Write Start Craft Essays and Contest: 75 Word Openings

The fine folks at Biographile have been running an excellent series of craft essays under the title “Write Start: Practical Advice from Savvy Authors.” Here is a bit of description, with links to the series and the contest they are running in conjunction with Paste magazine:

…we’ve spent the past few months asking forty-plus authors to share their hard-earned writing advice to remind you you’re not alone. For the month of January, in the spirit of new beginnings, Biographile will be spending each day celebrating the craft of writing by giving you all the basics to get started.

Spanning genres, backgrounds, and styles, these authors have given us a goldmine of good habits and encouraging words. From writing rituals, to secrets in overcoming writer’s block, to tricks in engineering the perfect opening paragraph; if one piece doesn’t inspire you to start writing, another will. In the words of one author, echoing the famed advice of another: first things first, if you want to write, start with your ass in the chair.

Are you there yet? Good. Now, sometime this month, if the spirit moves you, start applying Biographile‘s Write Start tips. Pick a piece of writerly advice at random and give it a whirl. Paste Magazine is hosting a writing contest alongside Biographile‘s Write Start series, calling on writers (ahem, you) to pen the opening lines of a story, any story, in seventy-five words or less. All you need to do is cite which piece inspired you to write, submit your entry, and voila — you’re in the running for an iPad mini and a bundle of good books. (More importantly, you’ve got the seeds of a good story.)