How do I become a writer?

How do I become a writer?

When I talk with people, I get a lot of questions about writing. The most common one is someone wants to become a writer and they ask me, ‘How do I become a writer?’ The quick and short answer is to sit down with a pen and paper, or at a computer and keyboard, throw in a good dose of self-discipline and get started. You know that already and during the next few weeks I am going to give you tips on how to write so that you will make time in your busy schedule to get down to the business of writing, and produce a piece of writing. I will always be expanding on the basics below in future connections with you.

Since you are starting, I am starting with the letters that make up the word Writer and some tips on how to improve your writing:

W — Words. This is the number one tool for writing. Without them you can’t make a story. Words are powerful. Depending on the words you choose, they can change the tone of your writing, you can use simple or complex words and create atmosphere and a world for your characters to live the lives that you have created for them.

Exercise for today: Learn to understand grammar and the difference between a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb and a pronoun.

R — Reading. It is through reading you will discover how to arrange words to get meaning. You will learn how other writers use words to get their meaning across. You will learn a whole heap of stuff about a whole lot of subjects you didn’t know existed. Reading expands your knowledge and adds tools to your writing craft. Read books about writing.

Exercise for today: Allocate at least an hour per day to reading. This will help with developing your own voice. Join the library and start borrowing books if you don’t have the means to build your own library.

I — Intention. Set your intention to write every day. All professional writers write every day. Some writers hold down day jobs far removed from writing. Your intention may be to write a number of words each day or to write for a number of hours. It’s up to you, whatever you can fit into your daily routine, so long as you carve out the time to meet your writing goals.

Exercise for today: Make the decision you want to write and set aside ten minutes to get started.

T — Time. To write, you need time. Writing doesn’t happen without the commitment to putting time into the activity. If you have a dream to write a novel, then you must write regularly. This is linked to your intention above. Set aside the hours you want to write, or a number of words you want to achieve at each writing session, and do it. Writing a novel takes hundreds of hours of dedication and commitment. To succeed, you must allocate a period of time every day. Allocating an hour of your day gives you 365 hours in the year. That’s enough time to write at least the first draft of your novel, including some revision time. And it gives you a day off when there is a leap year, like 2020, or you may choose to write that day, too.

Exercise for today: Now that you have written for your first ten minutes, work though how many hours you can set aside each day for your writing. Start off small and then increase until you are comfortable with the amount of time you want to set aside.

E — Edit. Every writer’s work needs editing. Even the professionals who have been writing for years still have their work edited. You can edit your own work to a point. You become so familiar with the work it is easy to overlook obvious errors. Pay a good editor to review your work before it goes up online or to a trade publishing house.

Exercise for today: There is no editing exercise. Wait until you have written your book or story to be the best you can make it, then send it to an editor. If you are writing a novel, this step will happen in 2021.

R — Revise. Revising must be done by you the author before the editing stage. Your writing will never be the way you want it to be for your first draft. This is where crafting your words is important to ensure they convey the correct meaning. It means rewriting until you get it right. I know of authors who revise some of their scenes and chapters up to forty times plus.

Exercise for today: There is no revising exercise. Wait until you have at least three chapters of your novel’s first draft finished or the full first draft. Get the words down first then go back to revise.

I hope you have found this post helpful. My next post is about choosing the genre, or what field of writing you want to work in.

If you have any questions, write them below.

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Happy writing!

I want to be a writer...

The last few weeks have been interesting. A few people have come to ask me how to start writing. I get excited when people say they want to write. Writing is so much a part of my life now. I need to write as much as I need to breathe.

The people who approached me were genuine in their curiosity about the craft. My first thoughts were that they were expecting a full-blown description of a magical formula on how to write. There is no formula. If you want to write, you just write. Pick up a pen, select some paper and just start writing words, one after the other, as they come into your mind. You are writing. It is that easy. When I saw furrowed brows I realised something wasn't connecting. They had obviously started writing and it wasn't working for them in some way. After further discussion what they really wanted to know was what do they write about. This is a fair thought. You want to write something interesting and inspiring for your reader.

                 My daily notebook

I believe there are two questions that must first be answered. Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing for publication?

If you are writing for you, the task is easier. Some people write because they want to explore their minds and their hearts as a thinker. Others write to record their life journey and try to make sense of what has happened and where they want to go for the future. Both of these approaches to writing are therapeutic, and so is writing for publication. When you share your work with readers, reactions will vary. Some will resonate with your words, others will reject the work. What's important is that this is how you see the world and no one else can see the same world as you. It is the differences that make the writing life so interesting.

