It can be daunting to step over the threshold from being a non-writer to a writer, but it shouldn’t be! Writing is such a rewarding hobby, and the great news is that if you want to write, you can write! All you need to do is put some words on a page and you’re a writer! It’s as easy as that.
What to write about? Sometimes the idea that you could write about absolutely anything is unnerving – it’s just too big. There are too many possibilities. How can you choose one idea from all the millions and millions out there?
There are the fundamental words of advice – write about what you know. This has the advantage of not needing any research as all the information you need is already inside your head. You only need to get it out of your head and onto the page. Could you write about an episode from your childhood? Can you remember what it felt like to start your first job? Is there an incident, happy or sad, that moves you to relate it? With the field narrowed to things that have actually happened to you, it might be easier to choose a topic.
And of course, as with anything to do with writing, there is the opposite of writing about what you know, and that’s making things up! Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Or go somewhere amazing? Or have an adventure? With the power of your imagination, you can do just that. Pick an idea and run with it.
So, how do you get from idea to first draft? You just write! Get your pen and notebook or your laptop or whatever is your writing tool of choice and get going. Pretend that you’re narrating your story to a friend and write down exactly what you’d say. Don’t worry about whether it’s any good, or whether your readers would be interested. It doesn’t matter. It’s just words on a page, that’s all. They are easily replaced or fine-tuned; it’s not as if you’ve carved them permanently into stone. What’s important for now is to plough onwards.
The trouble with the (natural) desire to produce something good is that it can give the new writer stage fright. Of course, it’s going to be intimidating to write even a single word if being judged is at the forefront of your mind. So don’t give even a passing thought to being judged. Write for you, for fun, because you want to…and no matter how badly you think you’ve done, DO NOT delete it! At this early part of the process, your work can be mortally injured by too much deleting or second guessing, so that you end up with one sentence rewritten twenty times instead of twenty sentences. Keep going no matter what. The editing can come later. For now, get your thoughts down, and once you’ve finished telling your story to a friend by the medium of writing, save it and put it away! You’ve finished your first draft.
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