Tag: Inspiration

Why Write At All?

Joan McAndrew 1 Comment
Joan McAndrew

As the newest member of Ascribe Writers it is my turn (I was coerced) to write about writing. Apparently, I am allowed to focus on anything as long as my musings revolve around the fact that I am a writer. 

Well, if that’s true, why is all my written work locked up in legal files that were presented to the courts, insurance companies or employers? Oh right, that’s part of my day job. You know that job… it’s the one we all do so we can do the things we really want to do in our ‘spare time’. 

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Polaroids With Words

Andrée Levie-Warrilow Leave a comment
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Dear Reader,

If you’ve been perusing these blogs over the years, you have pretty much figured out that we Ascribe writers are always keen to flex our writing muscles. That there are all sorts of opportunities for writing exercises – if you keep your eyes and mind open.


The opportunities I’ve had for practicing what I call guerilla writing forays have come from the most mundane moments: riding the bus to work; crossing a street in an unfamiliar city; hearing an exchange while standing in line in the bank; walking up rickety steep stairs in an old lighthouse. I’m sure you have had similar “aha!” moments where you think, ‘ I want to describe this experience, or that little scene would add to a story….’

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Surprise!  How to write a plot twister (and I’m not talking about the weather)

Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

I like a good surprised twist in a book. I love it when a book puts in a major twist that is both believable but that I did not see coming. It’s a tricky balance to manage well. Usually I can spot a plot twister before the wind even gets brisk; mostly because they are set out as if they are slowly spewing volcano.

The smoke is obvious, the billowing soot a give way, so I am not surprised when the volcano “suddenly” spits out the “surprise”.

I am looking for the kind of twist that makes a reader exclaim out loud while reading.  A moment that compels a reader to tell the stranger sitting next to them, “do you know what just happened!”  It’s the whoa – everyone is a ghost – kind of surprise.

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Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent…or is it?

Andrée Levie-Warrilow Leave a comment

Winter is not my favourite season… and it’s not because of the outrageous heating bills, the terror of driving in whiteouts, the dodging black ice in the grocery store parking lot,  the shortened hours of daylight, the cancelled music concerts,  or the wind that blew most of the songbirds south.

It’s because I need colour.

I am a devout gardener; my front and back yards are riots of colours for three seasons. Spring and summer and fall each have their own colour-filled delights and they never last long enough. And I’m a visual artist. I sell paintings filled with a range of  colours that convey every mood and emotion you can put on canvas. Every room in my house is painted a different colour.

And yet where do I live? In a Snow Belt.  Read more

Creating Mood in Storytelling

Bernice Connell Leave a comment

A prologue that I read recently has provided endless inspiration for me.

I’ve studied it many times, deconstructing the composition and trying to pinpoint what impacted me so strongly. The scene that is depicted seems innocuous; a sunny day in a park, families milling around, but the narrator is focused on several individuals apart from the seemingly ordinary setting. Ever so subtly, the narrator describes an almost imperceptible pall that comes over the scene, creating an uneasy dread in me. In less than four hundred words, the author had set the mood and rendered this reader unable to resist turning the page. Read more

Were Your Hands Made for Writing?

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

There have been times, many times actually, where I’ve doubted my ability to make it in the writing industry–to put something to paper that will resonate with others and cause them think and feel something new.

The truth is, although I’ve been writing since I was a young girl; journalling, crafting stories from any experience and writing letters, essays, scientific articles and recording medical records–I hold no degree in creative writing.

Any yet, there are so many things I have mastered in my life, that I learned with my own two hands–not from school. Read more