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Thursday, November 19, 2015
Your First Steps To Becoming A Writer
Because of these kinds of people, I had trouble developing the belief that I was not a writer and yet it's was something I had to do. As long as I harbored the belief that these people were right, I did not value my work and give it the time and energy it deserved.How do you come to think of yourself as a writer, especially when you're not earning a paycheck as a writer? Here are a few tips:
What Happens When You Write?
If you want to be a writer, I'm assuming you feel you have something to say and a strong desire to say it. You may not know how you're going to say it or in what form (poetry, novel, essay, etc.) but you know something is there. Okay, you sit down to your computer or typewriter and write something. Don't correct it or analyze it, write like no one is watching. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be neat. It does have to be expressive to move people.
Next, as painful as it may be, you have to show this writing to someone. It can be a friend, it can be a family member. Then, pay attention to what happens. Did the person reading your work cry, laugh or get angry? If so, you did that! It means you can have an effect with your writing. It's worth something. You have to keep going!
That kind of feedback is hard to ignore. It's powerful motivation to keep you going--if you take the time to notice and honor that it's happening.
When I was but a small girl, I loved story time or story telling. Sometimes my family called my writing, "Judi's Lies" but I did not let that discourage me. At least I was being noticed and I knew that they were not lies, but creative stories I made up. I learned to type and pounded away on my old manual typewriter, pulling these stories out of my head and there were a lot of them. Even then though people said I must have borrowed that story from a book I was reading. But I wasn't, I was a rather lonely child, my oldest brother was nine years older than me and my youngest brother was five years younger. So I filled the hours I was not in school with writing my stories and drawing. I would make an outline of my story and then jump right in to writing it. I had a diary that my mom bought me and wrote in it everyday. It had a lock, but my brothers and uncle, who lived with us would break the lock and read my diary, however, it was filled not with my own life but a fantasy life that I was living through my stories. They would tease me at the supper table. I began to hide my writing but my writing was my dream of what I would be when I grew up.
Cultivate Silence
If you're having trouble thinking about what it is you have to say, it may help you to spend some time each day in silence. Some writers pray. Some meditate. The idea is to get used to clearing your brain space and tuning into your inner voice. You'll also be more aware of those little scraps of possibility floating around in your head that can later grow into big ideas. I spent a lot of time alone as a child growing up in North Dakota. My mother was really busy cooking and cleaning after the fifteen people who lived in our household. My father was always in the fields. I developed what people back then called "Day Dreaming, which was a form of mediation." I began to carry a little notebook in my pocket and when the ideas came I would write them down. This is a practice that I still use today.
What Do You Want to Write? Experiment!
It's okay if you don't know what you want to write about. It may take a long time journaling for you to see what keeps coming up for you. And it may take longer to find the form that fits you best. I went from poetry to essays to long-form letter writing before I settled on fiction. It took me years to do that. It doesn't mean I won't do anything else in those genres, but what I'm doing right now just fits. I encourage you to experiment until you find the form that suits your writing best. I have tried a lot of mediums. I have written poetry, essays, story poems, blogs. I never felt comfortable with short stories. I took classes in poetry and some in short stories but short stories never quite fit. Many times teachers were super critical like the grammar police. Sometimes they got to me and I would put the writing aside for a while. But in the end I wrote just for the need to write which I believe came from my soul.
Continually Remind Yourself You Are a Writer
As you develop your belief that you're a writer, it's helpful to set up reminders that will jog you back to that brain space that you need to be in to write. When you sit down to write it's easy to get distracted and starting thinking about doing laundry or what's for dinner. You'll want to have something either on your desk or on the wall in front of you that reminds you to get back to work and that you are a writer.
It might be your list of values that remind you that writing is a part of who you are. It may be simple words such as it is easy to get distracted. I put affirmations in front of me to remind me that I am a writer and to get on with my life's work. I will sit for hours at the kitchen table with pictures of my subjects all around me. I put a glass top on that table then the photos under the glass. These are my characters. For a while, I wrote a lot of stories from the animals point of view. Once I read in the local paper an article on how to kill moles. I began to think of how the moles must feel as people tried to drown them, shot down their holes, and destroyed their homes. I took lots of photos of moles, which are this pretty gray color, and so soft. These became my characters. The story was published in the local paper and the locals made a big to do about it. Many said they wept when they read it.
What world do you need to be in? The journey you take to get there will be one of many you'll take as a writer. I hope these ideas will help you take those first steps. What you write--and where you go from here--is entirely up to you and remember to write like no one is watching. Do not ever let people take your passion from writing away. You can always rent one of these grammar police to correct the spelling or grammar, writing is so much more than that. Don't let people rent space in your head.
©Judi Singleton 2015
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Friday, November 6, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Your Love Affair With Your Muse
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