One of bonuses about reading is you can scope out the competition! Reading the books in your chosen genre allow you to see what trends are present, what tropes are most common, and how the pros do it!
The right book at the right time may encourage you to switch genres, try your hand at a fresh retelling of an old story or a new point of view.
Writing should never be static!
Keep writing! Keep reading!
In Love & Ink,
JBHarris
All writing is done from some sort or point of inspiration. All of it. From the Bible to blog pieces. Inspiration fuels all of it. But, what JBHarris Writing Services must remind you that writing has three main components: thought, inspiration and process.
Thought.
What are you going to write about?
Inspiration.
What are you going to base your work on?
Process.
Putting your thoughts on/in a written or legible medium.
Now, with this clarified, I must remind you of what plaigarism and the three types that are found in academic or creative writing:
plagiarism. noun
the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
Types:
Direct plagiarism: most common; word-for-word copying
Self plagiarism: student submits his or her own previous work, or mixes parts of previous works, without permission from all professors involved. Self plagiarism:
Mosaic plagiarism: student borrows phrases from a source without using quotation marks, or finds synonyms for the author’s language while keeping to the same general structure and meaning of the original. Sometimes called “patch writing.”
Accidental plagiarism: accidental plagiarism occurs when a person neglects to cite their sources, or misquotes their sources, or unintentionally paraphrases a source by using similar words, groups of words, and/or sentence structure without attribution.
For more helps, click here.
If you have been asked to create a work for a class, or embarking on the journey of creating an independent creative work, you are in control. You must protect the integrity of your created work! You must protect the integrity of the work you cite!
If you did not create it, you cannot claim it!
As a writer, your first job is to read! From that reading, you are bound to be inspired. If you are a working writer, it doesn’t take much to stimulate your imagination. But I want you to know, with any type of writing, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. And never will be.
There is a demonstrable difference between having a work inspire you, and copying that same inspired work. The goal of inspiration is to be stimulated to create. It is a mockery of inspiration if you will make no attempt to create something from your artistic self! It is not inspiration if you just copy the ideas of someone else–claiming their brilliance as your own.
Inspiration is always fuel: your imagination, your talent is the real power. If you plagiarize, where will your voice and power be seen or shown?
There is nothing authentic about stealing the voice out of someone else’s throat? It renders both of you mute!
Audre Lorde said the thing about fire is that you have to be believe that you have it. Inspiration is that fire–plagiarism will always douse it.
There is a need in every writer to idolize and become or remain prolific.There is a need we have to do as I like I say, “Write all the words.” Where the words, thoughts and topics are so forceful where you run the idea to the story to its completion –that high?
*Sigh*
Nothing like it. Nothing.
However, this is a topic as a writer you will encounter throughout your career! Trust me on this. The high of this career, this profession, causes a unique burst of uncommon energy which propels us to keep creating to tell of the worlds inside of us all.
But there is and must be a balance between creativity and reasonable activity. There must be. The balance, this balance is essential to creativity! Let me help break this down.
Writers straddle this dichotomy anytime creativity is ramping up or about to ramp up.The seduction of the process of creating, the process of the story unveiling and writing until the end to see what happens first. Trust, I know.
However…it’s the story that is the most important! It is the ability to tell the story and convey it. It is better to be productive than prolific for the sake of the story and your creative sanity. For the want of trying to keep pace with someone else, you may lose your own story! As a writer, the story is our concern. Producing a quality work is your concern, if that means you become prolific as a result of it, that’s another matter. The story must be in the forefront of your mind! Stephen King, the author of over 50 novels said in his book On Writing, to let the story write itself.
You will encounter many highs as a writer and an author. None will be as sweet as creating quality work. The speed, the being prolific will come! It’s the coin of this creative realm. Writers pay for it with imagination. It will come. Creation is divine–so create. Whether that is a 400 page novel or a trilogy which boasts 800 pages total.
Write, dear one. Write all you see!
The world wants to see what you did.
Jennifer P. Harris
Editor/Founder-Shekinah Glory Writing Services
JBHarris Writing Services 