Search

Rainy Day's Books, Video Games and Other Writings

Open Search
Tag

post

Confessions of A Writer #5: Reading Inspires Writing

Stephen King If You Want to be A Writer Quote

I know sometimes you feel like you don’t have time to read because you want to use that time to write. However, I personally believe reading and writing go hand in hand. When you’re feeling lost, reading can be the greatest inspiration to get yourself back into writing again. If anything, I honestly believe what inspires most writer’s writing is the books the writer reads.

For me, most of the writing I do here on my blog is mostly book reviews and video games, with these confessions posts being published whenever I feel inspired to write about writing. However, what you’ll notice if you go through the books I’ve written reviews on is that I mostly talk about young adult literature, fantasy and occasionally science fiction, romance and mystery. This makes sense for me as a writer because these are the type of books I read. But, I also feel like with my own writing, these types of books inspire me to write outside of what I do here on my blog. Most of the writing I do outside of here that I decide to publish on my blog is usually one of these genres. This is because I gain my inspiration from these stories and use them to help me come up with unique stories of my own.

I write within the genres I read because I find that reading inspires writing. And I think most writers can agree with me on this. I honestly think one of the basic tools a writer needs to be successful is to read a lot. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone can’t be a writer because they don’t read. I just think a writer who doesn’t read will have a much more difficult time at being successful as a writer due to having one less source of inspiration in their lives.

I feel like reading can help you a lot with your writing. By reading other books, you expose yourself to a variety of different writing styles and can see what works and what doesn’t. You can also make note of writing devices such as plot, setting, character, etc. in a story to get an idea of how to improve your own writing.

I believe that reading helps you gain knowledge. So as a writer, I believe the more books you read, the more you are able to understand writing as a whole. So for me personally, I believe in order to be a successful writer, you have to read just as much as you write.

4

Confessions of A Writer #2: I Don’t Write Every Day

I Need to Stop Talking About Writing and Actually Write Something

One of the many misconceptions about being a writer is that you have to write every day. Otherwise if you don’t, you apparently don’t enjoy it as much as you say you do or you don’t want to be a writer as much as you think. While some people might think this is true, I believe not all writers need to write every day as long as writing itself is still a part of your life in some way.

That’s why I’m willing to confess that I, myself don’t write every day. I try the best I can to make writing a weekly habit, even if it means jotting down an idea or two occasionally. But if I’m not in the right head space to write or don’t have any ideas, I don’t do it.

For one, writing is much more difficult to do when you don’t know what you want to talk about. Like I said in my last confessions post, writing is hard and it’s much easier to do when you already have a clear idea of what you want to talk about.

I also find writing to be fun and enjoy it more when there’s no added stress to doing it. That’s why I normally write whenever I feel like it because it becomes something I enjoy instead of being like a job to me.

So while other writers might write every day, I don’t because it doesn’t always work for me. It benefits me to write whenever inspiration strikes because that’s normally when my best ideas will truly emerge. That’s when I’ll truly make progress on whatever it is I’m currently working on.

 

0

Confessions of A Writer #1: Writing is Hard

Writing Is Hard Work Dorothy Day Quote

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well today. So, after some thinking, I’ve decided I want to try something new on my blog. It’s an idea I’ve had in my head for some time, something that I haven’t really seen before on other writer’s blogs.

I want to write confessions about my writing experience. I want to talk about my own struggles as a writer and admit some of the things I might possibly do that writers shouldn’t be doing. I also want to write confessions about writing in general because there are a lot of misconceptions in the world about writing and writers and it would be nice to clear them up.

So for my first confessions post, I want to tell you that writing is hard. Even for writers like me who’ve been writing for a number of years. There are some days when I know exactly what I want to write about and get to work on it immediately. Then, there are the days where I’m at a complete loss for words so it takes me longer to get any writing done.

But it never gets easier. No matter how many years of writing experience you gain, no matter how many words you’ve written down. But what helps me get through it all is perseverance. I might have some days where I’m really struggling, can’t figure out what I want to write about. So I take my time with it. If in the moment I don’t feel like writing, I tell myself its okay, and come back to it whenever I feel ready. I don’t rush it or pressure myself to write because then I know it’ll never work out the way I want it to.

