When I first started writing, as a teenager, I remember going through a lot of times when I wanted to write ... but I didn't know what.
A short story? About what? A novel? Maybe, but that would take so long. A script for a play? There were plenty of possibilities, but I wasn't sure what to settle on ... let alone how to actually begin.
These days, I'm still sometimes faced with the question of what next? My novella (see above!) was a new departure for me: it clocked in at about 35,000 words, and the rest of my fiction has been under 3,000 or over 70,000! More recently, I've been taking on more freelance work, and it's been a bit of a struggle to know what topics and types of writing I want to focus on: should I branch out? Should I do more ghostwriting or more
pieces under my own name?
Maybe you're at a point where you're happily working on a big project or a series of projects, and you know exactly what you're doing. If so, that's wonderful -- keep at it!
If that doesn't sound like you, though, maybe you're at a bit of a crossroads: you could go one way (freelancing?) or another (creative writing?)
Or perhaps you haven't really made a start yet: there are several possible paths ahead and you don't know where to begin. Maybe even finding a path is a struggle right now.
I'm going to have a new resource coming out next week that I hope you'll find helpful and encouraging as you explore the possibilities ahead of you (so keep an eye out for that email)! In the meantime, though, I want to share three crucial tips:
#1: Don't worry about getting it "right".
Most writers explore several different avenues, perhaps trying and discarding some before finding success in an unexpected place. Others are hybrid writers, working in several different mediums: plenty of freelancers have a novel on the go as well, for instance.
#2: Give yourself permission to explore.
When time is short (and it always is in the Luke household!) then it can be very difficult to give yourself permission to simply have fun with your writing. But one of the joys of writing is learning new things, and trying out different genres and approaches. I'm working through this screenwriting course right now -- and hoping for some screenwriting books for my birthday
next week! It's a brand new area for me, but it's exciting to be exploring something new.
#3: Create a starting point.
My five-year-old loves craft involving string and wool. Quite often, we end up with a horribly tangled ball, and she says, "Don't worry, mummy, I'll just cut a new end!" Writing can feel a bit like that: how do you untangle the thread of it? It's fine to just jump in and make a starting point. Talk to any successful writer, and you'll find they didn't follow a nice neat A-Z path: they tried things that didn't pan
out, or they began from an unlikely place.
If you're feeling stuck with your writing, or if you're struggling to begin, take fifteen minutes this week to play around with words ... and see where you end up.
I'll be back next week with something new for you. :-)
