1. Interspiritual
Today people around the world celebrate the second day of Kwanzaa. This
seven-day African-American festival includes lighting a different color candle
each day to represent one of seven principles. Today the leftmost red candle is lit in honor of Kujichagulia (koo-jee-chah-goo-LEEah) or Self- Determination.
How does self-determination show up in your life as a writer? How do you
persevere in the light of adversity? What can we learn f rom the
determination and strength of our black brothers and sisters?
2. Experiential
Choose a principle that you would like to guide and inform your writing. Maybe
it's originality, or integrity.
Light a candle in honor of that principle. Keep the candle burning as you
journal about what the principle means to you as a writer.
3. Practical
In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King says: "The road to hell is
paved with adverbs."
An adverb is defined as "a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an
adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place,
time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then,
there)."
Remove all the adverbs from something you have written. See how well
it reads without them. If you absolutely need to modify something
you've written, see if you can use a stronger noun or verb.