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by Stu Leventhal
A lot of you have been asking about website marketing that has to do with building an author related career on the internet. Many of you are struggling to make a living with your passion, creative writing. Many of you write part time and hold down a second job to pay most of the bills. We all realize the internet is the biggest market place for new writers of all kinds to make an impression and offline is where the big bucks dwell. You have to play the game if you ever want to win. There is a definite need for quality writers of every genre online. There are also tons of people who want you to write for free! But online is where you should start. Prove yourself, build a following then approach the off line literary moguls. Once you have a readership they’ll welcome you with open arms!

Online and offline, the writing world is full of unscrupulous characters so one has to be careful. Quite frankly, I never was very careful. I got burned plenty of times and I’m still being plagiarized all over the net, especially by the article spinner crowd. I guess I should feel flattered that they deem my text worthy of copying. My attitude always was, I just want to be read. I don’t care much about copy writing everything I type, but that is just me. I understand completely the feelings of worry and helplessness when a young writer sends out query letters or emails a script. Will someone steel your idea and not give you any credit? Sure, it happened to me and it probably has happened to most professional writers of any quantity of work. The only thing I can say to console you is that the people who copy and steel make a quick score but they can’t put out the quality of work as the real deals can time and time again.

For real creative writers, there is never enough time in the day to write what you want to write, to plot out your next piece, to rewrite just one more time. I have beginnings of stories that have been lying around for years that I can’t get back to finish. One has to prioritize. There will be stories in your mind that you never get to pen. For years, I’ve been hoping to find time to write a mystery based around a rock and roll band. Now, don’t steal my idea! But truthfully, I don’t mind sharing that idea because there is plenty of room for a few rock and roll mysteries on the book shelves today. The point is, when you submit your work to an editor or literary agent they sometimes agree with you that your idea is terrific but feel your name doesn’t have the clout to make them money. They turn you down, reject your book then tell their star author about the idea they came up with…your idea! Most of the time you won’t even find out your idea was stolen. This is the industry you’ve chosen to dabble in. Take solace in the fact that there are plenty of other industries just as shady!

So, how does a creative writer protect one’s self and their work while they wait to be discovered? My strategy, and it may not be the best strategy, has always been to keep doing what you do best. Write! Keep getting better and better at writing. Keep sending more and more work out there. Publish when and where you can regardless of the pay! Even if someone wants something for free. I wouldn’t spend too much time on a freebee unless it was for a good charitable cause but I wouldn’t turn down anyone who is willing to publish me. Consider the publicity and promotional worth of everything you publish more important than the actual pay you get. I know what it is like to yearn for a time when you will be finally able to quit that corny day job and write full time. But, you have to build your credibility in order to catch the eye of a webmaster paying top dollar per word. He wants the best writing on a subject period and the cold hard facts are these players would rather pay tons of money to steal a writer away from one of their competitors than take a chance on an unknown.

So, how do we get that good writing job, land that big contract, sell our first of many novels? Well, you are a writer, so you should use your strength, writing, to get people’s attention. Isn’t that why you write? You don’t write stuff then put it in a box so no one can see it. You want to be a ‘Paper Back Writer’ for the fame and recognition just like in the Beatles song. So let’s write and then let’s make sure everyone everywhere reads us! In this day and age the best medium to accomplish fame and then fortune is the internet. Now, most of you have been avoiding learning the ropes of internet marketing. I get it, you just want to write, and you aren’t a salesman! This attitude means you write an article that is great, post it on the web but no one knows it is there so only a few people read it. A competing writer writes and posts a similar article that isn’t nearly as well thought out or researched as yours but they know SEO, search engine optimization and SEM, search engine marketing and they understand social media so everyone reads their article. People tweet about your competitor’s article and re-post it on Facebook then your competitor gets the credit from all that and everyone hails him with praise. Eventually someone mentions your competitor’s name to a literary agent who signs him and all you have to say for yourself is “But I’m a much better writer than he is!”

