In my free time, you can usually find me with my nose in a book and my hand in a bowl of Raisinettes (I made the mistake of going to Costco hungry and came home with a 5 pound bucket), so I thought it would be fun to turn you on to an author whose latest book is at the top of my to-read pile – Katie Williams.

Katie has some great exercises to get your creative juices flowing. I think everything she suggests applies to bloggers as well as those who aspire to write the next great American novel. My suggestion is to relax and poor yourself a drink, because lets be honest, booze helps when putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) – just don’t hit publish till you’re sober.

Also – Katie flatters me when she calls me a writer. I’m just a big mouth with an internet connection.

Enjoy!

PS – Make sure to leave a comment. One winner will be chosen at random to receive an autographed copy of Katie’s new Book, The Space Between Trees! Contest ends Saturday, July 24th at Midnight!

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Oh, hey, what’s up? Your sassy blog-mistress, Corrin, has been generous enough to let me, Katie Williams, write today’s blog entry. I’m on an Internet tour this month to help promote my new novel, The Space Between Trees, a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl who tells a series of lies in the wake of a childhood friend’s murder. You can read all about The Space Between Trees at my website, katiewilliamsbooks.com, so I’ll stop shilling now and offer something just for you.

Corrin, as many of us know, is a reader, and a voracious reader at that! Corrin is also, as all of us know, a writer. Here we are, after all, reading the blog that she writes. So I figure that many of you out there are also readers, and some of you-some of you-might be interested in writing, too.

I was a reader before I was a writer. Yes, I know, duh. What I mean to say is that my love of writing grew from my love of reading, and I began writing with the hopes of creating the types of stories and books that I wanted to read.

Now reading is no easy business. As Kurt Vonnegut says in his essay “How to write with style,” [Readers] “have to identify thousands of little marks on paper and make sense of them immediately.” After years of practice, we’ve grown proficient at deciphering those little marks, but creating them? That’s tougher.

So to aid the booklover who’d like to become a book author, I’ve collected a few simple exercises rooted in the books you love.

What’s in a Name?

Go to the bookstore (or your unread book stack) and pick out a book that has an intriguing title. Make sure that this is a book you haven’t read or read anything about, not even the synopsis on the jacket. Now, print the title of the book on the top of a blank sheet of paper, then fill that page up with your own story inspired by that title. If you need extra inspiration, look at the book’s cover image.

It might be fun, once you’re done writing, to go back and read the book by the same title. I’d wager that the two stories will be completely different!

Keep a Character Journal

Pick a book with a character that you love-major or minor character, it doesn’t matter. Once a day, for at least a week, keep a journal in the voice of this character. You can choose to have these journal entries take place during or after the events of the novel. You might even go to the store and pick out the sort of journal that your character would buy.

This exercise might feel a little strange, I know, but it’ll help you to see all the levels of a well-developed, intriguing character. It’ll also help you practice writing in a voice different from your own.

Sleep with the Enemy

Choose a favorite story and rewrite it from the villain’s (or antagonist’s) point of view. This exercise can be especially fun with a classic myth or fairytale. Heck, Gregory Maguire has made an entire career out of this exercise!

Take Dictation
(exercise idea from writer and instructor Allyson Ritger)

Anne Rice claims that while writing her vampire novels, she simply wrote down what the characters were saying in her head. I can promise you that my writing is never so easy! Let’s take a hint from Anne here, but instead of taking dictation from the voices in our heads, we can take dictation from her.

Pull a book by your favorite writer off the shelf, open it next to your computer, and start typing the first lines of the story. Is this base plagiarism? Sure, and you’ll delete these lines later, but by typing them, you get the rhythm and flow of the author’s prose. Better yet, you’ve gotten your fingers moving. When you feel ready, move from the author’s sentences to some of your own.

See? Now you’re writing!