Slaying Writer Dragons: Epic Skill #2, Emotional Prowess

Written by Taylor - 19 Comments

Welcome back, you epic writers, you. For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about why it’s necessary to make every project into a big bad dragon you have to fight, and what you can do to make yourself better at fighting said dragon.
This week’s lesson: How to kick some emotional butt.
Put the Freud down. [...]

How to Decide the Best Community Contribution

Written by James - 34 Comments

Last week, I wrote about deadbeats in the community. I even swore. In English. It was great.
I didn’t really mean it.
Well, I did mean some of it, like the part where I say screw the deadbeats who use ‘community’ as their reason why I should contribute my time and effort into helping them build their [...]

What’s Your Style of Writer Underpants?

Written by James - 0 Comments

I’ve been asked a lot of things in my time. There’s very little that phases me. But when Suzannah boldly demanded to know what I wore beneath my jeans, I had to arch an eyebrow. Instead of answering, I let her put the question to our crowd.
Enjoy her post – oh, and feel free to [...]

Slaying Writer Dragons: Epic Skill #1, Mental Prowess

Written by Taylor - 18 Comments

All right, brave writers of the MwP world. I wrote last week about why you really need to make writing a big dramatic event. So you feel like it’s worth doing. This probably indicates some deep failing on your part, but since we writers all have the same problem, we will just call it a [...]

Top Ten Blogs for Writers: The Results are In!

Written by James - 19 Comments

Well, it’s a wrap, folks. The finalists are out for the Top Ten Blogs for Writers, and we’re pleased and honored to have made the grade again.
“Oh, come on, James. We all knew you’d be on the list…”
Well, to be frank, we didn’t. There are new sites for writers and writing blogs cropping up [...]

Screw Community

Written by James - 80 Comments

Community is a word you’ll hear all over the internet. You’re part of a community on Twitter. Blog networks are a community. Your blog’s comment section is a community. The whole blogosphere is a community.
You’ll also hear that you should be part of these communities. You should be contributing. You should be giving others a [...]

Three Words to Help You Finish Any Writing Project

Written by James - 2 Comments

I’ve always liked Ali Hale. She’s been a long-time reader and commentator here at Men with Pens, she blogs around the universe with wisdom and simply worded advice, and always has something good to say. She’s one of those people that’s just… well, nice.
She threw a guest post my way with a nice email [...]

The Dragons of Writing and How to Fight Them

Written by Taylor - 33 Comments

Writers are notorious procrastinators.
If you are a writer (and you can convince people that this is in fact your profession and that you are not just referring to the three chapters of that novel you’ve had in a back drawer since high school), it is more or less assumed that you are incapable of completing [...]

We Like Special Announcements. Here are Three.

Written by James - 17 Comments

Special announcements are good. Everyone needs special announcements from time to time, right? Well, I have three for you today.
Top Ten Blogs for Writers Finalists
The 4th annual Top Ten Blogs for Writers contest is now closed for submissions, and the list of finalists has been posted.
Nearly 300 blogs were nominated, and we’re honored to [...]

How to Add Spice to Your Content

Written by James - 26 Comments

Finding ways to help your readers understand your ideas and concepts isn’t always easy – but there are two writer tricks that you can use to get that “a-ha!” from your crowd: analogies and metaphors.
Now, we’ve covered analogies before. You can read about them right here. The short version is that analogies compare something unfamiliar [...]

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