Any writing career in 2013 and beyond means learning and knowing the internet. The more you know the better you will fare! Even if you sell all your writing offline, you will do much better if you market and promote yourself and your work online too! Getting a writing job offline is still the coveted goal. Writing hard and soft cover books still pay more and are more prestigious than downloads online due to the reputation that online books and online authors have since many people feel, anyone can publish a book himself online. And, since the reality is that many people do publish their own books online and plenty of them are subpar, the good writers suffer the consequences. Still you can’t fight a losing battle. If you want to be a writer today, you must promote yourself online. You need a website showing off your accomplishments and telling people where they can find all your work to read more and more. To get higher pay for your writing you must show you have a following. It’s no longer good enough to just submit your work. You have to add your bio and state how many followers you have on Facebook and Twitter because many editors, down want to be bothered.

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Read these courses and you will not only advance your own career by knowing how to gain exposure for yourself and your work but you will become more valuable to the clients you write for because you can advise them on how they too can leverage your quality writing best to get the most out of it. This will all lead to your being able to charge more for your writing!

Another great five dollar course, ‘How to Start a Newsletter’ can be had at: http://a.5rr5.co/s/3wimf5

Stay tune for more authors and writer advice on how to build your online presence, self-promote and gain tons of creative writing readers and loyal fans!

by Stu Leventhal

Now a days, Creative Writers and authors of all kinds are almost expected to have at least one personal blog. Many writers maintain a couple of blogs, at least one or more pertaining to each niche that they write for. When you become an authority on a specific subject you can demand a higher price for your work. A writer whose blog is on the first page of Google commands attention. Also impressive to show one’s potential clients are your past articles, essays and stories that have accumulated a few thousand likes. Having a large amount of Facebook followers is noteworthy too.

The fact that not every writer enjoys writing on a blog like platform or that many writers and authors view blogging as well as social media posting a amateurish writing, is of no concern to clients. Many of the people who do the hiring of freelance writers need to be able to justify their decisions to people hire up the ladder. Showing that the creative writer they hired has a large internet following is all the proof they need.

Whether us fellow scribes respect bloggers and blogging as a legitimate literary art form or not doesn’t seem to matter very much to the masses. Blogging is here to stay! Not only has blogging become a large part of social interaction, it has also become a big deal for businesses of all types to have and maintain a blog.  Even government agencies, schools and institutions are getting in on the act. For this reason it has become very necessary for writers of all kinds, types and styles to learn SEO search engine optimization and SEM search engine marketing. Yes, even if your, creative writing specialty is as far removed from big business as one can get, for example, a children’s fairy tale author. Book publishers want new authors to prove themselves before they’ll even glance your way.

The best way to gain an offline book publisher’s attention is to build a large online fan base. This means playing the internet game; social media, blogging and even possibly creating your own website. If you can’t beat them join them. Whether you like surfing the web or not it is a good idea for any writer, new or established to invest time and maybe even some money in building an online presence. In the long run, when your offline books hit the book stores, you’ll already have a large amount of them sold via the internet.

If you already sell a lot of your writing to be published on the internet then you probably know that you can command a lot more for your work if it is written in a way that the search engines like it to be written. Good, SEO, search engine optimized writing is in high demand. This is because it is more difficult to write in a way to please both robots and people. People pleasing text may flow from your fingertips on to the computer screen but search engines scan your writing for repeating words in order to determine what your piece is about. It takes skill and art to repeat the same words and phrases over and over for the search engines to grasp and not end up with writing that sounds silly, incompetent and/or is annoying to people.

Until the search engines acquire the technology to interpret text in a similar way that humans interpret text it will be advantageous for any writer to take at least a basic course or two in SEO and SEM. It will help you advance your career as well as assist you in building up your online reputation. And, your writing will be more marketable!

If you need a strong inexpensive course on how to get traffic and visitors to your author website or writing blog, you will learn all you need here:
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Read these courses and you will not only advance your own career by knowing how to gain exposure for yourself and your work but you will become more valuable to the clients you write for because you can advise them on how they too can leverage your quality writing best to get the most out of it. This will all lead to your being able to charge more for your writing!

Another great five dollar course, ‘How to Start a Newsletter’ can be had at: http://a.5rr5.co/s/3wimf5

Stay tune for more authors and writer advice on how to build your online presence, self-promote and gain tons of creative writing readers and loyal fans!

by Stuart Leventhal

No one knows everything they can possibly know about the world of creative writing. Creative writing is an ever evolving craft. Good writers experiment with new styles and techniques all the time. Pushing oneself with attempts to take one’s craft to higher levels is how we learn, grow and become better writers. Reading other authors’ works on any subjects we can find, exposes us to different ways of expressing our self and teaches us different methods of communicating what we wish to say. Reading everything you can get your hands on is one way to gain a larger vocabulary which will serve you well throughout your writing endeavors. But a lot more goes into writing good text than just knowing a lot of big words.

