5 top tips to start writing
Humour me — let me first set the scene…
They say the best time to write a “how to” guide is just after you’ve learned how to do something yourself. Which is actually very apt because today is the first day that I’ll have managed to write something that’s both meaningful and personal to me without my head talking me out of it.
Recently, my subconscious has been poking me. I’ve been drawn to books such as Show your Work in which Austin Kleon encourages you to write as you learn, sharing the journey. You never know — someone might just find it interesting, you will learn along the way and meet like-minded people.
I’ve come across the phrase “Expert blindness” where you think your ideas are so obvious they clearly will have no value to others, and “Impostor syndrome” — the belief that you’re a fraud; who do you think you are, trying to tell others how to start writing?
My inability to get on and just write, described so well by Charlie Gilkey as “thrashing” in Start finishing: How to go from Idea to Done (he likens “thrashing” to being in a rocking chair that moves a lot but doesn’t go anywhere), is creating what he describes as “creative constipation”. It’s blocking me up and making me tetchy as I never seem able to get on with what for me is my “best work” — a term he uses for the work we truly care about — the stuff we really want to do and know that we’ll enjoy, but that will take effort. So, we keep putting it off until the “time is right “which of course is never, which conveniently gives my head a quasi-logical reason for not ever managing to do it. Yet, the list of topics I fancy writing about gets longer and longer, and I feel even more of a failure for not starting.
Last week I finally acknowledged that I’ve pondered enough, and I’ve just got to get on.
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think” — Austin Kleon
So, here are my recently learned top five tips to get started:
- Creativity needs to be scheduled. Otherwise, it won’t happen. “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating” (John Cleese). Schedule an hour’s slot, hey even thirty minutes, just so you can dig around an idea. You don’t strike gold straight away. You’ve got to write rubbish, hit delete, write again, amend ….just to get your mind in the groove, so you can come up with something vaguely useful.
- Don’t fall into the trap of believing you haven’t researched enough yet. Learning is great, but it’s taking notes, not making notes. It’s not the creative stuff. You will never find all there is to know about a subject. At some point you just have to stop looking and start digesting what you’ve got. Search your mind for your own ideas and interpretation, and write.
- Get over the combination of expert blindness and impostor syndrome. You feel passionate enough to have researched and want to write about that topic. You probably know more than many about that topic. You may think that what you know is obvious, but there are others that are not as far down this path as you are who will love the leg-up. You have the power to speed up someone else’s journey.
- You are unique. Remember that although others may have covered your topic, your viewpoint is unique. You are the sum of all your experience and learning and, if you rely on your own interpretation, rather than summarising others, you will bring to the table a different perspective; one that will resonate with readers in different ways. But you have to be you, not a pastiche of others.
- You can’t please everyone. And even if you please no-one, you have taken that step to create your own individual style. You have written to please your own soul. You have been true to yourself.
And finally, just to help focus your thoughts, there’s nothing like a quote about remembering how finite our time is…so grab that pen and just start. Right now.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.” — Steve Jobs
Originally published at http://mundanemeanderingmusings.wordpress.com on March 6, 2021.
