  Noticing Newbies
This week: Keep Practicing! Edited by: esprit  
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Welcome to the Noticing Newbies Newsletter! Our goal is to showcase some of our newest Writing.Com Authors and their items. From poetry and stories to creative polls and interactives, we'll bring you a wide variety of items to enjoy. We will also feature "how to" advice and items that will help to jump start the creation process on Writing.com
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Keep Practicing!
 Sensitive or Touchy?
Writers are such a moody species. We call ourselves sensitive, but honestly, downright touchy is a truer description. We are so touchy, in fact, that we take every criticism and remark made about our writing personally. We only hear what we expect to hear, way down deep in our hearts. If we are told to 'keep practicing', our ears hear, "you're not a good writer." If we are given anything under five stars we burst into high drama and exclaim, "I can't write and everyone hates me!" Sheesh, we are so melodramatic! Write a story and get real!
Practice
Some writers have a natural talent they were born with. They should trust that talent and don't mess with it too much. I really think some good work is ruined with too much 'correcting', but natural talent also needs to learn refining and discipline.
For most people though, writing well must be learned. It's a skill that requires lots of practice, just like anything else. If we expect the first words we set down to be good enough, we'll not get very far and we might give up with our first critique. To learn to write well requires a certain mindset; a real desire to learn and a willingness to 'keep practicing' - a lot.
Pay attention!
When I tell someone to 'keep practicing,' this is what I have in mind.
Take a walk and pay attention to your surroundings. Pay attention to the way your body moves. Run. Do you feel a stitch of pain in your side? What does it really feel like? Think. Where exactly is the pain? Do you feel it in the pounding of your pulse too? How does it affect your breathing? Examine it from all sides and remember it. Can the feeling be applied to a wound received by a character? Describe how it feels to be out of breath. Take a hard bicycle ride, uphill if possible. Write the description down in your notebook, or describe it in your mind as if you were writing it and save it for later. Stand alongside a group and listen to the conversation for a few minutes. As you're changing classes think about the hall scene descriptively. Take a seat on the bench at the bus stop and observe people as they rush or saunter. Describe their facial expressions as they interact with each other. Look at the buildings, the street, the sidewalk. Really look. You might be surprised how difficult it is to describe something so familiar because you've not really looked with a writers eye before. Could your character climb to that roof across the street? Could someone enter the second floor window? What type of handhold's are available? Could someone jump from one rooftop to another? This is practicing to write well.
Plagiarize!
Pull a book off the shelf and copy a paragraph or two. Think about the words as you write them. Notice how they are strung together to give an image. Don't post this on the site though; they aren't your words and it's for your eyes only. It's more good practice.
Keep a notebook handy while watching television and write down the dialogue. Notice how the words alone don't show what is actually happening? They're flat and don't make a lot of sense without the bodylanguage and setting. This too, is practicing.
Hey, It's Not About Me!
Remember the most embarrassing or scariest thing you've ever done or had happen to you? The thing you just can't forget and don't want anyone to ever find out about? Write about it. Don't leave any details out to save yourself, because no one needs to know this is about you. It's fiction, babe! Write down every cringe, blush and emotion. Put it away for a few days or weeks and then read it again. Does it still affect you with the strong images and emotion you began with? If not, write it again because you've definitely left some of the best details in your head. Get them all in there - details are the heart and the hooks of a story.
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To repeat the most important tip I can give.
To learn to write well requires a writers mindset. A real desire to learn and a willingness to keep practicing - a lot.
Thanks a bunch for reading, and don't forget to read and encourage our new writers, okay?
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from Aug. 30th. "Invalid Entry" THANK YOU!
From: GabriellaR45
Congratulations on a beautiful issue of "Noticing Newbies"... It's very well written and such a treat to read. I loved the editorial on "The Hook"...it's right on the money and filled with great advice. I'm going to keep the article as a reminder. Thank you for all of the hard work and fine writing that goes into pulling the newsletter together.
Warmest best, Gabriella
Thank you!
Submitted By: Gen
Submitted Comment:
My dear Esprit,
Hooks, huh? You know you are sending me back to the edit "button" don't you?
You always remember the hooks, Gen. No worries. 
Submitted By: dizzyduck
Submitted Comment:
"Don't think one big hook is all you need; leaving small, sharp ones throughout the work is necessary to hold them." All authors should take this sentence, type it in big, colorful, eye-grabbing letters in Word, and print it out to hang up on the wall close by their computer or writing area. It's advice we all need to see often, or at least before we start writing. It's advice I wish I'd gotten a long time ago, for I've found that hooking my audience and keeping them there instead of letting them wriggle away is a big problem of mine. I, for one, will definitely keep your words in mind when I write.
Excellent newsletter, Esprit! This one was especially enlightening for me.
dizzy
Thank you, dizzy! It's comments like these that keep us editors writing too.
Submitted By: kotasummers
Submitted Comment:
Actually, this is my second time to come in. While reviewing some items from here, I learn many things about the art of reviewing, at the same time about human nature from the many different personalities I have to deal with. It is only that I don't have much time to spare to be doing this most of the time. I, however, value the growth I derive from here as a reviewer and will see to it that I don't forget to log in.
Whatever you have time to do is appreciated. Do I hear a slight favoring toward reviewing? It's my favorite passtime.
Submitted By: ANGEL
Submitted Comment:
Thank you for all the information. I love to learn as much as I can always.
You're welcome. Take advantage of the other newsletters, too.
All of the editor's appreciate your taking time to send in feedback. It lets us know we're not writing in a vacumn and there really are people out there.
Editors:
Cubby 
Puditat
laurencia
Your host this week is esprit |
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Noticing Newbies: September 27, 2006 Issue [#1273]
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