Hey guys! Sorry that I’ve been gone for so long. Last week I was supposed to go on an extended camping trip thing with my family but we ended up coming back because my Dad got injured and I had really bad allergies. Both of which are getting better. After I came back Friday afternoon I was too tired to write the post and a little too unmotivated to write it Saturday……. Or Sunday……. And on Monday it just felt to late to start. Recently I’ve been thinking that I should go and make an extended series of posts. I kind of did a little bit of this back when I did all the posts about reading and ended it with the whole post about my ideal home library. I was thinking I’d do another one like that but actually make it a real series of posts. The series is going to be titled something similar to Getting Started. I’m hoping that it will include posts like Growing Plots, and introduction the first piece of writing I wrote in 5th grade, how to really get started, mentions on some of the stuff that I tried when I was first starting and even a post on how to get better at your writing once you’ve started. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think that I have got some good posts lined up. So here we go with the first Getting Started Post.
Getting Started: The Beginning
So, now matter what anyone says to you about writing, when you first start there is only two things that really matters. Its not your writing skill (you can improve that). It’s not your following (that will grow with time). It’s not your spelling or punctuation (what are autocorrect and editors for, right?). Its not even how many published authors that you know (although that does help later). The only two things that really matter when you begin are, 1) an idea and 2) the motivation to write that idea to completion. You need both of these two things to be a writer. I have been on both ends of the scale. I have had a great idea for a book with no motivation whatsoever to ever write that book. I have wanted to write a bestselling book so great that it will become a classic and be read for centuries, a book that English teachers will misinterpret my symbolism of, a book so great that I will be rich… and yet I have no idea what that book will be about. In my experience, which is pretty limited, you need both of these things to write a successful book.
I have met many a person who has told me that they are writers too but when I ask to hear something they have written they tell me that they have never written any of their ideas down. I have also met other people who have written stuff but then can never really get a good idea of what to do with their short little pieces of scenes. None of them seem to fit together and they can’t really get a good idea for a book but they have the motivation to write one.
Once upon a time on of my friends, who I still consider a good friend, told me that she wanted to be a writer too. I asked her if she wanted to get a book published. She said yes. I asked her if she had a good idea. She told me about it. I asked her how it was going. “Not at all.” She told me. “I’m not writing anymore.” I asked her why. “Because you’re writing is better. You’re writing made me not want to be a writer anymore.” I worried about this for years. If my writing made someone stop wanting to write maybe I should stop writing. I worried that other people would stop writing. Slowly I came to a realization. One of the two things to you need to get started is the motivation to write your book to completion. This doesn’t necessarily mean you want to be published. It doesn’t mean that you want it to be great. It just means that to start you want to finish something. The act of finishing something has been proven to make you want to finish something else. Finish one book and you’ll want to finish another. My friend had never finished a book and so she lost her motivation to write something to completion. It had nothing to do with me or any other writer. Motivation comes from you, not any other writer.
Of course there are other, less intangible things you need to get started. I’m going to rephrase. The two intangible things that you need to get started are the two mentioned above. Some of the other things you need to get started are a notebook (or computer but I prefer a notebook), and a pencil (or again I could use a keyboard if I so saw fit). Of course you will also need to develop the elements of the story. These include
Interesting Characters
Important Conflict
New Places for the character and the conflict
And a Plot for the interesting characters to follow that increases the important conflict and introduces the new places.
World building, character arcs, character profiles, the different kinds of conflict, and the elements of a story are posts for a different day.
The point is that getting started writing really isn’t that hard. It takes some work, a good idea, and lots of motivation but anyone can write a book. Whether it’s a good book or not depends on how much work you’re willing to put into it. Half of writing is writing the first draft. The other half is following through with the editing, rewriting, and the constructive criticism of other writers. (If you figure out how to not feel a little hurt after the last one YOU should be writing the blog posts).
Hopefully this post helped you to get started a little bit and maybe to help motivate you. Tomorrow I am headed to a writer’s conference. A writer’s conference is one of those things I would suggest for a newly started writer and so I will be talking about all my conference experiences next week. Sorry that I missed a week. So as usual
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!