Nicole Bianchi

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5 Favorite Things I Found This Summer: Writing Tips and Creative Inspiration

Published October 8, 2022 | Last Updated October 22, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

Hello, friends! 

I hope you had a lovely summer and are enjoying the first weeks of autumn. (If you’re in the southern hemisphere, I hope you’re having a wonderful spring!)

A few months ago, I published a blog post called “Five Favorite Things I Found in June”. It seemed that many of you enjoyed it, and I planned to continue with similar posts for July and August.

However, I soon became busy with summer things: enjoying the outdoors, exploring new places, reading many books, working on various writing projects, and spending time with family who hadn’t been able to visit since before 2020.

Well, before I realized it, it was autumn. But better late than never! Without further ado, here are five favorite writerly and creativity-minded things I found this summer.

Let me know if you continue to like this format, and I’ll try my best to write up an autumn installment at the end of November. Enjoy!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: book reviews, creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, writing

Ernest Hemingway on What to Do When You Feel Like Giving Up on Writing (Video)

Published September 11, 2022 | Last Updated September 11, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 35 Comments

Ernest Hemingway, Paris, circa 1924. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston.

I just updated this post with a brand new video. Check out it now!

It was 1922, and a 23-year-old Ernest Hemingway had just experienced one of the most devastating blows to his writing career.

A blow so devastating that he did not think he could ever write fiction again.

In fact, he seriously considered giving up on his dreams of becoming a famous novelist.

But eventually something within him drove him back to his typewriter.

He kept writing.

Four years later, he had completed The Sun Also Rises, and over thirty years later, he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Are there obstacles, interruptions, and distractions threatening to sabotage your writing goals in the New Year? Here’s what Hemingway can teach us about remaining dedicated to our craft even when life seems set on undermining our plans. [Read more…]

Filed Under: featured, inspiration, motivation, writing

Jack London on How to Become a Bestselling Author

Published August 6, 2022 | Last Updated August 8, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 4 Comments

Public Domain image, Wikimedia Commons

In 1903, Jack London skyrocketed to fame with the publication of The Call of the Wild. Three years later, readers greeted the publication of White Fang with similar enthusiasm, helping to establish London as one of the most popular American writers and the highest paid of the 1900s.

An article in The New Yorker notes, “By 1913, he was making more than ten thousand dollars a month, nearly a quarter of a million in today’s money.” But London’s success did not happen overnight. In order to write The Call of the Wild and White Fang, he drew on his experiences in the Yukon in the 1890s when he was living in poverty.

In an article in Literary Hub about London’s Alaskan cabin, Joy Lazendorfer writes:

In 1898, Jack London was trapped in an Alaskan cabin while, outside, winter froze everything to icy stillness. ‘Nothing stirred,’ he wrote later. ‘The Yukon slept under a coat of ice three feet thick.’ London, then 22, had come to Alaska to make his fortune in the gold rush, but all he’d found was a small amount of dust worth $4.50. A diet of bacon, beans, and bread had given him scurvy. His gums bled, his joints ached, and his teeth were loose. London decided that, if he lived, he would no longer try to rise above poverty through physical labor. Instead, he would become a writer. So he carved into the cabin wall the words ‘Jack London Miner Author Jan 27, 1898.’

Obviously, London was determined to become a successful writer. But the odds seemed stacked against him. Not only was he poor, but he also had no literary connections or literary background.

How was he eventually able to find success? 

Luckily for us fellow writers, London shared the secrets of how he learned to write, persevere, and become a famous author. In a 1905 article for The Editor magazine, he explained exactly how he got into print. 

In today’s blog post, I’ve collected seven tips from this article that we can use to improve our own writing. Read on for London’s writerly wisdom.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: creativity, featured, inspiration, marketing, motivation, productivity, writing

5 Favorite Things I Found in June: Writing Tips and Creative Inspiration

Published July 9, 2022 | Last Updated July 9, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 9 Comments

Hello, friends!

In my Saturday email newsletters, I usually include a little section with links to articles and writing tips I’ve stumbled across in my Internet travels. But sometimes I want to make a comment on one of the articles or highlight a specific quote. So I thought I’d turn that little section into its own blog post today and share five favorite writerly things I found in June. 

Let me know if you like this format, and I might write up a second installment next month. Enjoy!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: blogging, book reviews, creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, productivity, writing

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: How to Write a Powerfully Persuasive Essay, Article, or Speech (Video)

Published June 26, 2022 | Last Updated June 29, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 2 Comments

I hope all of your writing projects are going well this June. It’s been a few months since I last published a post here, and I’m happy to finally be back.

While I was away, I was making a new video, and I just uploaded it to YouTube:

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. In this video, I look at a persuasive speech outline called the Motivated Sequence created by psychologist Alan H. Monroe.

I first learned this structure when I was competing in a speech and debate league back in high school. It was extremely effective at grabbing the attention of the audience and inspiring them to action. 

Since then, I’ve continued to use it for articles and essays and have taught it to many writing students who were working on persuasive essays and speeches. And I’ve been wanting to share it here on the blog for quite a while! I hope you find it helpful.

If you enjoy the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the channel. This lets me know that you found the video helpful and also encourages YouTube to share it with more people on the platform. Thank you!

**RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO**:

  • 📚 Principles of Speech eBook by Alan H. Monroe: https://archive.org/details/principlesofspeemonr
  • 📚 Paperback copy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xQEyDL
  • 🎙Full Text of “I Have a Dream”: https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
  • 📝 2015 study on Attention Span: https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
  • 🎥 My Video about Four Powerful Persuasive Techniques: https://youtu.be/h2Zx6oBolZY
  • 📬 My email newsletter, The Inkwell: https://nicolebianchi.com/newsletter/
[Read more…]

Filed Under: blogging, copywriting, featured, video, writing

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Hi, I’m Nicole! I help creatives, business owners, and writers take their writing and copywriting to the next level and grow their online audience. I’m also a published writer of essays and short stories. As a Christian, I seek to follow in the tradition of artists like Johann Sebastian Bach, dedicating all my work Soli Deo gloria.
Find out more about me here.
•••
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”
– Psalm 45:1

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