Want to Write?

The Prerequisites:

You are not too short, too tall, too skinny, too fat, two of anything to be a writer. It is all right if you are left-handed. It is all right if you are right-handed. If need be, you can tell your story on tape and someone else can put it to paper. For some, this is an easier way if typing is slow and difficult. Do not let a good story end with you when you can put it to tape.

Do not let anyone tell you to forget it or that you are too old (often that is the best time of your life with much time to write). It is when a minute is worth an hour. It is when you have a lot of experience in judging personalities. It is when you have heard a lot of stories and have voiced many of your own, and you may have cried a lot and laughed just as much.

How to Improve:

My suggestion is for a structured class for a semester and then a creative class the next. Do not do it in reverse. Then join a writing workshop group. This is the fast method if you can grasp quickly the information that you are getting. In my case I kept on taking courses and courses until I was told to go get published. Really “to get put of the place!"

Start with a writing course then a poetry course at:

 - The Junior Colleges - A University - Or Continued Education Courses often in High Schools.

  - There are night classes. There are Weekend Workshops, and of course day courses.

  - Ask about discounts for Seniors. You must if you are in that category. This will keep instruction available for the seniors who cannot take the course otherwise.

  - Have a friend take the course with you. This is great fun during and in between classes. You can get together or exchange, over the telephone, some of your weekly efforts before the next class.

You are already a writer

If you are rusty, take a refresher course. You will feel good to be appreciated in a class because you will be a model for others. The class exercises will run over into assignments that you will delight to do.

Write poetry as sports

"Practice makes perfect" for an athlete and the same is true for a writer.

Give yourself short assignments every day. Pick a subject and write four lines on it. Write the same subject a couple of times more from a different angle or with words not found in the first one. Focus your “eye camera" and give texture, color, depth to your four lines. Is there a human element that can be introduced? Do so.

Avoid repeats of the same expressions or words in the same paragraph or two, even the same page. Use the Thesaurus to get the proper replacements. Avoid too many “and,” “then,” "just,” "I,” and many others that crawl endlessly in pursuit of writers.

 

A simple example: (my own)

First try: "The house stood on the hill. A road led to it. It was the start of summer"

Second try: "You had to lift your head to see the house perched at the top of the hill. The gravel road had not been graded for years it reached to the front porch then circled to the back yard. Spring was melting gently into summer, the grass could hope to stay green for some time.”

The more you write the more you have a chance to improve your skills.

Read to others what you have written and let them tell you what they feel would make your story more interesting or improve its style. Do so with the realization that you will have to be gracious after hearing what someone may say. Remember you are free to do as you please anyway. We are all born critiques of anything and everything and in particular of others. We beam when we are asked for our opinion making us “experts" for a moment. Most of us are sincerely in want to help and not destroy.

If someone offers constructive criticism, tell him you are only interested in comments, guidelines, suggestions, opinions. That expression must be banned from all conversation.

In my writers group when the leader pointed to my turn to say something about someone's writing, I made a point to find a true quality in the work, something I liked because it was a good description or it was clever, before offering my “kind remedy for what was ailing in the piece." Now this is my opinion. Not everyone felt like I did. Encouragement and respect are what will make a writer become successful if we do not blast him into oblivion by unkind remarks.

A poet cannot be just a reporter but an artist who paints with words.

At times a reporter sounds like a fiction writer when he reports actual news. Ouch!

The best way to have sincere and valuable suggestions is by getting in a writer’s group. No group to be found, then form one yourself, and invite others to join in. Put a notice on bulletin boards at church, schools, colleges, universities, supermarkets, health clubs, bookstores, libraries.

Where to meet Coffee houses will welcome you and your friends. Make sure that everyone buys something or at least a drink . . . This should be part of the unwritten bylaws. Or the coffee house will not be there the next time you want to have a meeting. Coffee goes well with writing. If you must have tea, there are many enhanced flavors now.

Some libraries will let you use one of their small rooms.

My advice on meeting at the home of one of the members is fine if members are from your own locality or you have grown to know them. (From a class or group started in a public place.) I have known groups that met in turn at different homes.

 

Let it be known you are a writer.

When you are asked “what you do,” tell everyone you are a writer. Or say "I work as flight attendant for an airline (if you do), but I am a writer." Yes, yes, from the very start. It works so well. You do not want to become a liar or be known as a liar. So you will work very hard to make it be true. Once you introduce yourself as a writer you will have to become one.

In casual conversation, I have often mentioned that I was a writer even to the clerks at the cash register at the supermarket. After all, they want to know their clientele and they will appreciate that you give them a chance to say to others that “a writer checks out in my lane every week.” How can you not write your school assignment for the class or the group or for yourself? Do not wait for a teacher or a group leader to motivate you to write (it helps) you must take the lead yourself.

One of my favorite assignments was the one given in class by an excellent teacher. "Write about the response you received when you told everyone you met during the week that you are a writer."