If you really wish to develop your writing craft through reading, you need to start reading everything with a very critical eye. Forget about the subject of the piece and break down how it was structured. Ask yourself, why do you like this piece? What don’t you like about this piece? What could the author have done better? What would you have done differently? If the piece gets boring at one point try to figure out what can be done to cure that problem without changing the whole focus of the author’s work. Can you identify a signature style of wordsmithing in the piece? Why do you think the author choose to word things the way he did? If you are reading a story, why did the author lay out the form the way he did. Why tell it in the first person as if the story was about himself instead of using the third person technique and writing the same tale through the eyes and thoughts of one of his other main characters? How would the story change if it was told from a different character’s view point?

Reading a lot is definitely a key to learning how to write better. But, it is very important for young writers to force themselves to read stuff that is outside of their comfort zone. Regardless of whether a specific literary genre is the category of writing that you excel at or are trying to learn more about, every creative writer can always find writing tips and advice of significant value by reading and especially studying other writing niches other than their chosen field. A poet or song lyricist for instance can benefit greatly from listening to the lessons or insight given by a top newspaper reporter who is mentoring young journalists. And young journalists can certainly gain knowledge, technique and wisdom from studying our poet laureates. Don’t both crafts require developing intense skills of observation, eloquence of language, a flare for the dramatic and the gift of smooth, comprehensive communication?

Fiction and nonfiction sit at opposite ends of the literary spectrum; one form of literature being true and factual the other being based on the imagination and expression yet they both relying on the skills of telling a story and each type of author can benefit by studying each other’s styles and techniques then adopting them to serve their needs and purposes as they struggle to communicate expressively to their readers. As important as reading is to a young writer’s development it pales in comparison to actually writing something yourself. Few things in life engage a person’s mind more than struggling to write your thoughts down in a way that others will understand where you are coming from. Writing challenges your imagination, dredges up your emotions and can be quite frustrating and fatiguing most of the time.

Learning and developing a craft, so diverse, as writing, is definitely a lifelong experience. Having a mentor willing to help, listen and advise a fellow struggling writer cannot have a value placed on it. The next best thing is to join a writing group where likeminded people interested in developing the same art as you can converse, assist and support each other. We all know that the master can teach the student but remember it is a surprise and delight when the student occasionally teaches the master something too. Any good professor will tell you this does happen quite frequently and understandably more often than it is spoken of! We all learn and grow together.

Writing itself is sometimes mystical. We don’t always know where or how we come up with the stuff we come up with. We’re always over critical when we critique our own work. We doubt ourselves often and worry is this really the best way to say something. Is this the best word? And on top of that writing is art and art is many times hard to define. Everyone’s opinion can differ when art enters the equation which can leave an even an established author quite insecure. All this makes the craft of creative writing all the more tougher to learn or teach. Then by adding the word ‘creative’ to the word ‘writing’ we are putting added pressure on our young scribes to feel they have to always write something that is so utterly unique and astounding that it leaves the reader with their mouth hanging open.  

Like with developing any other skill, the most important thing for becoming a better creative writer is practice. The more you write the faster and better you get at writing. Reading and studying is all fine and dandy but writing and writing and writing is what will eventually make you a great writer.

For this reason I urge you all to read every bit of writing advice and tips on this quite, large website. Then, put the theories and tips to use. All the writing help is free and posted on Anewtale.com for the purpose of helping young and old writers, new, professional and amateur writers and scribes of any and all genres, styles and levels of expertise. If you have some incite to add that might help a struggling young artist hone their skills of wordsmithing then by all means share. That is why we blog! Together we can help each other master the honorable craft of creative writing and hopefully, some great new literature will be the result!

Devour the poems and flash fiction of our student writers struggling to make an impression on anyone. Comment and lend your wit where wit is needed. Teaching is one craft where the student and the teacher both always benefit. Our writers crave the attention so constructively critique away! Everyone who publishes on this website knows they do so with the risk of having their feelings hurt. But we promise to take you worst with a grain of salt. It’s all in the spirit of learning! So, don’t be shy. Tell us what you think about any piece on the site even if it is to simply cast a vote for your favorite sci-fi fiction or to announce you really enjoy the work of one of our feature mystery writers. Don’t forget to praise our artists and photographers when deserved, they have feeling too! Now, let’s get writing. For, I cannot think of a nobler endeavor.

