I am not saying that every person who does these things will become an overnight bestselling sensation. We do not wave magic wands. This is not Cinderella. I’m saying if you show me a great writer, I’ll show you a person who routinely does these five things.
1. Read
Drown in the classics – anything from Dr. Seuss’s “B Book” to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Find what you like and consume it like a starving man would a Filet Mignon. And think about why you like it. The voice? Rhythm? Moral? Things that draw you to a particular genre, author or setting help define your own writing. Which is exactly why you need to remember the old adage: Garbage in, garbage out.
If you read crap – work that tells (rather than shows) or uses paltry description that falls flat – you will write crap, mimicking the style. Don’t go there. Read works that use original images – books that expand the way you think about sentence structure, detail, dialogue and setting. Shit that’s interesting and well-written.
2. Free write
I probably talk about free writing more than I do anything else. Here’s the re-cap: Don’t be a douche. Nothing about free writing can hurt you, and you will very likely find your best ideas, phrases and sentences when you let loose and do it. We use two separate parts of the brain to write. One to create and one to critique. When you free write, you turn the create on HIGH. The more you do it, the bigger that creative muscle gets. More on that is over here.
Also, because I know the awesome benefits of free writing, I host weekly prompts for that purpose. It’s called Just Write for a reason. Seek original images. Make word lists. Free associate. Surprise yourself with language.
3. Carry a notebook
I carry a green steno pad in my purse. It has a blue Bic pen inserted in the spiral. If I do not have these items with me, I lose my mind.
I’ve lost count of the number of times an idea got away because I was able to scrounge up a napkin to write on, but didn’t have a pen. Driving. At the beach with my boys. Watching one of their soccer games. Even at the goddamn grocery store. In a flash, a difficult paragraph makes sense. I discover the solution to the transition I need. I am struck by a brilliant metaphor, or cleaner structure for a short story.
Don’t do that to yourself. The deeper you engross yourself in your work (and you will, if you haven’t yet), the more time you will spend mulling words and stories. Be prepared. This is one time the fucking Boy Scouts knew what they were talking about.
4. Write to one person
This tidbit has been passed around more than Heidi Fleiss, for good reason. When you block out the masses and tell your story as though speaking to a friend, your words become more intimate, more friendly, more revealing. You lose the stuffy bullshit and big words. You become more genuine – more you. You’re also more helpful. Writing to one person makes it about that person, not about you as the author. The result is the reader is better able to follow your plot, understand your meaning, oh, and give a shit about what you’re saying.
This is difficult for some writers to fully grasp, which is why I created Write Raw.
5. Make fear your bitch
To be clear, you can still, technically, be a good writer without doing the first four things on this list. But if you don’t get past your fear, you’re going nowhere.
“What if I suck? What if no one reads my book? I feel stuck and blocked and have no idea where to turn.”
Yeah. Fear lies. The posts addressing this very real feeling outnumber those on any other topic on this site. The favorite seems to be this one. So if you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and go. Now.
If you have a burning desire to write, then write.
If you think you cannot do it, you’re wrong.
If you think it’s unrealistic, you’re wrong.
If you think it will be scary, you’re right.
If you’re willing to go after what you want in spite of that fear …
If want to go out knowing that you did everything you could …
you’re in the right place.
• • •
If you’ve read this far, here’s my gift to you: Print this sucker out and paste it beside your monitor. I believe in these five things so strongly, I made you a poster. 🙂
Psst. Be sure to subscribe to the site in the upper right-hand corner. That way, I can send the sexiest, most liberating and inspiring tidbits of writing advice straight to your inbox.
5 habits of a great writer
I am not saying that every person who does these things will become an overnight bestselling sensation. We do not wave magic wands. This is not Cinderella. I’m saying if you show me a great writer, I’ll show you a person who routinely does these five things.
1. Read
Drown in the classics – anything from Dr. Seuss’s “B Book” to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Find what you like and consume it like a starving man would a Filet Mignon. And think about why you like it. The voice? Rhythm? Moral? Things that draw you to a particular genre, author or setting help define your own writing. Which is exactly why you need to remember the old adage: Garbage in, garbage out.
If you read crap – work that tells (rather than shows) or uses paltry description that falls flat – you will write crap, mimicking the style. Don’t go there. Read works that use original images – books that expand the way you think about sentence structure, detail, dialogue and setting. Shit that’s interesting and well-written.
