Nicole Bianchi

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Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Writing Exercise (Video)

Published January 7, 2023 | Last Updated January 7, 2023 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

Let’s start this year with some wonderful writing advice from Ernest Hemingway.

I’ve just uploaded a new YouTube video sharing Hemingway’s 3-step exercise that will help you improve your writing. I hope this video gives you a bit of inspiration as you work towards your 2023 writing goals.

An aspiring writer once asked Ernest Hemingway, “How can a writer train himself?” Hemingway shared an exercise for sharpening a writer’s observational skills so they can vividly describe their experiences on paper. This exercise can be broken down into three-steps and gives us a fantastic way to practice “show, don’t tell” in our writing.

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. My goal is for this video to help as many writers as possible. 🙂 It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up on YouTube and share it with a fellow writer. And I always love hearing your thoughts in the comments. Thank you!

Here’s the full text of Hemingway’s article “Monologue to the Maestro”.

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Filed Under: creativity, featured, fiction, inspiration, motivation, video, writing

How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit: 7 Effective Strategies

Published January 4, 2023 | Last Updated January 30, 2023 By Nicole Bianchi 32 Comments


Ray Bradbury once stated, “I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice.”

If you need thousands of hours of practice to become an expert at your craft, then writing every day is the quickest way to start racking up those hours in order to become a master wordsmith.

Writing daily has other benefits besides helping you sharpen your writing skills.

It forces you to clarify your thoughts and arrange them logically. It helps you become a more creative person because you must think up new ideas each day to write about. And, finally, it gives you a constructive way to redeem the time by training you to work productively every day.

Of course, if you’re not used to writing regularly, you’ll probably find it difficult at first. I know I did. I’d make excuses that I didn’t have enough time that day, that I wasn’t inspired, that I had just finished a project and had no idea what to write about next, that I was suffering from an incurable form of writer’s block.

However, these are all bad excuses. Writing every day actually boosts your creativity and helps you overcome writer’s block. Writer’s block is more difficult to beat if you write only sporadically because then writing is unnatural rather than being second nature.

Ultimately, when you start writing every day, eventually it becomes easier and easier to write every day.

Now I make sure to write something every day: it might just be an entry in my journal or it might be several paragraphs of a new article or a new short story.

Here are the seven steps that help me write every day.

[Read more…]

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

7 Inspiring Questions For A Personal Year-End Review

Published December 20, 2022 | Last Updated December 20, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

This is a post that I originally shared in 2020 that I’ve updated for 2023. Enjoy!

The new year is right around the corner. If you’re like me, you’re already thinking about goals for the new year and planning out projects you hope to accomplish.

But, it’s worthwhile to take a step back and put these past twelve months in perspective. At the end of each year, I do that by writing up a personal year-end review.

This exercise helps me set myself up for success in January. I reflect over what I achieved during the year, what obstacles I faced, and what lessons I learned. I try to think positively on the past year so I’ll be motivated and inspired as the new one begins.

The insights I gain help me choose my goals for the new year. I’m able to see what worked and what didn’t so I can draw up a plan of action. As the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing the seven questions from my annual review. Feel free to adapt them as you like — your answers can be a few sentences or several paragraphs long. It’s entirely up to you.

And you can still do this annual review even if December has passed. I usually write it up the last week of December, but I’ve also completed it at the beginning of January.

Let’s dive in.

[Read more…]

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

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

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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.
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“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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