By Stu Leventhal

Language is what sets man apart from all of God’s creatures. Language allows us the opportunity to achieve a limitless amount of dreams. The seemingly impossible becomes possible and even probable as we communicate with one another and collaborate to discover solutions to our problems and ways to smash through all of our road blocks. Language is the tool by which we learn, teach and improve each new generation. The building blocks of language are words and words are made up of individual letters and symbols, each representing a specific sound or two. There’s only twenty six letters in the English language yet man has crafted those 26 letters into so many combinations each with its own specific meaning.

Spanish, French, English, German, Japanese; no matter which of the many native languages of man one examines, it truly is remarkable how Mankind has formed so many unique words out of just a handful of symbols. What’s more remarkable is how our offspring can grasp the concept of language and can remember what so many words mean at such young and tender ages. Still, having thousands upon thousands of words to choose from in which to express our thoughts, feelings and ideas to one another was not enough for our ancestors. We had to start stringing the words together in different combinations just as we first assigned grunts, squeaks and other sounds to specific letters then combined them to make our first words we next began grouping words together to make phrases. Now, we could express much more than the single thousands of thousands of words could not!

Through the years, the word combos became longer, from simple two and three word groups to four and then five words and even much more complicated longer groupings and thus sentences were born. This is all word craft, sometimes a puzzle, sometimes a science, many times an art. The skill of the wordsmith has grown in complexity to now, in modern times, it require real talent to do the craft our ancestors’ started justice.

Authors, copy writers, poets, lyricists, novelists, news reporters are all expert wordsmiths specializing in their own tiny niche of what is commonly called the profession of writing. Now a days there are many variations of word craft, broken down into what the scholars refer to as the genres and cross genres of literature. People go to school, take courses then practice for many, many years, in most cases a life time to develop and hone their particular word craft expertise. We honor our best word craftsmen with; money, praise, honor and distinction of title like Poet Laureate and of course with prestigious awards such as the Pulitzer Prize for exceptional work in news journalism.

Man’s many languages are always evolving and there are many different dialects of the same language. The rules of literature are often vague and skeptically defined at best. Yet, there are always scholars watching and ready to quickly critique. So, if you as an author need to create a word to express yourself better, I say go ahead. Don’t hesitate, people are always creating new words and you have as much right to join in as any of us! That’s not to say Webster’s Dictionary will recognize your new witticism. But, one never knows what slang will catch on. And when slang hangs around long enough it eventually is accepted as legitimate terminology.

To stand out as a wordsmith of distinction one must be able to combine groups of words to express complicated ideas simply, beautify or make exceptional the ordinary or expose the hidden in terms others quickly and effortlessly can grasp. Wordsmithing is both a talented craft and the quintessential art. Since all art forms; music, painting, sculpture, dance etc. pale in stature to literature. This is partly because words have the ability to express so much and evoke such immense emotion with such little effort.

What began as grunts squeals and groans being represented visually by just 26 symbols (give or take a few letters and symbols depending on which language one is discussing) has turned into a phenomenon. The role of the Wordsmith has become very specialized. Journalists, fiction novelists, poets, song lyricists, academic writers, advertisement copy writers, technical writers, essayists, just to name a few; all specialize in their own specific field of word craftsmanship. From designing informative instructional text manuals for heart transplant surgeons to composing whimsical entertainment skits to be performed on stage by elementary age school children, Wordsmiths continue to define Mankind.

For centuries the general public has put their favorite wordsmiths on pedestals, attributing the word genius to the very best of the lot. As we ease into the technological age of the twenty first century, the challenge for wordsmiths to do their profession justice and honor has become increasingly difficult. Advancement in science and industry alone require many new words plus new words are needed to describe things in almost every evolving field of human endeavor; agriculture, theology, sociology. Mankind is forever evolving and we will always need new words and expressions to depict our new ideas and give insight into our thoughts, worries, dreams and passions.

