My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"
Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.
“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith
Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.
Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.
That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.
120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.
What can photography lend to our writing process?
• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.
Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.
If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.
Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.
Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.
Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.
These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.
• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.
In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.
I know: paradoxical.
When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.
I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way.
• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.
Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.
I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.
Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.
What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.
• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.
The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.
Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.
If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.
It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.
We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.
These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.
Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.
Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.
Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.
Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.
Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php
National Poetry Month <3
Break out your pens! Happy National Poetry Month!
Here are a few ideas for sharing, writing, reading, and enjoying poetry while quarantining.
Let’s make bunches of verse this month!
Image courtesy of Nicole Honeywill at unsplash.com
Backchannels
It’s been a terribly difficult, tiring, anxious, confusing time, hasn’t it? Feels like we went to sleep at the end of February, and woke up in a stark dystopian novel in March.
My emotions are a snarl of quicksilver uncertainties and kindnesses and fears and back again. I feel so inarticulate, because even this attempt at description doesn’t come anywhere near close enough to the realities we’re living in.
We’ve been self-quarantining for three weeks here on the East Coast, and the governor has just issued a stay-at-home warning through April 30th; I know many states and communities have already been stay-at-home quarantining. May this keep us safe and save many, many lives. <3
As we all try to adjust to unprecedented circumstances that COVID-19 has triggered, sending you my best.
A special shout out to medical personnel, emergency crews, store clerks and other necessary-business personnel, my fellow teachers, and parents at this time— your compassion and bravery make a difference.
I’ve been making art, pondering and reflecting, walking into rooms only to stare into space with perplexity, sharing with students and friends and family, trying to listen more than I usually do, grateful for work online, and attempting to get rest whenever it’s possible (sometimes, it’s just not been possible, as we all know).
How are you coping, dear ones?
I’ve waited to blog until I had GOOD NEWS. Can’t we all use some good news right about now? One of my poems was just published at Backchannels.
Please feel free to share your good news and gratefulness, no matter how big or small, to uplift us in the barrage of near-constant virus coverage.
Sending big virtual hugs (I so miss hugging) and much love and health to you all.
By Ron Smith on Unsplash
Want to Teach Online? I've Got You: Craft Article Published Today at WOW!
“3 Exercises for Launching an Online Writing Class for Profit and Enjoyment”
By Melanie Faith
The Timing has Never Been Better to Teach Creative Writing!
The field of teaching creative writing online has flourished in the past decade. When I started teaching online classes, most universities and colleges didn’t offer any online courses and I didn’t know a single freelance writer who did, either.
Happily, in 2020, the tide has turned and opportunities abound for educators who are passionate about their love for writing.
By the way: it’s not a requirement to have taught English for years offline in public schools or to have published a book before sharing what you know with eager learners.
If you’re organized and communicative, enthusiastic about self-expression, and motivated both in your own writing practice and to direct other writers in theirs, there is sure to be a program to fit your teaching goals (or you’ll create one!) and students keen to study with you. Read on!
Why Teach Online?
The vast majority of my teaching is now as a freelancer online instructor and professor, and I love it! Let’s look at cool pros to teaching online.
A highly-flexible schedule. As a freelance teacher, I am free to go to lunch with a friend or to grade at 2 in the morning without waking at 7 am to report to a brick-and-mortar classroom.
Most classes are asynchronous, meaning that students and teachers literally can pop by any time of day and night to leave and answer messages and download/upload content, so teachers and students can communicate at 4 am in their pjs if they want.
Many online programs, including Women on Writing, offer great instructor freedom to choose texts, a class topic, and to develop a course and hand-pick or write handouts of our own choosing. This support for unique and individualistic course content inspires instructors as well as student writers.
Community building with fellow writers. I regularly make friends with creative writers from all across the world who share many of my same writing and life goals, including keeping my writing and publishing life active and lively.
The pleasure of making another writer’s path more-informed and supported. Much of what I learned about writing and publishing during my first ten years as a creative writer was through my own slow process of blunders. It’s very rewarding to offer fellow writers advice, and then to see them and their writing make their own pathways to editors and readers.
