Sunday, January 27, 2013

Custom Essay Writing - Should You Buy Essays Online?

Custom essay writing services are rampant on the web these days. Every time I turn around, it seems like there is a new website selling essays to unsuspecting college students around the world. These companies are unethical and doing their customers a major disservice.

Keep reading to find out why you should never pay money for an essay online.

Where do essay writing services get their essays? Although many of these companies would like you to believe that they are creating essays with a qualified team of writers, most of these so-called essay writing services actually outsource their writing to India and other countries. Think of it: someone in New Delhi is getting paid a few bucks an hour to write your college paper.

Why is it so bad to buy an essay that was produced in a foreign country? Besides the obvious waste of an opportunity to grow intellectually and the apparent waste of your college tuition, an essay written by a foreigner is simply not going to reflect the expectations of a college writing class in the United States.

Many custom essay writing services will also provide you with a finished document that is recycled from previously composed work for other customers. Some of these essays even get reproduced online and become easy for your instructor to catch and dismiss as simple plagiarism.

As a college writing instructor myself, I have found it very easy to identify essays that students either buy online or pay someone else to write. It is not difficult and often very obvious when it happens. I want to urge you to think twice (even three times) about making this error next time you think about skipping an assignment and finding an essay for sale on the web. Not only will you be throwing away your college education, you're also very likely to get caught!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Creative Writing Prompts - Supercharge Your Creative Writing Today Using Prompts

As a creative writer, no doubt you have the ambition and intention to write all your own work.

You want to be proud of every word you write, and know that it comes from your heart.

You want each piece you write to be as wonderful a creative expression as you know how to produce, and for it to touch, move and inspire people.

This is all fantastic, and can act as great motivation and impetus to write creatively.

But what about those times when you feel the ideas have run a little dry?

So dry in fact that you're thinking of booking a holiday to the Sahara desert for a change of climate?

Those times when you're sat at a blank page or screen wondering where the next WORD is going to come from, let alone the next complete poem, story or novel.

How motivating are these kind of ambitions and intentions in times like these?

Don't you find they can actually increase the pressure?

This expectation you've put upon yourself actually adds to the feelings of being stuck and blocked?

It's during these difficult periods you can benefit most from using creative writing prompts.

Creative writing prompts are simple techniques or sets of words that give you a starting point to write from. They give you that little spark of inspiration, that gentle push forward you need to get your creative writing flowing again.

Where your writing goes after you've set off is entirely up to you. You might use a prompt to start writing, write 1000 words then edit the last 400 or so into a new poem.

Although in this case you didn't use the content of the creative writing prompt, you couldn't have got to your own piece of poetry without having used the prompt to get there.

Having a good stock of prompts available to pull out in those barren times is invaluable.

They can not only get you moving when you've ground nearly to a complete standstill, they can also help you supercharge your creative writing to new levels.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Creative Writing Prompts - How To Use Prompts To Help Your Creative Writing Flourish

So you want to become a better creative writer? But you feel short of ideas, lacking in inspiration, and just don't know where to start your next piece of writing. You know deep down that you have a lot of potential as a writer, you enjoy writing and have written pieces in the past that you've been proud of.

But lately, the words are just not coming. What can you do?

Creative writing prompts are one of the best ways to get your creative juices flowing and unlock all that untapped potential.

A writing prompt is simply a word, phrase, picture or idea to stimulate your creativity and start you writing. Where you go with your writing after that is entirely up to you, the prompt just gives you that little push, that glimmer of inspiration you've had difficulty finding lately.

Many writers feel that using a writing prompt might be cheating or taking a short cut, and means you're not producing work that's all yours. Remember, the prompt is just a starting point. YOUR unique creativity does the rest.

Think of using writing prompts like this:

Imagine there's a huge wonderful garden, every last square inch heaving with the most gorgeous and bountiful blooms. There are many different areas within that garden, each with their own theme and design.

For example, there's the Victorian English garden, the dense tropical Amazonian rainforests, the Dutch tulip fields of every colour imaginable, and the sweeping majesty of the undiscovered Alaska. If you looked hard enough, you'd probably even find the hanging gardens of Babylon!

It's a big garden! Infinitely big in fact.

All around this glorious garden is a 20 foot high brick wall, with a gate every few metres or so. You can just about see enough through the gates to know there's plenty to be explored inside, but they're all locked and there seems no way of opening them.

