How I went from zero to 40

I love to write. I tried my hand at novels, short stories, blogs, news articles, local interests, and other venues. I even was awarded a prize from an advocacy group for a piece I wrote. I can claim to be a prize-winning writer.

Then, the words dried up. I had trouble finishing pieces. On a basic level, writing is a beginning, middle, and end. I would begin a piece, muddle through the middle, and never figure out the end. Or, I began and had a conclusion, only to never get to the middle. Finally, I was lucky to struggle with writing a paragraph.

For the past two years, I tried writing a cookbook and memoir. All I did was muddle through, writing in circles until I stopped. The pandemic came along, I had way too much time on my hands, and I tried over and over to revive my writing.

A couple of things happened to cure my writer’s block. A couple of books I read and a few documentaries I viewed. I started fresh. Within a week, I went from zero pages to forty pages on my memoir. I will revisit the cookbook soon.

How did I do this? It was not easy, and looking back, it took longer than I realized. I developed a system and stuck with it. The operative words are system and sticking.

First, I learned that part of the creative process is making things. You must make something every day. I bought small pocket notebooks. Every day, I put a date on the page and write something. It could be only about the weather or things I observed on my daily walks. Nothing long. Incomplete sentences. But, I wrote. I made things. I even doodled most days.

Writing is putting thoughts on paper or a screen. Thoughts turn into words, sentences, and pictures. Ideas lead to projects. Notes lead to insights. When we write, we understand, learn, and think with the pen or the keyboard.

Writing is supposed to be an art and a craft with supposed rules or mechanics. Forget about it. If you concentrate on style and usage, you will get nowhere. Worry about the craft part when you finish a piece. You can always go back.

All art tells a story. In order to tell a story, you need a voice. Too many writers lose their voice or worse, try to have too many voices. This causes blockage or muddling. Find your voice and stick to it.

What is writing? It is like music. Taking notes, combining them, to create a thing of beauty. Writing is taking the letters of the alphabet, forming them into words, the words into paragraphs, and paragraphs into a finished piece. It all starts with a single sentence. A noun, subject, and verb.

Good writers say that everyone has a story to tell and everyone should tell their story. If nothing else, you will leave something behind. You existed and your existence is left through the written word. There are many notable writers who died, leaving behind unpublished pieces from essays to manuscripts. Some of them posthumously turned into their finest works.

I learned to steal. I am not talking about plagiarism. That is wrong on all levels. I steal ideas. I rediscovered my voice by finding others who were just like me. One, in particular, was an author, and comedian who specialized in social commentary. After watching her documentary, I saw myself. The memoir took off.

Never edit until you finish. There is a reason projects start with a first draft. I stopped editing. I ignore the red and blue prompts that point out misspelled words or improper usage. When the first draft is completed, I will go back and edit and re-edit if necessary. Constant editing takes up time and you get less work done. I just keep writing in a type of stream of conciseness until I run out of ideas. I get between five to ten pages a day this way.

Find a work method that works for you. Writers have all kinds of advice on the how-to of working. Work at the same time every day, plan how long you will work or how many words/pages you will write, work alone, listen to music, do not listen to music, avoid distraction, have some distraction, on and on and on.

You are you, not them. Find what works for you the best and stick with it. Create your own system for workflow. I found what works for me and I stick with it. I write every day. If an idea pops into my head while doing other things, I may jot it down for later use or just fire up the word processor and start writing again. I write throughout the day. I may go hours with no output, but at the end of the day, there are pages created.

Do not write when you are emotional, especially when you are angry. All you will have is pages of ranting and raving, the equivalent of yelling. It is hard in our current political and social era to keep feelings in. There is much to be angry about. If you must express yourself, use pen and paper. Then, you can go back and craft something logical instead of emotional.

If you want to write you must write. It is that simple. Just make something every day, whether it is jotting down a sentence or completing a page. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.