Decide What You’d Like to Write

What’s fun for you to write?

This can be hard to answer if you’re not already writing each day. You can learn to write anything you choose, but you’ll have the most fun and the most success when you write what’s easiest for you to write.

What do you read with pleasure? This will give you a clue. I read anything and everything. However, at the start of the 1990s, I fell in love with personal computers. I bought every computer magazine I could find. In those days, there were few of them, and I read each one cover to cover. Whenever a magazine included a diskette with some freebie software on it, I loaded the software onto my machine. Sometimes, my machine wasn’t powerful enough, so I saved up, and bought a more powerful computer.

Several months went by, while I read everything I could find. Then, I decided that I could write for computer magazines, so I set out to do that. Another couple of months went by. One day, while I was in Sydney shopping at a bookstore I bought the new issue of a magazine. I’d written an article for this magazine some months before. As I flicked through the magazine, I found an article I’d written. I was thrilled. For a writer, nothing beats the satisfaction of seeing your name in print.

That’s the basic process.

*    Check your reading habits;

*    Read;

*    Wait for an inner sense which tells you: "I could write that!" when you’re reading;

*    Write, trying to match your style to the publication’s style;

* Make a sale.

Every writer who’s ever written anything started with the sense that he could write what he was reading.

Keep your nerve and practice
Initially, while you’re learning to write, you’ll be uncomfortable, and your words will seem stilted. They’ll be a long way short of the words you find in books, magazines, and websites.

Remember two things:

1.    Every writer (no matter how experienced or professional) writes JUNK in his first couple of drafts.

This is inevitable. "Shitty first drafts" is a term first mentioned by Anne Lamott (see the Resources) as far as I can tell. Get used to your first attempt at writing a project being truly awful.

That’s fine. Everything starts out horrible. Just keep your nerve. Not only will each and every draft improve, but you’ll also improve in general. As the days and months pass, your shitty first drafts won’t be as shitty as they used to be.

2.    Your first thoughts are the best thoughts. (Usually.)

Whenever I receive a writing assignment, I set a timer, and write for ten minutes about the project. This initial writing session contains my first thoughts on the project. Something in the couple of pages I write without conscious deliberation — straight from my subconscious mind — has power. That power transfers to my first draft, and to the second.

I always try to write an "initial thoughts" document for every project. Sometimes I get too busy, and don’t have the time. (I get lazy, in other words.)

I pay for my laziness. The projects on which I fail to write first thoughts either have problems, or are a real challenge to write. At the very least, I procrastinate on them. We’ll talk about your "silent partner" — your subconscious mind. Your subconscious writes, your conscious mind edits. Don’t try to both write and edit at the same time: you’ll block.

Exercise 3. Make a list of what you’ve read in the past week.

Writers read. Dean Koontz once said that a writer’s sole spare time activity should be reading. Keep a reading list. I manage to read five to io books a week. Most of this is reading for pleasure, and I’m sure I only became a writer so I could have an excuse for reading.

It doesn’t matter much what you read. I’ll read anything and everything, and tend to develop obsessions. If I enjoy a book, I tend to glom onto a writer, and will read everything he writes. Many readers do this — this means that you need to keep writing, because your readership and sales will grow with everything you write.