Nicole Bianchi

What Charlotte Brontë Taught Me About Being a Writer

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What Charlotte Brontë Taught Me About Being a Writer

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Charlotte Brontë dips her pen in the inkwell and begins to write. She and her sisters, Anne and Emily, have brought their desks into the parlor and are busy working on their stories. The rain taps soothingly on the windows of the parsonage, and Charlotte pauses from her work to stare out into the garden. Though she feels in her heart that this is the best story she has ever written, she still fears that the publishers might turn it down as they did with her last manuscript.

The gentle scratching of her sisters’ pens against paper arouses her from her thoughts. Shaking off her doubts, she examines the paragraphs in front of her. There isn’t time to worry about the future — she must only worry about putting her words on paper and getting her protagonist Jane out of this latest predicament with Mr. Rochester.

That was how I envisioned Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, as I gazed at her portable writing desk last December. No, I hadn’t been transported back to the 1840s to her home in West Yorkshire, England. (I wish I had, just for an afternoon! I would have loved to have taken tea with Charlotte and talked about writing with her and her sisters.)

Rather, I was visiting the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City for a special exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth in 1816. [Read more…]

5 Writing Tips from Ernest Hemingway

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In the spring of 1934, an aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson hitchhiked from Minnesota to Florida to see if he could land a meeting with his favorite author. Feeling discouraged over his writing, Samuelson believed he needed a mentor to help him improve his craft.

The writer he had picked to be his mentor? Ernest Hemingway.

Samuelson showed up at Hemingway’s front door and begged the famous author for just a few minutes of conversation. Much to Samuelson’s delight, Hemingway agreed to talk with him and read some of his work. Although Hemingway wasn’t particularly impressed by Samuelson’s writing, he was impressed by the 22-year-old’s seriousness and dedication.

Unfortunately, Hemingway had planned to leave Florida soon on his boat Pilar. But luckily for Samuelson, Hemingway invited him to join the crew. While at sea, Samuelson had the rare opportunity to pick Hemingway’s brains about writing.

In a 1935 article for Esquire magazine, Hemingway shared some of the advice he had given Samuelson. Read on for five of Hemingway’s tips that we can use to improve our own writing.

[Read more…]

How Tea Helps Boost My Focus and Creativity in the Afternoon

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How Tea Helps Boost My Focus and Creativity in the Afternoon

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Do you ever begin to feel tired and have difficulty focusing on your creative projects as the afternoon wears on?

In the late afternoon when I begin to feel my creative energy take a nosedive, I pause from my writing projects to enjoy tea time with my family. This is a tradition passed down to us from my British grandmother.

She saw afternoon tea as just as important a time in the day as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember a conversation I once had with her when she was telling me about her experiences as a child in London during WWII.

Her family eventually sent her to the countryside during the Blitz, but she remembered before that how they would sit together in an Anderson shelter in their neighbor’s yard. She told me they put the kettle on before heading to the shelter. When the kettle whistled, one of her sisters dashed to the kitchen to prepare the tea and brought it back to the shelter.

Clearly, not even a war could come between a Londoner and her tea. The tea must have helped my grandmother cling to a sense of calm and normalcy as she waited out the air-raid warning.

In fact, when I did a little digging into the benefits of tea, I discovered that thanks to a special ingredient, tea really does relax you. Additionally, because it has less caffeine than coffee, it doesn’t cause caffeine jitters that mess with your focus and concentration. But it does give you a boost of creative energy. 

Maybe this is why so many of us writers like to drink a cup of tea while we are writing.

Read on to discover several of the famous writers who loved tea and how tea can improve your health and enhance your creativity. [Read more…]

The Top Ten Books I Read in 2016

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The Top Ten Books I Read in 2016

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This past year, I read thirty-five books in four different languages: English, Spanish, Italian, and French. (Yes, I might be a little obsessed with studying foreign languages.)

Some of those books I loved, others left me a little disappointed. But I learned something new from each one that helped me improve my own writing. As William Faulkner once observed,

Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.

Today, I’m rounding up ten of my favorite reads from 2016. This is always a difficult task so I’ve decided to divide this list up into categories and choose four literary works, three writing craft books, and three books on creativity to share with you.

Read on to discover which books made it into my top ten. I hope you’ll find new books to add to your reading list!

[Read more…]

8 Tips from The Memoir Project That Will Make You a Powerful Storyteller

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The Memoir Project

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Back in September, I traveled to Tennessee to attend the 2016 Tribe Conference, a writing conference run by my friend Jeff Goins.

All of the speakers were amazing and shared so much wisdom on writing. I filled up an entire notebook with everything I learned, but I particularly loved Marion Roach Smith’s talk.

She illustrated all of her writing advice with stories, recounting her experiences writing for The New York Times and NPR and her struggle to pen a memoir about her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Marion is a powerful storyteller. I lost my own grandmother to Alzheimer’s, and Marion’s words drew me in and resonated with me.

Afterward, even though I previously didn’t have any intention of writing a memoir, I hurried to the book table to meet Marion and buy a copy of her guide to memoir writing, The Memoir Project. She was kind and encouraging and wrote in my book, “Tell your tale and write on.”

I dove into The Memoir Project on the flight home, and since then I’ve kept coming back to it for tips on how to improve my writing.

Don’t let the title fool you. This book isn’t just for memoirists.