Contrary to what many believe, the lives of most writers, authors and scribes are rarely paved with gold, prestige, riches and honor. It is most times a life of loneliness and lots and lots of self-sacrifice. This tone was set thousands of years ago when people of all creeds, such as the Monks, would dedicate their lives to tirelessly toil transcribing by hand, historic and religious documents that depicted events and happenings of their times and immortalized doings of past generations. Without their sacrifice and dedication, most of the world’s history would have been long lost and speculative at best. As man’s world becomes more complicated, the need grows for dedicated Wordsmiths willing to commit themselves to the craft of learning and developing expert communication skills.

The names and stories about the world’s best and most elite Wordsmiths; Aristotle, Socrates, Shakespeare, to name a few, and their words, crafted so eloquently and with such passion have been assured, to the best of man’s ability , to live on immortally at least as long as man himself continues to exist. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle wrote, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” And, “The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.” Over 400 years ago, Shakespeare wrote, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once." These quotes are cherished and repeated by people all over the globe so many, many years after their creator’s deaths. Whose words of whit, pleasure, warning or love from our century will still be quoted 500 or a thousand years from now?

I’d bet on at least a few of Gandhi’s catchy saying such as, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” will endure. And it is very likely Martin Luther King’s speeches will not be forgotten too soon. I would also bet money on John Lennon’s lyrics from his hit song ‘Imagine’ will still be sung a few hundred or more years from now. Perhaps, if you dig down deep and write words from your heart your name and your ‘copy righted’ words will be deemed noteworthy enough and of such value to be passed down and repeated from generation to generation too. Only time will tell.

The thing for all aspiring scribes to remember is, no matter what the ‘copy rights’ say; writing and Wordsmithing is and always will be a communal endeavor.  Without all the unknown and unhailed wordcraftsmen that came before Aristotle and Sacrates, who thoughtfully and coherently assigned symbols to the grunts and moans of their fellow cavemen and then the their future generations crafting sentences then paragraphs, the prolific writings of Shakespeare and John Lennon’s inspiring, hopeful lyrics would never have become possible. For this reason, scholars of old and scholars to come will always agree there is no writing ever done that has no merit or is thankless.

Keep writing fellow scribes! Keep writing! For, I am not the only one of us who believes the survival of Mankind depends upon it. And, fellow readers go on encouraging and supporting your favorite writers because if history has taught us anything it is, “United we stand and divided we fall.” Oh…if I could only claim credit for that line!

*Until next time, keep the blog comments coming. Every writer has to get a start somewhere and “practice writing be-gets polished writing”. Look out, I may be able to claim ownership of that saying!

Sometimes a poet sits down to write but they just aren’t thinking in poetry mode. They may have a vague idea of what they want to say but it isn’t working out to be poetic. At those times rather than stare at a blank piece of paper as the clock ticks by, it may help to just write out what you wish to convey using long hand and sentence form. We tend to think like we talk but few of us talk like a poet. Usually if we get an inspiration, there is something to it. You need to get the sprinklings of your ideas down on paper. Later you can add to them, twist them up, add a word here or there and start trying to figure out what type of poem will showcase your idea best. Once you’ve written a few phrases out in full sentence form, now take a moment to look over each sentence separately. Cross out all the unnecessary words. Change the sentences into short blurbs. Now add a word or change a word to make your thought more coherent.

You may wish to add a few hard, choppy, brisk sounding words at just the right time to get a beat like rhythm going. Or a light lyrical sounding word for transition from one thought to another or to add a sing song feel.

Once you have a string of sentences and phrases about a subject or if you have the start of a story, you can began to transform it into a poem form by utilizing different poetic devices such as by changing word for word descriptions into metaphors and similes. Change, “My neighbor John was big, strong and handsome” to “John was a handsome ox.” 

If you are working on a rhyme, now would be a good time to whip out the rhyming dictionary then flip through it looking for words that rhyme with keywords you’ve already written. A lot of times getting that first rhyming phrase down triggers a bunch of similar phrase ideas. “John the handsome ox, plays guitar and rocks. He wrote a new song and asked me to sing along.”

By at first, free associating and jotting down whatever comes to your mind, you can quickly accumulate a page full of random ideas or what I call an inventory of poem accessories on a given subject. Later you can look at them more critically, poetically and artistically. Scrap dull sounding words replacing them with more lively words of similar meaning. A particularly catchy phrase may be used as your, all important, repeating phrase. Reorganize the other phrases based on how they fit with one another, how they sound together or how they could support or foster the repeating phrase. Try to chop the sentences down to the same length so they start to have a rhythm that’s more uniform and paragraphs begin to look more poem like as well as sound more song stanza like.

