Are you one of those people who want to write, but don’t know where to start? Writing is a skill that you have to train yourself. You may never be a Stephen King, but you don’t want to be him because you’re uniquely your own! Writing takes time to master and it’s not something that happens over night. Look at your favorite hobby or interest; did you perfect that over night? No! You had to work at it to get better at it! Sure, it came easier than the rest, but you are always learning, expanding, and growing in your talents, hobbies, expertise, experience, and interests. Writing is the same way. I am going to give you some awesome tips on how you can start writing today that are quick, effortless, and easy. But I will add some challenges to get you to start expanding your hand in different ways. Let’s get started.
- Start a Journal. Journaling has to be one of the easiest ways to start writing. You can write your own thoughts down can’t you? When you’re writing in your journal, you are expressing yourself in your unique way. You are finding your writing voice and are creating a writing style to fit that. You don’t have to worry if it makes sense than anyone else, because you’re going to be the only one who reads it, right? Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation, just write!
- Free write. Write whatever you want. Sit down and write about how much you hate washing the dishes, folding clothes, doing laundry, or whatever else. Maybe write what it would be like if you could afford a maid – what would you make her do while you relax underneath the sun’s rays? Maybe write about your day, talk about what happened. It’s not necessarily journaling, but it’s spending time to write and making sure you’re practicing with your writer’s voice and exercising your brain a little bit.
- Start actively writing with writing prompts. I have a book that is called “The Write-Brain Workbook” that has 300+ writing prompts in it! Everyday, there’s a new writing prompt! I encourage you to spend 10-15 minutes 3-4 times a week to work on a writing prompt. This will help expand your imagination and stretch you as a writer.
- Get a friend/peer/colleague to look over your writing. I know that’s scary, but as a writer, you need to not only be critique, but see what’s working and what’s not working with your writing. If you want to get that novel out one day, this is part of the development process. This is going to be the part of the process where it’s scary, painful, but it will make you into the best writer you know you can be!
I hope you enjoyed this list and if you have any other questions about writing, please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to respond back to you soon!