Motivation for my own work. Nothing keeps me engaged in my own writing process like encouraging others in theirs. As I often tell my students and clients: “We’re all writers in this writing journey together.”
Get Started Today! 3 Helpful Exercises
As you begin to consider writing topics you might teach, here are three thematic questions to get your wheels turning about the kind of class you might offer and the unique skills you will bring to an online classroom. Consider answering each question as a free-write, setting a timer for at least fifteen or twenty minutes for each question.
1. What genres have you written in the past five years? What style or genre of writing has most
inspired you recently? List any books (such as craft books about writing, novels, poetry collections, essay anthologies, etc.) as well as writing websites that might be fun to share.
2. What excites you most about the opportunity to teach online? List as much as you’d like. Pinpointing the qualities that encourage you will integrate this zest into your online classroom preparations, creating an environment where writers flourish.
3. Write a paragraph to introduce yourself to your ideal student. Describe what brought you to teach this class online and something about your writing journey. Feel free to share a dream for your own writing. Then, ask your delightful ideal student two or three questions you’d like to know about them.
This exercise is one I wrote and offered to a client who was considering teaching online, and he found it very insightful to his writing process and to picturing his targeted class audience.
Over the course of a few days, your answers will point you in exciting directions for your genre, class topic/theme, and potential texts for a future course.
Students in my Creating an Online Creative-Writing Class for Fun and Profit course will flesh out this list with several other questions, consider what to charge, write a course description and instructor bio with personality, and complete a syllabus (and much more!) for a class that they can pitch by the end of the four-week course.
"Four Qualities of Authentic Writing" Craft Article Published at WOW Today :)
“Four Qualities of Authentic Writing”
By: Melanie Faith
I read 99 books for fun in 2019. If you’re an avid reader, too, you probably identify with the joys of reading when the minutes dissolve and the pages just keep turning and turning. Conversely, you probably also recall books that plodded so sloth-slowly that you kept counting the number of pages left to the end of the chapter.
As writers, we want our work to have all of the former’s pizzazz and none of the latter’s plodding.
What makes the difference between writing that flows and excites readers compared to writing that falls flat and bores? Authenticity, my friend.
Just like making friends is all about connection, so too writing that resonates creates a bond between author, writing, and reader/audience.
While defining authenticity within prose can be a little bit like getting gelatin to stick to a wall, there are still definite patterns to authentic writing. We can apply these qualities as a litmus test to gauge the authenticity in our own drafts:
Authentic writing includes imagery that makes the personal universal.
We all have many emotions and experiences. Boring writing tells us explicitly the name of the emotion, such as “He felt happy” or “I was mad.” Vibrant writing, on the other hand, suggests those emotions and experiences with specific visual images or symbols that express ideas subtly.
Many authors, for instance, use color imagery numerous times within a scene to underscore feelings or experiences, such as blue for sadness, green for security or growth, and red for passion or anger. While we are all individuals, we’re not as individualistic as we might at first think.
As Henri Nouwen and psychologist Carl R. Rogers once said, “What is most personal is most universal.” Authentic writing capitalizes on this knowledge to demonstrate our collective joys, struggles, shame, and healing.
Authentic writing tends to be understated, rather than overstated.
Ever read a paragraph that was over a page long? What was the result? Probably skimming over or through the paragraph and yawning. Lots of yawning. Rambling writing is the equivalent of the new friend at a party who expounds about everything at great length while listeners look longingly for the nearest exit.
Authentic writing doesn’t meander. It doesn’t cram everything but the kitchen sink into the paragraph or page, either. Instead, it has a theme and a point it wants to communicate to readers and omits details that are off-topic or redundant.
Authentic writing writes through, and not around, a subject. We’ve all read through paragraph after paragraph to get to the big revelation of an article or chapter or novel, only to have the author back away from the topic or to take a left-turn after barely any revelation at all. Talk about frustrating! Evasions don’t tend to endear people to each other, whether in person or on the page. Authentic writing includes elements of bravery.
