Writing Tips | Writing Forward

How to Cultivate and Save Your Best Writing Ideas

Doesn’t it seem like the best writing ideas come at the most inconvenient times? It happens when you’re driving, in the shower, or eating dinner at a restaurant. Unfortunately, you’re not sitting in front of your computer, and even if you were, you don’t always have time to stop what you’re doing to make notes…Read More

Writing Tips: Eliminate Redundancies in Your Writing

Writers are human, and sometimes we make mistakes. You’re probably aware of the most common mistakes in writing: comma splices, run-on sentences, mixing up homophones, and a variety of other broken grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules. In my coaching work, I’ve noticed another common mistake: redundancy. Sometimes we use repetition effectively, but most of the…Read More

How to Write More

Productivity: it’s all been said and done. In fact, you could spend more time learning how to be productive than actually being productive. For us creative types, productivity can be a fleeting thing. We experience highs (a whole month packed with inspiration) and lows (three more months fraught with the ever-annoying writer’s block). It can…Read More

Writing Tips: Abolish the Adverbs

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” ~ Stephen King In the writing world, adverbs have a bad reputation for being weak and causing unnecessary clutter. But sometimes adverbs are necessary, and other times, they liven up a sentence or strengthen a description. Today we’re going to explore adverbs and take a look at…Read More

Writing Tips: Avoid Clichés

There are many writing tips that tell us what to avoid in our work: We should keep adverbs to a minimum. Don’t use verbiage, which is excessive and unnecessary language. Watch out for info dumps. And avoid clichés. But why should we avoid clichés? What’s a cliché, anyway, and how do we identify them in…Read More

Health Tips for Writers

Lots of jobs pose health hazards, and writing is no exception. Whether you write professionally or as a hobby, spending hours hunched over your keyboard or notebook can have detrimental effects on your health if you don’t take the proper precautions. From muscle cramps and eye strain to getting bogged down in the mental clutter…Read More

What’s Your Writing Plan?

When I first started writing, it was a spontaneous affair. I was a teenager, lying on my bedroom floor; I think I was talking to someone on the phone, and I’m certain music was playing on my boombox, as it always was. There happened to be a pen and a spiral-bound notebook (for schoolwork) in…Read More

10 Tips for Submitting Your Writing and Getting Published

Your short story is finished. Your poem is polished. Your personal essay has been proofread. Now you’re ready to submit your creative writing project for publication. How do you do it? Where do you find the right publication? What materials should you send? Should you use e-mail or snail mail? How long do you wait…Read More

Writing Tips: Every Word Matters

Have you ever seen the movie Throw Momma From the Train (aff link)? It’s a classic 80s comedy about the hilarious misadventures of a writing instructor (Billy Crystal) and one of his students (Danny Devito). When the film opens, Billy Crystal’s character is suffering from an extreme case of writer’s block. In fact, he can’t complete…Read More

Writing Tips For Staying on Your Game

Believe it or not, there are a few writing tips that we writers can steal from athletes, strategies that show us how to stay in shape and on top of our game. Athletes work hard even when they’re off the field. They spend hours practicing with their teams. They run miles around the track when…Read More