Now, it’s time to start looking at what you’ve put together so far, with an eye for seeing it all in terms of being one single unit, even though it seems like a very unorganized unit. Re-read, looking for phrases that don’t fit in with the rest of the group. Scrap these, quickly. Now start experimenting by shuffling the remaining phrases around. Don’t be afraid to rearrange whole stanzas in search of a different sound or feel. When we were first free associating, we wrote down every fleeting though that came to our mind until we had a boat load of subject matter. Since then we’ve been chopping away at the pile, discarding what doesn’t fit, molding, sanding and polishing what’s left behind. A central theme should by now start to emerge but it will probably be a large idea, too large to handle in one poem. We need to narrow that theme down and become much more specific. What is our strongest phrase? Can we adapt a few of the other phrases to conform to the same idea? Now that we have the beginnings of a poem it’s time to start thinking about styles.

The more poetry you read the more styles you will become aware of and thus the more options you will have to develop your poetry ideas. Reading , revising, experimenting then rewriting again is how you become a better poet. Don’t be too quick to throw out a poem that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Frequently all that is needed is that one magical word to pull it all together. There’s no set time limit that it should take to write a poem. I’ve heard authors say they worked, on and off on a single poem for a decade before they were satisfied with it. And then there are those writers who sit down then scribble out a prolific piece of poetry in a few hours. And, just about every poet you ask has a different way of working. Trial and error then more trial and error, works best for me.

How do you keep on track and stay focused when your well of writing ideas seems to be running dry? What techniques do you use to spur your imagination? How do you stay unique and fresh with your writing ideas? What helps you overcome the dreaded writers’ affliction, writers block? Let us know your thoughts? Comment! Comment! Comment! Did I mention comments were welcomed on this blog?...Even encouraged!

There comes a time in every artist’s life, creative writers probably quicker than others, when one feels compelled to take their game up a notch or two. Young artists start out trying to get everyone’s attention; we focus on making our work so entertaining that everyone has to take notice. Some of us settle down once we realize we can’t please everyone then we try to move in a direction that pleases us first. After a few years, we no longer feel the urge to prove our self and that’s usually around the time that financial pressure has begun to ease up. No longer having to worry, so much about, struggling to make a living, we may start to question; do we have what it takes to be one of the greats? Should we be using our gift for something a bit higher than simple aesthetic, entertainment value?

Instead of sticking to creating the now well-received writing that has become our trademark which brought us this far, be it fantastically creative rhyming, current and relevant pop music lyrics or telling very scary, horror, flash fiction tales. We all take for granted and devalue our own talents because they come so easy for us and keep getting easier the more we ply them. We’re too close, too involved to realize how special, rare and valuable our own unique skills are.

Many artists, writers and performers feel the arts and their art in particularly, needs to eventually take on some of societies difficult issues, in order to be worthwhile. After all, wouldn’t it be a crime to waste one’s talent on frivolous, entertainment or worse a career in advertising and marketing? The answer lies in what is one’s definition of worthwhile as well as how great art is deemed great in the first place.

People in general and artists especially, confuse living a meaningful life and trying to make a difference while we’re here, with being more outspoken about one’s ideals and fostering one’s beliefs. An artist, especially a creative writer, need not abandon his or her signature talent to start penning prose that is of the preaching and forewarning type because he or she no longer wishes to waste their talent on frivolity. One must remember that most of the great literature stood the test of time before it was deemed utterly fantastic. Originally, all the great ones were just entertainment. Very few writers write with the audacity of believing they are going to change society or save mankind. Those labels get put on great art and artists later. Art, especially written works, will attract the attention of critics and scholars, usually long after the masses have adopted it as worthy; quite frequently posthumously.

Stop beating yourself up, with self-doubt and guilt, which does no one any good. Trying to impress your fans and the public with how good a person you’ve become or preaching to save the earth before it is too late, almost always comes off as self-indulgent, pompous and contrived. The result is almost always boredom as far as the art piece is concerned. When one wishes to take one’s art type craft to the next level, one works on perfecting one’s skills and elevating the level in which one performs the craft. In creative writing we learn all there is to know about the field of writing, the use of words, grammar, diction, vocabulary, writing style and particularly the genres we excel at. First, become an expert who walks the walk not just talks the talk.

