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I have been on hiatus on Instagram since last May. Life is so boring without writing and thinking about poems, stories and characters. I guess I have missed those moments when I notice something quirky happening and feeling giddy as I had something to add to my writing projects. The following shows you the teenage version of me. Excuse me but I am loving this feeling.

This week challenge

To start fresh and get back to the routine of creating and writing next year, there would be a creative or writing challenge every other week. The first 5 challenges are going to be sent to you in the coming weeks in 2023. The remaining would be sent to paying subscribers for the rest of the year.

I would feature some of you in the letters. Just hit reply and send me what you are writing or creating with my challenge.

Challenge 5:

Take a look at your teenage journal and write something inspired by it

If you are an artist or creator and would like to be featured in either interview series, hit reply. Writers are also welcome as I have featured poets and fiction writers at the start of the series. If you have any suggestion who I should interview, let me know.

Here comes Maggie Smith’s Substack

Maggie Smith started her Substack and it is filled with writing tips and hacks. But out of all, I love her annotated playlist for her upcoming memoir You Could Make this Place Beautiful the most. She makes a playlist for each of her book. Maybe I will make one for my single-dad fiction project and all my subsequent writing projects. Not that it is an excuse to procrastinate writing my fiction.

Side note: My mum sent me a message about someone’s dead wish. Oh my god. What are you waiting for to write and publish your book? We are all just writing for ourselves for whatever reason. It would probably be my greatest regret if I didn’t publish one book in this little life.

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Bird by Bird

I am finally starting Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It is truly a bible for writers. If you are looking to write better, I highly recommend this book.

I go back trying to breathe and I notice the one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being. All I am going to do now, for example, is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late 1950’s, when the trains are were still running. I am going to paint a picture of it, in words. Or all I am going to do is to describe the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch. I am not even going to describe the expression on her face when she first notices the blind dog sitting behind the wheel of her car, just what I can see through the one-inch picture frame, just one paragraph describing this woman, in the town where I grew up, the first time we encounter her.

Take it bird by bird. Writing is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.

You need to find out as much as possible about the interior life of the characters you are working on. You want to ask how they stand, what they carry in their pocket or purse, what happens in their face and to their posture when they are thinking or bored or afraid. What would be the first thing they stopped doing if they found out they have six months to live? Would they start smoking again? Would they keep flossing?

You are going to let bad things to your characters or you won’t have of a story.

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Take care,
Celeste