write, because when you don’t write you start feeling squirrelly. Don’t write for fame and adulation–because the chances are, you won’t get it. Go to any bookstore and scan the shelves of published authors for names you never heard of. You are not likely to win a Pulitzer or a Nobel Prize for literature. You aren’t likely to make it on Oprah–especially now that she is bringing her show to a close! Even the non-paying literary journals are very competitive.

Botom Line: putting your work out into the world is likely to result in a lot of rejection. Learn to live with it. And keep writing.

If you find yourself stuck–whether at the beginning, middle, or end–try getting unstuck by making a physical change: use pen and paper instead of a word processor; write in a different room; write at a time of day that is not your usual/preferred writing time. Such changes shift perspective and help to create a new view of the work.

List three or more words that, although they sound the same, can mean three or more things. For example teas, tees, tease; to, two, too; bases, basis,basses. Write a paragraph that uses all of the versions of your words.

List three or more words that, although spelled and pronounced the same, have different meanings. For example, tear, crunch, crop. Write another paragraph that incorporates all of the versions of the words chosen.

The purpose of this exercise is to increase awareness of written and spoken words that might–at least briefly–be confused by a character or the reader.

Remember the post on adverbs a while back? Well, similar advice applies to other modifiers. Make sure they add something to the story. “Very” should be on your hit list, along with all sorts of weasel words and phrases, such as a little, a lot, big, small, somewhat, sort of. . . You get the idea. Take a stand. Don’t shilly-shally.

Don’t have characters tell each other things they already know just because the reader doesn’t know those things. For example, if two sisters are talking, it’s highly unlikely that one would say, “When Mom and Dad adopted our brother John, I was devastated.” Find another way to convey relevant relationships or bits of backstory to the reader.

Another no-no is to have an exchange between two people weighed down by repeatedly calling each other by name. “Hello, John.” “Hi, Sharon.” “How are you doing, John?” “Oh, Sharon, I am so low I have to reach up to touch bottom.”

A third negative is putting in greetings and leave-takings that are pro-forma, tell us nothing about the characters, don’t move the story forward. Just because they would happen in real life doesn’t mean that every amenity has to be spelled out to the point of diluting the scene.

Write about the perils and/or pleasures of Sunday mornings. It can be Sunday mornings in general, or it can be a specific Sunday morning. It can be past or present. It can be something that actually happened (or has happened). It can be what you hope for or fear.

Whatever path you take, be sure to use specific, vivid details. Try to engage all five senses. Use dialogue if possible.

Recall the last time you were in a place of worship. Write about where you were, why you were there, what you were thinking and feeling, what happened.

Now recall the last time you were at an athletic event. Where was it? What was it? Why were you there? What were you thinking and feeling? What happened?

Now write a story in which you combine half of the elements in one of these events with half of the elements in the other event. Reconcile the disparate parts to make a coherent whole–even if that takes you into magical realism or some other unexpected genre.

Longer, more complex sentences are much smoother and more graceful on the page than in the mouth. If you want dialogue to sound real, listen to it–literally. Reading silently, your brain fills in and evens out. So, when you feel your work is in pretty good shape, read it aloud. Any place you stumble needs to be reworked. Reading your work aloud–whether prose or poetry–helps identify rough patches, awkward words, and other problems. If feasible, it’s even to have someone else read your work aloud for you.  Good listening!

Whether describing a person, a place, a thing, or a process, long detailed descriptions–unrelieved by action–are likely to be deadly. If very well done, readers will get so involved in the description, in visualizing exactly what the author had in mind, that they are taken out of the story itself. If not well done, those passages are likely to be skipped altogether. Elmore Leonard advises leaving out the parts that readers skip anyway. Replace length with strong, vivid, memorable language.

In describing people, go for details that will help define the character for the reader. For example, in describing an employee saying, “Her dress was black and blue and ruffled, better suited to a ballroom than a boardroom,” would not create the same image in the mind’s eye of every reader but it’s likely to convey the same impression–which is generally much more important.

And consider not describing transportation at all. If you need to get your character from New York to Philadelphia, put her in a car, a plane, or a train and get  her out again and let it go at that–unless something important to the story happens in transit. Even then, skip as much of the before and after as possible.

Finally, leave out the parts of routine actions that the reader can assume. For example, if a man is going out and locks the door behind him, we know without being told that he had already opened the door and closed it again.

Conglomeration is another of those words I love because it sounds so much itself. Technically, it has to do with a spherical shape, and disparate things brought together in one. But its more common usage, of miscellaneous or even random things brought together (no particular shape) make it a very useful word. Try writing a sentence–a scene–a whole story–around “conglomeration.”