If you are writing for publication, your approach to writing will be different, although the process may be similar. You still have to put one word after the other on paper or screen. It is so easy to publish your own work these days. The common denominator though is the quality of the work. You don't want work out there that is of a low standard. More about this in a later post.

The important thing is to pick up a pen and place it on the paper, or sit at the key board and start forming words from your thoughts and don't stop moving the pen or your fingers until you have words on the page or screen. They may not be good words. It doesn't matter. Editing will come later. Get those raw thoughts down and then shape them into what you want to say. In "Writing Down The Bones", Natalie Goldberg gives great ideas on how to do this and additional exercises in writing practice to help you let go of your inhibitions about writing.

After a major change in my life, I adapted Natalie's method to my own and have been writing this way for the past three years. This new method of writing has opened up my heart and mind in ways I'd never dreamed possible. Be prepared for times when your pen will be flying across the page and other times your pen will slow and eventually stop. No matter how hard you try you can't move on. Natalie Goldberg says to just keep writing even if you only write: 'I don't know what to write' until you break through. It works for me. Many of my notebooks are filled with that sentence resulting in long days at the keyboard. I have a theory on this which will be revealed in my new website that is currently under development and will be live in a few months. I am working on it with an inspirational team of developers who are putting my new ideas together. It will be interactive, including fun things to download.

I have been through some dark years where I have pulled back from the world to discover who I really am and heal those areas of me that needed some attention. I want to share the lessons I learned and I hope to encourage you on your journey, too. So for whatever reason you want to write, take up your favourite pen, and a notebook (it doesn't have to be anything fancy) and get started. I use an A4 spiral notebook and have done so for several years. I started using these notebooks after filling all the lovely notebooks friends have given me as special gifts over the years.

So, get started...now, and have fun. Leave me a message to let me know how you're progressing.

Writing Festivals and Conferences...

Your writing can change lives.

Going to writing conferences and festivals can be expensive, but instead of calling it an expense, think about the cost as an investment in your writing career. Writing is a business just like any other and needs an injection of capital to get it off the ground. So should your writing career be any different? Money invested in festivals and conferences will reap the following, plus more.

Fellowship

Writing is a lonely business. You slog away for hour after hour perfecting your words to create the right atmosphere, intriguing dialogue, and tension between the characters hoping that the the reader will keep turning the page so that she can't put your book down until the early hours of the morning. To achieve this you have to spend many hours at the keyboard, or putting pen to paper, and then some. By going to conferences/festivals you find you aren't alone. Out there in the world there are others who are toiling away into the wee hours of the moning honing their craft and trying to bring something of their life's journey to their reader.

Knowledge

There are many writers who have gone before you. They've walked the experiences of writer's block, procrastination, will my work be exciting to read, the structural edits, the line edits and the many revisions. They have tips and solutions that have stood the test of time and brought them through to the finish line. They know about characters, plotting, setting, pacing, revising, editing, publishing and marketing. These writers have enormous banks of knowledge inside them. At conferences they are bursting to share their knowledge with others. Workshops are the hive for the aspiring author, too. Be honest with yourself and determine your weaknesses and go to workshops that focus on them. Gain the knowlege you need to make you a better writer.

Publishing

Finding an agent or publisher is a difficult and also time consuming part of being an author. Most conferences have editors representing their publishing houses and if you can get a face to face interview, even if it's only five minutes, you are way ahead of someone who doesn't go to a conference. If properly prepared those five minutes may land you a three-book contract with a major publishing house. Being prepared and feeling confident about your work and who you are as an author is one of the biggest challenges. This is your opportunity to get that elusive contract. I will go into depth about this in a later blog. Meeting an agent or editor at a conference can help you by-pass the slush pile. Well worth the investment, don't you think.?

Marketing

The book is written, you've found the publisher, now you don't have to worry about that book because it's going to sell, right? Wrong. Publishing houses do some marketing for the first two weeks a book comes out, after that they expect you to be pushing your book. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think marketing is harder than writing the book. But clever marketing can bring you more sales, but the most important aspect of marketing to remember is if your book doesn't sing with your readership, your book will sell poorly. It's hard pushing a second rate book, it has to be good and that brings us back to knowledge and craft. Where are you going to get that current knowledge and craft? At a writing conference or festival.

This Weekend

Fill the creative well whenever you can.

So, it seems conferences and festivals offer a lot for the aspiring and published author. Yes, published authors should go to these events as well, because there are always new and inovative ways of writing and what better place to do that than with a band of brainstorming authors. This weekend I'm off to the Bundaberg Writefest to fellowship, gain more knowledge, speak to editors and agents, and to learn more about marketing. Oh, and to have a lot of fun too! If you're going to be there, make sure you say hi, I'd love to meet you.