Telling compelling stories adds another dimension to our writing. This fascinating Infographic shows how the human brain is hardwired to respond to storytelling differently than other forms of writing.

If you’re writing an article about Alzheimer’s, you could just quote studies and statistics. Or you could go one step further by including the stories of Alzheimer’s sufferers. The second method will impact your reader more than any study or stat could.

Whether you’re a blogger or any other kind of nonfiction writer, you can use the techniques of memoirists to connect with your readers on a deeper level.

In today’s post, I’m sharing eight storytelling tips that I learned from The Memoir Project. I’m also running a holiday giveaway to win a copy of Marion’s book!

[Read more…]

10 Films About Writers When You Need Some Motivation

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10 Films About Writers When You Need Some Motivation

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Several weeks ago I wanted to relax after a long day of writing so I decided to watch a movie. And what could be better than watching a movie about a writer? Haha, we writers can’t get away from writing for long, can we?

Films about writers often give me an extra boost of inspiration and motivation. Seeing someone on the big screen struggling to craft their story reminds me that writing is a process. There will be ups and downs, but we have to keep striving forward.

I chose to watch Misery, the intense thriller based on the novel by Stephen King about a writer who gets kidnapped and tortured by his number one fan. No, it wasn’t very relaxing at all, but it was a gripping story. It got me thinking about the lessons about writing that we can learn from movies like these.

So today I’m sharing with you ten movies about writing that I’ve enjoyed and the different lessons I’ve learned from them. This list is far from exhaustive. It is not meant to represent the top ten best writing films of all time (believe me, there are many more fantastic movies about writing, and I could probably have made this list more than twice as long with all of them).

These are just ten entertaining films (in no particular order) that serve up some insightful lessons about writing and the writing process. I hope they will give you an extra boost of inspiration and motivation too! [Read more…]

William Faulkner on How to Think Like a Successful Writer

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William Faulkner on How to Think Like a Successful Writer
William Faulkner, ca. 1954. | Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

I’m trying to dash off this post before I get swallowed up again by my short story.

Yes, I know I’ve been absent from the blog this month, but August has found me immersed in developing characters and crafting scenes. Whenever I sat down to write a blog post, I became distracted by a scene in the story that I needed to polish or a character that I wanted to add.

The writing process has been quite fun, but now I’m nearing the end of the story, and the usual fears are beginning to surface:

Is the story really any good? Have I succeeded in making the characters compelling or are they one-dimensional? Will I be able to tie everything together in the conclusion? Will it connect with the reader? Will people criticize my work?

This past week I came across a 1956 interview with Nobel laureate William Faulkner in The Paris Review. Several of his observations have encouraged me to see my story through to the end despite my doubts.

If you need a bit of inspiration in your writing journey, read on for Faulkner’s wise words on why it is healthy for the artist to question his work and the formula for becoming a good writer. [Read more…]

The Rilke Test: How to Know if You Have What It Takes to Be a Writer

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The Rilke Test: How to Know if You Are Called to Be a Writer
Rainer Maria Rilke at his writing desk / (Wikimedia Commons)

Have you ever doubted whether you had the talent to make it as a writer? Have you wondered whether your writing was good enough to be successful? Did you ever fear that your work would be dismissed as irrelevant?

Even the greatest writers have faced these doubts at one time or another. What is it that keeps them writing? How are they able to overcome these fears?

Perhaps it’s because they’ve discovered the most important question all successful writers need to answer first.

In the winter of 1903, 19-year-old aspiring poet Franz Xaver Kappus was confronted with this question. A student at the Theresian Military Academy in Austria, Kappus wrote poetry in his spare time while wrestling with uncertainty over his future career in the army.

He considered dropping out of school, but how could he be sure his writing dreams weren’t just a passing whim?

One day, Kappus found out that Rainer Maria Rilke, a famous poet he admired, had attended the same academy in the 1880s. Suffering from ill-health, Rilke had ultimately ended up abandoning a military career in favor of writing.

Kappus decided to write to Rilke with the hope that the poet could tell him if his poems showed any promise. To Kappus’s delight, Rilke replied. The poet posed a question that Kappus could answer to help him decide whether he should continue at the academy or pursue his writing dreams.

If you are struggling with self-doubt like Kappus did, read on for Rilke’s simple method for determining if you have what it takes to become a writer.

[Read more…]

8 Rules From Kurt Vonnegut That Will Make You a Better Writer (Infographic)

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At this point in your writing journey, you’ve probably read hundreds of writing tips by famous authors.

If you’re like me, you might file away your favorites and take them out whenever you need a dose of inspiration and motivation. Kurt Vonnegut’s 1985 essay “How to Write With Style” is a definite gem to add to your collection.

The author of the best-selling novel Slaughterhouse-Five outlines eight steps you can follow to improve your writing.

Want to learn how to write like Kurt Vonnegut? I’ve taken my favorite quotes from Vonnegut’s essay and presented them in a helpful infographic. Check it out below.

[Read more…]

15 Famous Writers’ Fascinating and Unusual Hobbies

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15 Famous Writers' Fascinating and Unusual Hobbies

Want to improve your writing? Master a new hobby.

Leo Tolstoy played chess. Ayn Rand collected stamps. Other famous writers liked to take a break from writing to play a round of golf or try a new recipe or paint with watercolors.

These hobbies not only gave them new experiences to write about but also helped them develop skills that made them better writers.

[Read more…]