By all means keep pushing yourself to be better. Test yourself by trying to expand your craft. Try to take your literary genre or writing niche to some place it’s never been. Become a mentor and take on a student or two. Leave the preaching, warnings that earth is doomed and all the prolific labeling to the so called critics and scholars. When you feel you are ready to take on more difficult or serious themes with your stories, go for it! But, do it through your work. Think about how Mark Twain went about drawing attention to the very touchy subject of slavery. Twain had worked for many periodicals during his career and could have easily written and had published some articles or essays stating his position and feelings on the subject of slavery. Instead, Mark Twain crafted a fictional novel about a youth traveling along the Mississippi River. Twain’s Huckleberry Finn drew more attention to the subject of slavery and racism than a hundred news articles could have. The book is still cherished reading today over 100 years after it was published and is taught in schools around the world. So, the answer to the question, which is the title of this article, ‘Can creative writers save the world?’ I don’t know but, we’re going to keep on trying.

When a teacher of literature gives the inevitable advice, “Write about things you know.” It is not meant to be taken literally. Naturally a person who grew up caring for, walking, playing with a dog and loving a dog should have an easier time of writing a story involving a dog than someone who never had a pet. An author who lives in the Rocky Mountains should be better at telling a reader what it is like to go hiking through slippery, treacherous, snow covered, icy terrain. But, no teacher of literature wishes to set limits on what their students and hopefully, future writers can achieve, tackle or imagine. They are simply pointing out that in order to bring to life for your reader a given situation, setting, character or theme one should have intimate knowledge of what one is writing about. That said, you now have to work on getting the skills to be able to transform your unique, personally acquired knowledge so you can mold it or stretch it so it fits into whatever scene you are writing about.

If you’ve always lived with pets and you are writing a sci-fi thriller, it is not so farfetched that future space travelers would not adopt adorable creatures from their stops on distant planets as pets. You can use your knowledge of ‘what you know’ about growing up in a household full of pets to express to your reader, realistically, the positives and negatives of having a pet aboard a spaceship. You know the companionship, love, joy and fun a pet can bring to an individual’s life. You also can write about the dedication it takes to care for and nurture a pet. Pets are often very loyal and protective of their owners and loved ones. There is no reason to believe space pets would not show many of the same needs and endearing traits as earthling’s beloved dogs, cats and parakeets. When you write what you know, however trivial or trite, you add a dimension of believability to your scenes that is hard to get from studying text books. Things you take for granted because you’ve grown up with them all your life or have come to encounter them day in and day out, can be fascinating to your readers who grew up in a completely different life style.

Let your readers see a glimpse of the people who have made an impact on your life both negatively and positively. We want to experience what it is like to be around such an individual. If you grew up in a house full of siblings, you don’t have to write a biography to be able to use your experiences to portray, ‘what you know’ in other types of stories. For example, the feelings of never having any privacy are universal for any overly crowded situation. No matter what genre of creative writing you are attempting, your prose will be elevated by sharing your true feelings about the humiliation you felt always having to wear hand me downs or the love, sibling rivalry, comradeship or family loyalty you experienced living with such a large family.

You may think you have a vivid and versatile imagination and believe me, there will be times when you are going to need to delve into that imagination but readers can tell when an author is baring his sole. There’s a different tone that comes across, when a writer is writing about something he cares deeply about, has a real interest in or has a fond or non-fond memory of. In your experiences is where the true value of your wisdom lies. That is what the reader is hoping to experience when he chooses your book over all the other, many books on the shelves of a book store to purchase then spend a little time with. He’s hoping to make a connection with you as the writer or with your characters. He’s hoping to learn something new or at the least have a few laughs and enjoy an hour or two. To make your reader consider his or her time well spent and worthwhile you must take the camouflage off and be willing to reveal a glimpse inside your soul.

Everyone has experiences in their life that stand out as important. Take those instances that were turning points in your own development as a person and expand on them. Add to them stuff to make them more profound. Build a story around the dramatic episodes you’ve lived first hand. Change the characters, time and place to fit in with the story you wish to tell in the genre you wish to write but keep all the emotion of the moment intact. Write what you know!