{"id":77,"date":"2016-08-16T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/?p=77"},"modified":"2016-07-15T15:14:44","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T15:14:44","slug":"practice-makes-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/blog\/2016\/08\/16\/practice-makes-perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"Practice Makes Perfect (revisiting a earlier post)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>When I wrote this in early 2010, these were my favorite books for writers. Since they remain the same, I&#8217;m sharing the post again. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I am not one for practicing random writing. Occasionally it <em>does<\/em> seem like the only way I can get words to paper, but, most of the time, I write within a story that plays into a novel-length work. When I <em>do <\/em>practice for practice sake, I have two favorite books.<\/p>\n<p><em>Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively<\/em> by Rebecca McClanahan suggests exercises that allow me to use my own writing. My favorites include keeping a sensory log, changing your <em>visual<\/em> POV, delineating the steps used in a common action to help readers understand a character(washing dishes, combing hair) and creating a &#8220;constellation of images&#8221;(understanding which of my personal life experiences wind through my writings).<\/p>\n<p><em>Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit<\/em> by Mari Messer is my second choice. The title attracted me, the layout interested me and the exercises &#8220;spoke to me&#8221;. Mari invites the reader to explore life experiences as if for the first time (a bubble bath, waking up). She encourages me to get in touch with who I am and how I write.<\/p>\n<p>There is a pattern here. Every writer needs to find his\/her own patterns. They will lead to stronger writing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Please share your favorite writing books or your favorite books that demonstrate good writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I wrote this in early 2010, these were my favorite books for writers. Since they remain the same, I&#8217;m sharing the post again. Enjoy! I am not one for practicing random writing. Occasionally it does seem like the only way I can get words to paper, but, most of the time, I write within a story that plays into a novel-length work. When I do practice for practice sake, I have two favorite books. Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan suggests exercises that allow me to use my own writing. My favorites include keeping&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-84-ribbons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}