Traditionally, all writing has been classified into two clear-cut categories, non-creative writing and creative writing. Non-creative writing usually deals with hard, cold facts. Its purpose is to inform readers and enhance their knowledge about a specific happening, situation, product, or concept. For instance, a book on history, a news write-up on a recent event, and a technical article on the latest software are all examples of non-creative writing.

In contrast, creative writing is inspired writing or writing that comes from within. It may or may not be based on facts. Even when based on facts, the purpose of creative writing is to reveal these facts in a new light, as perceived by the author. A creative writer reflects on the people and things surrounding her, meditates on concepts like love and fidelity, and then puts her thoughts and feelings on paper. Novels, poems, and short stories are all examples of creative writing.

To understand the difference between non-creative and creative writing more clearly, let us consider a road accident. A simple report of what happened in the road accident-who was injured, who was driving, etc-is an example of non-creative writing. However, if the same accident is woven into a story about the injured man, perhaps portraying him as a victim of fate rather than the motor driver, the resulting work would be called creative writing.

As you’ve probably guessed, both these styles of writing require different skill sets. While a non-creative writer must focus on writing with an analytical and methodical approach, a successful creative writer must be imaginative, philosophical, and to a certain extent, visionary.

The good news is that the traditional dividing line between non-creative and creative writing is blurring. It is not uncommon to find a non-creative work written in a highly creative way so that the work not onl book y informs but also inspires the reader. A good example of such a work is Sophie’s World, a New York Times Bestseller, by Jostein Gaarder. Although Sophie’s World is about the history of philosophy, something that most readers would consider a dull subject, Gaarder treats the subject as a wonderful mystery novel.

How focused is your creative writing? How consistently do you write? How far do you get with the creative writing projects most important to you before losing momentum?

One of the most common issues creative writers struggle with is being focused.

Focus is the difference between getting 3 chapters written this weekend and writing little or nothing.

Focus is the difference between being able to sit down at a pre-arranged time each day and write, and trying to snatch tiny pockets of time to write, never getting into a rhythm.

Focus is the difference between being a creative writer who writes and a creative writer who will start to write "when I have the time/ energy/ ideas."

Becoming more focused can bring great rewards to your creative writing and allow you to quickly progress in a short space of time.

Here are 3 key steps to becoming more focused:

1. Focus your time. Not having enough time is a common cry for many, if not all, creative people. The first step is to realize we all have the same amount of time. We can’t change the number of minutes in each day.

But we can change what we do in those 1440 minutes. It’s not that we don’t have enough time to write, it’s that we’re not prioritizing enough time to write.

However busy you are, find a small window of time each and every day, even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes. Make space for it in your daily routine. Get as far from distractions as possible and just write.

2. Focus your ideas. Many of us complain we don’t have enough good ideas. Many of us too claim we have so many ideas we just don’t know which one to start with. Some of us claim both of these things at once!

The simplest way to focus your ideas is to pick one and go with it. Set yourself a period of time, say a week or 2 weeks, and work only on that idea you’ve chosen. Commit to continuing to work on that piece of creative writing for the duration of the time chosen, wherever it leads you.

If another idea comes along demanding your attention, pause, jot it down, put it to one side and continue with your current project.

3. Focus your energy. Notice the biggest drains on your energy as a creative writer. It might be external distractions. Maybe it’s negative thought patterns. Maybe it’s people around you who tell you your writing will never amount to anything.

Maybe it’s your phone keep ringing or your email alerts. Maybe it’s your cat asking to be fed…

Find the biggest energy suckers and do whatever it takes to eliminate, or at least drastically reduce them. Then just write, each day, every day. Until your project is done. Then start writing the next one.

Lack of focus is one of the major reasons we don’t finish – and sometimes don’t even BEGIN – the creative writing projects we want to.

Use these 3 steps to greatly increase your focus in writing and notice how you improve your creative writing in just a few weeks.

As a creative writer, I’m sure you’re always keen to find new ways to enhance and improve your creative writing.

There are two main ways this can be done.

The first way to improve your creative writing is simply to practice writing in as many different creative ways as you can.

Start with all the ways and types you already know, then add to this range one technique at a time.

There are many different sources of creative writing exercises and prompts available that can give you the starting point and that initial kick of inspiration needed to head off in a new undiscovered direction with your writing.

The other way to improve your creative writing is less obvious. But in fact over the long term it’s the one that is most powerful.

Without it, you’re writing will always have a glass ceiling, a limit to how sophisticated, rewarding, inspiring and wonderful it can be.

Now sometimes a few limitations can be good when we create, it gives us something to push against, a boundary to stretch, a fence to leap over…

But in this case we want to smash through that glass ceiling. Then we can really start to soar…

The key to what sets your limitations, and what literally decides how high (or low) that glass ceiling will be is simply how good a creative writer you BELIEVE you are.

