I WANNA BE A WRITER!

I have people coming up to me all the time saying that they want to be a writer or that they have a story that would be a best seller if only someone would write it down. What separates these people from writers is the fact that they are not writing! My advice to them is to just start writing.

"But I don't know how." or "I'm not good at it." are two recurrent excuses for not writing. Well, let me tell all of you would be writers out there that the old adage "Practice makes perfect" is true. Okay, so none of us are perfect, but practice does make us better.

If you truly do not know where to begin, personally I think all you need is to put the pen to paper or your fingers to keyboard, there are classes in all types of writing and some of these you don't even have to leave the comfort of your own home to take. Longridge Writers Group has some fine courses that people I know swear by and they offer a free newsletter, too.

Once an idea takes hold and I begin to write it down, I never know where the story will take me. So, don't let the fact that you don't like where your story is going to deter you! JUST WRITE! You can always go back to change things later after you have finished the story. We had a speaker, Martha Moody, who gave the advice, "Always finish your story." This will give you a sense of success. Even if the story isn't good, at least you have finished it. Believe me one badly written completed story is worth ten good stories that you haven't finished.

I am the queen of starts, as you can tell from the title of this blog. My quest was to finish a novel. I had to learn to do this in baby steps. First I learned flash fiction before I graduated on to finish Twilight Dance. Having finished my second novel, John Dunham's Diary, I now realize what I need to do to fix TD. Believe John Dunham's Diary needs work still.

Perhaps, every writer feels this way about their work... I know that many of us are insecure. So, don't worry about putting down your thoughts, it doesn't matter if you are good or bad - the important thing is that you are writing!