Lost Cheerio of theharpoonist.com wrote an excellent article on how she broke through some writing barriers.  She was working on a novel and to put it nicely seemed to be experiencing some neurotic writing behavior.

Then she took herself out of her comfort zone and entered a script writing contest.  The contest and some software called CeltX (I’m checking that out as soon as I write this article myself) helped her to develop her abilities to write dialogue and it broker her of some of her acquired neuroticism (at least as it related to obsessive compulsive behaviors around her writing).

Her article and description of the process reminded me a great deal of Janet Evanovich’s efforts to learn to write dialogue.  She took some acting classes where she had to engage in impromptu speaking sessions with other actors.  That helped her to think in the moment and eventually write some great and very funny dialogue.  I’ve heard of authors doing a wide variety of things from hanging out with police officers or lawyers to attending drug rehabilitation just to get a better feel for the flow of words and thoughts.

Online Writing Contests

• Nanowrimo - Write a novel in a month (I’ve tried this myself and it is a lot of fun)
• Script Frenzy - Write a script in a month