Are you feeling stuck in your writing? Do you need a creative nudge to put your pen to paper? Writing prompts might be the solution you need to kick-start your writing this month. A writing prompt can take the form of an image, a photograph, a single word, or a thought-provoking question — the options are endless. 

The beauty of engaging with prompts is that there is no right or wrong way to use them. We can shape and reshape prompts to keep us consistently putting words on the page. 

Read on to discover three benefits of incorporating prompts into your writing practice.
 

1. Prompts offer a fixed starting point.

Getting started is often the hardest part of writing. We’ve all stared at a blank screen for excessive amounts of time and wondered how to fill it. Prompts give writers a place to start. They allow us to use our writing time more effectively by eliminating the question of what to write. By offering a fixed starting point, writing prompts help us to...

Hope*writers is thrilled to announce that we now have a team of certified coaches ready to help you make progress in your writing. Click here to learn more and choose your coach today.

Whether you’re planning a new writing project, stuck in the middle of one, or wondering where to begin, a writing coach can be an invaluable resource to help you clarify your goals and create a plan. 

If you’d like to hire a writing coach but you’re not sure where to start, these three simple questions can help you decide.

What are your needs?

First, determine what area of writing you want to work on with a coach. Do you need help with a particular project, writer’s block, accountability, or goal setting? When you decide on your broader goal, a coach can help you develop the smaller steps you need to take to get there. 

It’s also important to find a coach who works specifically in your genre. If you’re writing a novel, your coach should...

Have you ever felt stuck when it comes to your writing? From beginner to expert, every writer has experienced frustration with a project or their progress at some point. If you’re struggling to identify your next step as a writer or having trouble staying on track with projects, hiring a writing coach may be the right thing for you.

It’s never too soon to hire a writing coach, especially if you’re at the beginning stages of your writing career. As new writers, we tend to make excuses that stunt our growth before we even get started.  When we tell ourselves we need to be a better writer or be ready to publish a book before hiring a coach, we disqualify ourselves from receiving the guidance we need to keep moving forward on our writing goals. 

These myths about readiness are the reason so many writers struggle to make progress. The sooner you take your work seriously, the sooner you’ll begin to take the necessary steps to meet your goals. Hiring a...

Do you have a plan for your writing in the new year? All writers benefit from taking the time to plan their progress and write down their goals, but when we create a rough plan without specific, actionable goals, we risk staying stuck in the dreaming phase.

Getting Started

Studies show that writing down specific goals and the necessary steps to achieve them is far more effective than simply resolving to do something in our minds. Making a plan and writing it down gives us a visual we can return to again and again, and it helps us make decisions based on our predetermined goals. No more chasing rabbit trails! With a written plan, we can see the small steps we need to take to make progress on our bigger goals. 

Your Next 90 Days

It’s daunting to look ahead at an entire calendar year and attempt to fill in all of the blank space. Life changes, vocational shifts, or changes in our audience and purpose can quickly disrupt twelve months’ worth of planning. When we...

If you’re a writer who is working towards publication, you’ve probably heard about the importance of building your platform. Essentially, a platform is your base of readers, those who read your work regularly via your blog, newsletter, or social media posts. Building a platform can be one of the most challenging parts of the writing life, but it’s a necessary one. Publishers expect us to build an audience for our work. 

If you’re struggling to build your readership, author and acquisitions editor Jennifer Dukes Lee offers practical advice for how to take steps towards publication — even with a small platform. 

Jennifer’s advice can be summed up with a single memorable phrase, “Grow slow.”  Read on for her practical tips on growing slow.

Show Up

First, we need to decide which platforms work for us and then show up regularly to serve our readers. Remember: Our goal is to share a message. Our goal is not to strive...

Nonfiction writers are often encouraged to write from a place of expertise or knowledge to establish their niche and build trust with their readers. This often applies to writers who work in a particular field, such as therapists or educators, or those who write about a particular topic that requires training or education to explore fully. 

However, many of us write from our own experiences in the form of memoirs, personal essays, or self-help books. Do we need to be experts on a particular topic too? Author and therapist Aundi Kolber believes we already have all the expertise we need to write our personal stories. Aundi says, “It’s important for writers to know that ultimately you are the expert on your experience.”

What does it mean to be an expert on your experience? Let’s dive in!

You are an expert on what to share.

No one else is an expert on your experience. Your story is yours alone, and you get to decide how much or how little you share...

If you’re a writer, you’re most likely also a reader and collector of great quotes. Have you ever come across the perfect quote from another author that you would like to include in a piece of your writing? Maybe you’d like to share a quote on social media or include it in a newsletter for your readers. 

Before posting or hitting send, it's important to understand the legal implications when quoting other people’s words. It’s not as simple and clear-cut as it may seem. 

To avoid unintentional plagiarism, small business attorney Andrea Sager offers the following advice to writers.

Attribution

“If it’s a short quote, give credit . . . . As long as you cite the source, then you’re okay,” says Andrea.

We’ve all seen short quotes from books or articles make their way across the internet. If there’s a quote you’d like to share without asking for permission, the rule of thumb is that it must be short,...

Are you a writer struggling to make progress? Do you spend hours researching how to get published instead of actually writing? Hope*writers is here to help!

We put together The hope*writers Summit with you in mind. We’ve brought together 15 of the best authors and publishing professionals to teach you how to balance the art of writing and the business of publishing — and it’s free (for a limited time). 

Learn From the Pros

You’re probably wondering: What exactly will I get out of attending this online event? 

Here’s what you’ll discover by joining The hope*writers Summit:

• What Publishers and Agents Look for in a Writer
• How To Develop Your Writing Voice
• Why and How to Create a Writing Routine
• How To Collaborate With Others and Build a Team
• How To Write Like an Essentialist
• And so much more!

We hand-picked respected writing and publishing experts who have successfully navigated the world of writing and publishing. This diverse group of...

Are you a writer who feels drawn to experiment with poetry, but you feel intimidated? The language and formality of the form can keep many would-be poets from giving it a try. However, prolific poet and artist Morgan Harper Nichols believes poems can be short, conversational, and crafted from everyday language. 

If you’d like to give poetry a try, Morgan suggests paying attention to what’s happening around you and to the words you’re already writing. Poetic words and ideas are embedded in your life and your existing work. It’s simply a matter of finding them. 

Let’s write a poem! The following three steps will help you find the poem hiding in your writing.

Choose Your Piece

You’re a writer, and like most writers, you likely have a lot of work sitting in notebooks or on your computer. You’re going to create a poem from the words and stories you’ve already crafted on the page. Choose a piece you love, one that touches on your...

Are you a writer thinking about writing your first book? Without previous publishing experience, first-time authors can feel overwhelmed by the unknowns that accompany the publishing process. It’s easy to focus solely on what we know: our message and how to weave it into a compelling story. But, there’s more to the process of publishing a book than simply writing it. 

We asked our hope*writers members what they wish they knew before writing their first book, and here’s what they told us.

On Writing

Hope*writer Kevin King shared that he could have saved himself years of work if he had an established critique group while drafting his book. When he did find a good critique group, the feedback from other writers helped lead to significant edits that strengthened his work. 

Other members spoke about trusting the writing process. Sarah Sambles found greater freedom when she realized she doesn’t have to follow anyone else's writing rhythms. She found her...