2. Free write
I probably talk about free writing more than I do anything else. Here’s the re-cap: Don’t be a douche. Nothing about free writing can hurt you, and you will very likely find your best ideas, phrases and sentences when you let loose and do it. We use two separate parts of the brain to write. One to create and one to critique. When you free write, you turn the create on HIGH. The more you do it, the bigger that creative muscle gets. More on that is over here.
Also, because I know the awesome benefits of free writing, I host weekly prompts for that purpose. It’s called Just Write for a reason. Seek original images. Make word lists. Free associate. Surprise yourself with language.
3. Carry a notebook
I carry a green steno pad in my purse. It has a blue Bic pen inserted in the spiral. If I do not have these items with me, I lose my mind.
I’ve lost count of the number of times an idea got away because I was able to scrounge up a napkin to write on, but didn’t have a pen. Driving. At the beach with my boys. Watching one of their soccer games. Even at the goddamn grocery store. In a flash, a difficult paragraph makes sense. I discover the solution to the transition I need. I am struck by a brilliant metaphor, or cleaner structure for a short story.
Don’t do that to yourself. The deeper you engross yourself in your work (and you will, if you haven’t yet), the more time you will spend mulling words and stories. Be prepared. This is one time the fucking Boy Scouts knew what they were talking about.
4. Write to one person
This tidbit has been passed around more than Heidi Fleiss, for good reason. When you block out the masses and tell your story as though speaking to a friend, your words become more intimate, more friendly, more revealing. You lose the stuffy bullshit and big words. You become more genuine – more you. You’re also more helpful. Writing to one person makes it about that person, not about you as the author. The result is the reader is better able to follow your plot, understand your meaning, oh, and give a shit about what you’re saying.
This is difficult for some writers to fully grasp, which is why I created Write Raw.
5. Make fear your bitch
To be clear, you can still, technically, be a good writer without doing the first four things on this list. But if you don’t get past your fear, you’re going nowhere.
“What if I suck? What if no one reads my book? I feel stuck and blocked and have no idea where to turn.”
Yeah. Fear lies. The posts addressing this very real feeling outnumber those on any other topic on this site. The favorite seems to be this one. So if you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and go. Now.
If you have a burning desire to write, then write.
If you think you cannot do it, you’re wrong.
If you think it’s unrealistic, you’re wrong.
If you think it will be scary, you’re right.
If you’re willing to go after what you want in spite of that fear …
If want to go out knowing that you did everything you could …
you’re in the right place.
• • •
If you’ve read this far, here’s my gift to you: Print this sucker out and paste it beside your monitor. I believe in these five things so strongly, I made you a poster. 🙂
Psst. Be sure to subscribe to the site in the upper right-hand corner. That way, I can send the sexiest, most liberating and inspiring tidbits of writing advice straight to your inbox.
No one can write the story like you
So I wrote this post about fear last week, and my inbox sort of blew up. For days, notes arrived with thanks for the inspiration, for getting real. And it got me thinking. We all experience moments of terror and confusion. This seems to ring particularly true with writing. So what gives?
Something about seeing our vulnerability on the page can be paralyzing. Our words and thoughts take on more meaning when they’re staring back at us – when they are no longer in our head where only we can see them. Then we get critical. We think we suck. We’re sure we will never pen a thing worth reading.
It’s so easy to get deflated.
But that’s the sort of self-talk that creates writers’ block. It’s also why some people never fulfill their lifelong dream of writing. We have expectations of how things should turn out, and if we can’t be awesome out of the gate, we pull the plug. Writing is hard work. Why start if we think we won’t be any good?
I could give you some happy horse-shit about having one life. I could remind you that anything left undone on the day you’re buried is a criminal waste of time. But you already know that. And it’s cliche. (And I hate cliches.)
So here’s my point:
If you have a burning desire to write, then write.
If you think you cannot do it, you’re wrong.
If you think it’s unrealistic, you’re wrong.
If you think it will be scary, you’re right.
If you’re willing to go after what you want in spite of that fear …
If want to go out knowing that you did everything you could …
you’re in the right place.
“No one else can write the story like you.”
– Michael Xavier
• • •
If you want help polishing a manuscript or breaking out of your writer’s block, check out my four-week writing intesive, or contact me for a consult.
Psst. Be sure to subscribe to the site in the upper right-hand corner. That way, I can send the sexiest, most liberating and inspiring tidbits of writing advice straight to your inbox.