Bart Westgeest

There are many programs for writing and editing texts and most are good for anybody and anything. Because basically they all do one thing – they let you create texts. As a writer you write, as an editor you edit and as a publisher you publish. The writer in you wants a tool that can create [...]

This quote reminds me that writing in the first place is something you just want to do – and as such it shouldn’t be aimed directly at an audience. Liberty is available if you dare to let go of your always weary “Lizard Brain”, as Seth Godin calls  it – the part that is always [...]

After reading a post by Merlin Mann on the process of starting a project (and to keep going) and after listening to Elizabeth Gilbert in a TED-talk mentioned in the post about nursing your creativity, I understand that they offer a way to deal with one of the major obstacles for writers.. We all know it [...]

NaNoWriMo ‘08 was a mixed pleasure for me. I had chosen a not complicated storyline with many autobiographical elements and after plotting it all into yWriter I felt pretty comfortable. In the beginning the writing progressed well but I quickly noticed that this writing 1667 words a day – no matter what quality – [...]

I can understand why Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” is a bestseller. It is a inspiring book with a mission: To get people to write as a habit in an honest and spontaneous way. She advocates the practice of freewriting – that is to sit down and start filling up that white paper. Don’t [...]

While playing a game of cards it struck me how important it is to organize well. First it looks like the cards don’t combine and that I have no chance of winning the game, but when I start to sort them it suddenly becomes clear how my chances really are and what I am missing. [...]

When words come quickly and my fingers barely can keep up with the stream of thoughts I usually don’t stop to look up a word in a dictionary. My English vocabulary isn’t too big unfortunately so I sometimes use words in three different languages. My own, that of the country I live in and English. [...]

http://www.literature-study-online.com/creativewriting/index.html is a useful overview of the basics of the technique of writing short stories. The 16+ articles, written by Ian Mackean, are short and to the point and form a good introduction.

I read a little in the autobiography “Tove Ditlevsen Om Sig Selv” last night and noticed that the style of that book was somewhat unusual in my eyes. The Danish writer had written it in a light tone and without going into many details anywhere which meant that she didn’t spent more than a few [...]

After rereading some of the stories I eagerly read in my youth by the Dutch writer J.M.A. Biesheuvel I noticed that he actually gives clear hints about his ways of collecting material for his stories. In for example the story Broos’ boze droom from the bundle Slechte Mensen (1973) Biesheuvel tells about a man who writes [...]