Another way I get through these moments of writer’s block is by doing something else. I find with myself that if I’m able to keep my mind distracted, my thoughts will flow a whole lot faster. Then, I’ll be able to write whenever I do feel ready.

Writing is hard work. Even for writers who’ve been in it for many years. We all have our moments where we’re struggling with it. But we don’t let that stop us from doing it because we love it so much. Each of us has different ways we deal with these moments where we feel like we can’t get any writing done. And once we get through the tunnel known as writer’s block, writing doesn’t seem quite as hard. That’s when the real writing gets done.

5

Truer Than Fiction Guest Writer Blog Post 

So on Sunday, I announced on my coffee post that I’d be a guest writer on a friend of mines blog. Well, that post has officially been published as of yesterday. You can check it out following this link: 

https://geniusandinsanityiamthatline.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/raney-simmons-truer-than-fiction-guest-writer/

My friend Lesley was a psychology major at Columbia College, the college I attended. We had Creative Nonfiction together, where we shared some of our most personal stories through the written word. On her blog Genius and Insanity: I Am That Line, she writes about many different mental health issues. 

With this guest writing post, she asked me to write about how reading or writing affected my mental health. So I focused on escapism, the idea where someone does something they love as a way to escape their real world problems. For me, this was something I knew I did when my passion of reading and writing grew, due to the difficult circumstances that came into my life. During this course of my life, there were a total of three books that helped me cope through the problems I was dealing with. These books each taught me something different about life and myself. 

I’m excited that my writing was published on Lesley’s blog. I’ve never been a guest writer before so it was nice to try something new. Please check out this post and Lesley’s blog. She’s a great writer and has a lot of interesting information about mental health that I think people will enjoy.

Thank you Lesley for posting my writing on your blog!

2

Blogger Recognition Award

Blogger Recognition Award

I was tagged by Eleanor at her blog BookMarked and would like to say thank you for tagging me. This is the first time I have ever been tagged on my blog and really appreciate being nominated to take part in this award.

RULES: 

  • Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
  • Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post.
  • Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).
  • Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.
  • Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing!

These are the 15 Blogs I Want to Nominate Because I’ve Enjoyed Reading Their Posts:

1. BlueChickenNinja

2. The Little Book Affair

3. Rare Horror

4. Nerdy Book Club

5. Taking Words for a Stroll

6. Confessions of a Gamer Girl

7. P.Rose Copeland

8. Renegade Press

9. Butterfly Mind

10. Alec Nevala-Lee

11. Writers Without Money

12. roamwildandfree

13. The Politics of Writing

14. follow your bliss

15. SevenFlorins

Now it’s time for me to tell you how I started my blog:

Basically, I am a book nerd and video game player. I just recently graduated from college with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing for Print and Digital Media with a minor in English Literature. While I was in college, I had started a blog Healthy Body Peace of Mind where I talked about my issues with struggling with heart disease and living a healthy life style. But I didn’t want to continue writing that blog. While I didn’t mind writing about my personal health, I wanted to focus more on the things I love to do: books and video games. As someone who reads books and plays video games on a daily basis, I wanted to write about these experiences and show my readers a diverse blog that could showcase both of my passions. I came up with the name for my blog Vook: Books + Video Games because I wanted to come up with a unique name that combined the words books and video games. And that is how my blog was born.

Advice to those who just started blogging:

Find a topic that you are passionate about and write! Don’t write about something just because it interests you but write about something you have a strong passion for. Focusing your blog on something you care about will make your blog that much more interesting to your readers and will bring out the best writer in you. And let the words come to you. Don’t write because you feel obligated to. Write whenever you feel the words come to you and when you are ready to show what you’ve written to the world. And write in a way that will intrigue and interest your readers in wanting to read more of your posts. That is the best advice I feel like I can give to you because as a new blogger myself, I am still learning and working on making my blog better.

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