Authentic writing risks something on the page. Authentic writing doesn’t hint at bigger analysis ahead and then offer the reader little or no fleshing out afterwards. Yes, there are many topics that are terribly scary to express and which take great courage to share with readers, whether through a character’s POV or our own.
On the other hand, risk earns readers’ respect; even if they don’t always love what the author writes, they find deflection and barriers worse. One reason readers read is to find connection (“I’ve thought that/done that, too!”); abruptly backing away from a topic or theme you’ve set up is a fast way to alienate readers and friends alike.
Authentic writing has focus and a take-away without cliché or overly-easy advice or
solutions.
Authentic writing conveys a point without hammering it out by being repetitious. Readers tend to find repetitious writing boring or, worse, self-righteous and sanctimonious; authentic writing, on the other hand, subtly provides a purpose or a take-away and then moves on swiftly for the reader to think further about the topic on their own.
Trust your reader to make personal meaning based on the literary devices you’ve skillfully crafted and move on, to keep the pace popping.
Practice more authentic writing in my online class, beginning Friday, March 13th. Sign-up today!
Dreamers Creative Writing :)
I’ve been so happy with the responses to my books that recently I’ve decided to venture into placing some ads to spread the word further about my three flash-writing books for writers.
This is a totally new adventure for me, and I’m happy to have an ad in Dreamers Creative Writing. Check out and subscribe to this amazing print magazine with writing advice to spark your muse.
As time and finances allow, I’m going to advertise more. I’m open to other recommendations of quality venues that feature writing books and products, too.
I Guest Blogged: "3 Steps to Fixing an Annoying Protagonist"
Check out my guest blog at the fabulous Write it Sideways that went live today: “3 Steps to Fixing an Annoying Protagonist.”
In Photographic News: This One's Lomo-tastic!
Bye-bye, January (relieved to have you gone); hello, February (burgeoning with possibility)!
Treated myself to this little beauty: the Diana F+ "Mr. Pink." Can't wait to see what film photo razzle-dazzle we'll create together.
To learn more about Lomography photography, <— clicky.
New Year, New Writing: I've Got the Inspiration Station for You
This is your year! Invest in your writing dreams in 2020!
Write poetry? Try Poetry Power! for signed copies or Poetry Power for print and ebook copies via Amazon.
What writers are saying about Poetry Power: “After reading Poetry Power, I feel confident that yes! I could be a poet. Melanie takes her readers by the hand and walks them through the whole process of writing, publishing, editing and loving poetry. Little personal vignettes scattered throughout Poetry Power made me feel like Melanie was a friend. It was as if we were in a writing group together and she was sharing her writing secrets. Each chapter ends with a Try this Prompt that are easy and exciting to try.” —Tricia L. McDonald, Writer and CEO Splattered Ink Press
Write fiction or nonfiction? Try In a Flash for signed copies or In a Flash for print and ebook copies via Amazon.
What writers are saying about In a Flash: “Written in lively prose, and full of terrific prompts and great examples of the form, this book captures all the potential of flash prose pieces and crystallizes it expertly for the reader, whether novice or advanced.” Fred G. Leebron, director of writing programs in Charlotte, Roanoke, Gettysburg and Latin America, and Pushcart Prize and O.Henry Award recipient
Love photography AND writing? Try Photography for Writers for signed copies or Photography for Writers for print and ebook copies via Amazon.
What writers are saying about Photography for Writers: “If you’re a writer (or photographer!) that’s tired of the same old how-to books, then you’re in luck. Melanie’s advice takes you on a delightful tour of the creative world in a way you haven’t seen yet. Her voice and ideas will spark ideas - you’ll be laughing and learning but also producing! This book is a treat!"
–Kandace Chapple, publisher and writer of Grand Traverse Woman magazineSigned book bundles available at: WritePath Productions.
