Read, Practice, Write.

This is my new method for writing.

Read: read anything remotely related to the subject, including books about writing.

Practice: start writing, (e-mails don’t count). This usually includes writing a blog post, as the blog reading community is quite tolerant and pieces don’t need to be perfect as long as they are immediate. (Whatever that means, that was a piece of freewriting, I’m learning all about it. The problem is that freewriting is supposed to be private, but I quite like experimenting in public.)

Write: write, with a capital W. That is, get down to stuff that Might go in the book. Might, with a capital M, like when creating theatre, you have to be ready to pour your soul out one moment and kiss the bottom of the wastepaper basket with your words the next.

So there, I’ve done my little bit of practice for this morning. (Better to do something than nothing.)

If you really like writing but often find yourself stuck or unable to pick up a pen or hammer your keyboard, have a read of How to be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play by Barbara Baig. It’s a good reminder of the amount of “unsharable” writing you need to do before you are happy to share.