Or, taking this a little wider in scope, HOW CREATIVE YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE.

It doesn’t take long to realise that someone who’s riddled with self-doubt, whose confidence is shot to pieces and wonders if they can ever write their name again, let alone a poem, story, or novel, is not in the best shape to create.

Most of us have been in this position and it’s not a pleasant place to be.

There’s no guarantee too that we’ll never return there. But if you invest some regular significant time and energy into building your creative self-belief, your times of doubt will be less severe and less often.

One of the best techniques to increase your self-belief in your own creativity is to take time each day to write out and speak out loud some affirmations.

An affirmation is simply a positive statement that, said often enough, and regularly enough, can help us reprogram our thinking, away from negative and destructive patterns of thought, to more positive, uplifting and powerful ones.

A good tip for writing affirmations is to use the three Ps:

Positive: Make sure your affirmation is written in a positive way. For example: If you feel you lack self-confidence when creating, then turn this around and write "I have all the confidence I need."

Personal: Make your affirmation personal, always start it with "I". Just saying positive words may help in some way, but associating them with yourself is far more powerful and beneficial.

Present Tense: Your affirmation should be in the present tense, as if you already have the positive quality. So even if you don’t have loads of self-belief right now, don’t say "I’d like to believe in myself more." Instead use the present tense: "I strongly believe in my creative writing ability."

This is just one way to increase your self-belief and therefore improve your creative writing.

Practice affirmations at least twice a day for 14 days and notice the difference it makes to your creative writing.

It’s easy for us as writers to get into a rut with our writing. Even if we’re still writing fairly prolifically, sometimes it feels like we’ve become some kind of factory line conveyer belt, churning out near identical copies of the same pieces of writing.

Now because you’re a highly creative and imaginative person and not a factory robot, you need more stimulation, more variation. Volume is not enough, it’s also important to have the variety.

Also, as someone creative, you’re keen to continually evolve and feel you’re developing and moving forward. If you think you’re destined to be simply rewriting the same poems, stories, songs or novels for the rest of your life, that’s hardly an exciting incentive to continue, is it?

Creative writing prompts are a great tool to help you explore your creative writing potential.

In fact more than that, by using writing prompts regularly, you can explode your writing potential in all directions, many of which you never even considered trying before.

A creative writing prompt is simply a short phrase or idea that gives you a starting point for a new adventure in your writing.

Once you’re off and running, the rest is up to you. The prompts provides you with that initial direction and little burst of energy to get going. Where you take it after that is completely up to you.

Without the kind of starting point a writing prompt provides, you could be sitting at a blank page for the rest of your life.

And I’m sure you know how painful and unpleasant an experience this kind of writer’s block can be.

Some people have avoided using writing prompts because they don’t want any help with their writing. They feel they should be creating every single part of the writing, every tiny fragment of idea, every word and syllable. Maybe this is a concern you’ve had too?

Creative writing prompts aren’t the "cheat" that you might think they are. They’re not giving you a finished piece of work served up on a platter. The creativity and the imagination comes from you.

For example, say a creative writing prompt says simply: "What passion means to me – ". Everything after those 5 words comes from your own creative mind. You may start writing about your passion for horses and end up with the outline for a new novel about a young girl’s journey from riding horses bareback on her parents’ farm to winning gold in a showjumping championship.

You might write about the passionate romantic memories you have from your teens, and realise that there are certain things you’d forgotten than you want to rediscover with your current partner.

Or you might write about writing itself, what it gives you that nothing else can, how it makes you feel.

Wherever you take it, it’s your ideas, your memories, your creative talent and imagination that’s producing the words.

Run with it, have fun and enjoy where it leads.

Start using creative writing prompts today, and you’ll see too how a few words or a snatch of an idea can explode YOUR creative writing potential too…

Creative writing prompts are something that can help you develop creative writing abilities in you. You can develop your inherent talent of writing in a better manner using writing prompts.

Develop Your Writing Abilities:

Not everybody is capable of writing creative stuff. It is something that one is born with. However, you can develop your talent if you think that you have got that potentiality in you. With right exercise or training, you can develop your aspect of creative writing and nothing can serve this purpose better than writing prompts.

What is the Writing Prompt All About?

If you are not familiar with the term "writing prompt", then you will think that what it is all about. Well, it is simply an idea or a phrase you can use as a starting point to write your stuff. In other words, it is a technique or a way to get started with to let your innate creativity unfold. If you are not sure that you are having some kind of writing ability, then these prompts can help you bring out your latent or potentiality.

How Do Writing Prompts work?

Writing prompts are not something that will tell you how to write and what type of words you should employ into your writing. All depends on you how to translate your ideas, thoughts and feelings into creative writing. The prompts just provide you with a starting point to expressing your imagination. They are a great help especially when you are feeling blocked or empty of inspiration. When you use prompts, your mind will learn to anticipate what the prompt might have been, and it helps in filling in the gaps.

