Writing from The Heart: September 2018

Writing from The Heart

"Writing from The Heart" is a workshop on creative writing, creative drawing, and creative drama. There are three available versions of this workshop: one for beginners on the secondary, tertiary, and graduate levels, and another for practitioners. A third version of this workshop is designed as an outreach program to disadvantaged and underserved audiences such as the disabled, the poor and the marginalized, victims of human trafficking, battered women and abused children, drug rehabilitation center residents, child combatants, children in conflict with the law, prisoners, and gang leaders. This third version incorporates creativity and problem awareness, conflict resolution, crisis intervention, trauma therapy, and peacemaking.

Sunday, September 30, 2018

When starting out a novel, write your first two pages, set them aside, and come back to them a day later to see if your lines sound right. If they don't--if they are stilted and the lines don't flow--it is because you are writing it in the wrong language. Switch to another language, such as Chinese, Bahasa, Hindi, or Tagalog.

If you INSIST on writing your novel in a preferred language, talk to yourself in a running monologue in that language while you are alone in your room. When you think your thoughts, think in that language. Only then should you resume writing your novel.