Then, you realise, just beside each gate is a little red box. You open the box and inside is a key. The key for the gate, the key to entering this incredible garden. You take the key, open the gate, and you're in, off on your adventure...

So, how does this relate to writing prompts and being afraid to use them because they're not all your own, or because you feel you're cheating?

A creative writing prompt is the key to the garden. It's not the actual garden.

The garden is already within you. It's all the amazing, rich and emotive stories, poems, songs and novels you haven't yet written but are perfectly capable of writing. Use a creative writing prompt, take the key that's been offered, and start to explore that wonderful creative garden within you... You, and your future audience, deserve to experience that garden in its fullest bloom...

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Creative Writing Prompts - How To Give Your Creative Writing The Time Of Its Life!

Feeling stuck with your creative writing? Struggling to come up with exciting and stimulating new ideas? Are you looking for an easy and effective way to unlock your creative writing potential? Something you can use right away without having to learn sophisticated new techniques?

Creative writing prompts could be just what you're looking for.

With creative writing prompts, your natural imagination and writing potential is encouraged to come out and play. There's a wealth of potential and talent right there waiting already, but it just doesn't get invited out very often.

Have you known people in the past that in a work or everyday situation seem very reserved and quiet?

People you assume would probably not find it very comfortable being in larger group or a more lively or challenging social situation?

Then, one day - maybe it's at a mutual friend's birthday party, maybe at charity event, maybe at a local class you attend for dancing or acting - you see this former wallflower having the time of their lives! They're dancing, singing, chatting, laughing, and generally having more fun than you thought they knew was possible!

All they needed was that invitation to come out and play...

It's exactly like that with your creative writing too. If you don't ever expect anything from it, if you never invite it to let its hair down and show you its moves, you'll never see what it's truly capable of.

This is where creative writing prompts come in, and are so valuable. They're the party invitation, the special offer membership to the local dance club.

Some fear that when they use creative writing prompts it's somehow cheating or taking a shortcut to writing better, because it's someone else's words they're using as a starting point.

While this perception is understandable, it simply isn't true. Yes you need the party invitation to go to the party, but once you're there, how much do you use it? You don't! You just get down to having a great time!

With writing prompts, once you've started writing you're imagination is away and free. Whatever comes out after that initial invitation - that first line or phrase - is all your own work.

Start experimenting with creative writing prompts today, and invite your creative writing potential to the party it's been dying to be asked to for years...

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Creative Writing Prompts - Unlock The Creative Writing Kingdom Within You Using Writing Prompts

Creative Writing Prompts are a fantastic way to give new life to your writing when you're feeling stuck, blocked, or just tired of how you seem to be writing the same old words, sentences and paragraphs.

We all go through lulls in our writing. The danger is when we let this minor and entirely natural little dip in our creativity turn into a black hole where we're completely in the grip of writer's block and can barely put a handful of words together.

One of the major reasons why we don't use writing prompts is the fear that we're cheating somehow or taking a creative short cut.

Rather than relying on our own creativity, we feel we're using the creative talent of the person who came up with the prompt.

Here's why this fear is unfounded:

Imagine you lived in a town just outside a vast and mighty kingdom. All around that kingdom is a 10 metre high wall to stop people seeing in. You hear rumours and whispers about how wonderful life is for those inside the kingdom, but you can't find a way in. You see there are huge gates at different points around the perimeter wall but they're locked and bolted, there's no way through.

This kingdom is like the creative writing talent within you.

It's already there, waiting to be explored and discovered, but you can't find a way in. You can't work out how to unlock that writing talent.

Now imagine one day you're stood at one of these awesome gates to the kingdom, desperate to find a way in, and a woman comes over to you and presents you with a key, before vanishing again as quickly as she appeared. You put the key in the lock of the gate, turn it, and you're in. Welcome to the kingdom! And yes it's every bit as glorious as you hoped it would be.

Creative writing prompts themselves are NOT the kingdom of wonderful creative writing within you. Creative writing prompts are the KEYS to the kingdom.

Using a simple writing prompt can provide you with the first step you need to set off on incredible writing adventures. It doesn't matter who the woman with the key was, it only matters that you took the key and entered the kingdom.

It doesn't matter who created the writing prompt you decide to use. It only matters that you chose to you use it, and that it helped you start writing in a direction or a style or using a technique you wouldn't have found on your own.

Accept the keys to the wonderful creative writing kingdom within you today by using creative writing prompts.