Reflecting on Your Past Writing:

It is very crucial to have confidence in you that you are capable to write creatively. And for that reason, you should reflect on your past writing. Find out some of your past writing stuff and assess them which will help you learn that the creativity you are talking about, you are capable of. Even from your immature works, you can learn the instances of your creative potentiality.

Believe in You and Start Writing!

Once you realize that there is a creative writing potentiality in you, you can start writing straightforward. You can develop your ability slowly and gradually. You can also read some pieces of creative writing to get the ideas. But using creative writing prompts, you can give your writing a brilliant head start!

Creative writing is something which is not everybody’s cup of tea. You need to know how to translate your creative ideas into actual writing. Once you learn how to deal with your creative writing ideas, you can give voice to your thoughts and feelings and become a successful creative writer.

Do you think that creative writing is something that can be learnt and developed or is it a kind of talent you are born with? Are you capable of writing pages and pages? These are some of the questions you may confront with while talking about how to become a creative writer.

Not everyone becomes a creative writer, there needs to be an inner urge to write your ideas. In other words, you need to believe in yourself that you have got a creative writing ability. You can develop your writing talent if you are confident that you really possess the ability. On the contrary, if you think that you are not capable of writing creative stuff, then you will never be able to develop that wiring talent which is in you.

Once you realize that you are capable of writing, you should gather your writing stuff which you have done to get confidence regarding your writing ability. This will help your creativity flourish. Try to collect all the creative writing stuff you have done in the past that might include certain things like letters, diaries, notes, journals etc. In other words, you should gather together all your writing evidence of how creative you are.

You must have written something and another and there might be something that can be called "creative". You need to look back to your writing and evaluate taking into consideration whether there is something in your writing that can be trained and developed into creative writing. If you are in habit of writing something, you can easily make out whether your writing ability needs to be developed or not. Have a sincere assessment of your writing and give it positive tune up.

You can only determine what the creative writing breakthrough is when you attempt to write a poem, story, or something. Unless you try to give a voice to your ideas, emotions and feelings and pen them down, you will never know that a powerful creative force is there in you. So, believe in you that you and have confidence that you are capable of writing creatively.

Using a creative writing journal is the most effective way in reaching your creative writing potential.

It can help you have a greater number of ideas, have more vivid and powerful ideas, reduce the blank screen syndrome of writers block, and allow you to write more deeply, more fluidly and more often.

But only if you use it in the right way!

Here are the 5 biggest mistakes we make that mean using a creative writing journal is frustratingly ineffective, and how to turn these mistakes around:

1. Always looking for the perfect writing journal. Much like some of us may be on a lifelong quest for the perfect handbag, car, or partner, going through versions that don’t quite live up to our perfect expectations like a starving fox goes through a coop of chickens, you may be waiting for the perfect writing journal.

It’s the same affliction – perfectionism. It doesn’t matter if your journal is a children’s exercise book that cost a few pence, what matters is that you use it. The more you use it, the easier it becomes and the better your creative writing.

2. Having a creative writing journal you’re scared to use. Maybe you decided to invest in a beautiful leather bound journal encrusted with rare jewels that you had to re-mortgage your house to purchase.

Ok maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. The point is if you have a creative writing journal that is so beautiful or expensive you’re afraid to write in it, it’s not serving its purpose. Get another journal that won’t intimidate you and start using it right away.

3. Not taking your creative writing journal with you wherever you go. So you bought a creative writing journal and can’t wait to use. The trouble is it’s sitting there on your shelf unused because you keep forgetting to take it out with you.

Put your creative writing journal somewhere you can’t forget to take it with you. By your house keys is a great place. Whenever you leave the house, grab your keys, and grab your writing journal, so you’re always ready to capture those creative ideas!

4. Not developing any of the ideas you capture. Maybe you have been using a creative writing journal and it’s full of great ideas for creative writing. This part of the process you have down to a fine art, congratulations.

But you’re not ever doing anything with these ideas, they’re just lying unloved in your journal. Show them the respect they deserve! Every week, or even every day, open your creative writing journal, pick the first idea that excites and inspires you, and start writing…

5. Not capturing ideas in enough detail. You’ve been taking your creative writing journal out wherever you go, and noting down ideas when they’ve come to you. Now your journal is packed with ideas waiting to be developed.

Except when you go to expand on them, the ideas are too vague, there’s no passion in them, they don’t inspire you. Ensure that when you first capture your ideas, you write enough detail so that when you return to them they’ll hit you with the same force and excitement as when they first came to you. The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

These are the 5 biggest mistakes that make using a creative writing journal ineffective. Which do you relate to?

Take these tips on board today, start using you’re a creative writing journal in the way that works best for you, and see the positive change in your creative writing.