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If You Want to Be a Writer, You Must Write!
By Sheilamarie Nellis
So many people feel that if beautiful prose doesn't flow gracefully from their pen, then they can't write. What they don't realize is that the best writers revise a piece dozens of times before it pleases them. Sometimes you have to allow yourself to write junk just to get the words on the page. Then you have something you can work with. Someone (I can’t remember who!) said, “I can work with a bad first draft, but I can’t work with a blank page.” Words are something we are all familiar with. We speak our first words sometime during the end of our first year and add to our vocabulary for the rest of our lives. But writing is more than just knowing some good words; it is choosing the right words to communicate the exact meaning you want to convey. And then there’s the beauty of the sounds and the images you want to create for the reader that takes time and practice to achieve. My husband has been laboring over a paper he was asked to write for a conference being organized at a nearby university. He has long had an aversion to writing that verges on an absolute phobia and has been struggling over these last several weeks to overcome a longstanding fear to produce something to contribute to this gathering of scholars. Now, despite this “phobia,” my husband is extremely well-read and can speak at length about very complex ideas. But writing them down brings him back to his childhood when he was humiliated standing up to give a speech without being prepared. As well, his every scribbling became public by a well-meaning but over-zealous mom who wasn’t very good with respecting her child’s privacy. In advising him, I found myself saying things, such as: just spit it out -- verbal diarrhea -- write perfect junk, just get the engines started! Of course, he ignored me and just sat crafting sentences in his mind which eventually -- miracle of miracles -- made it to the page. What this made me realize was this: as writers, we are not all the same. What works for one person does not necessarily work for the next. But at the same time, I can’t help but think that it is a bit of a shame that it has taken sixty years for this brilliant man to be able to share his ideas on the page. The one thing that has helped him is the advice to read good writers, which he has done consistently for a lifetime. However, if it is a person’s goal to be a writer, then there is no other way to achieve that goal than by writing. And writing. And ripping up the pages and writing again. After the hundredth revision, maybe, just maybe, you will achieve your masterpiece. But I must admit, I’m as pleased as punch at my husband’s achievement of actually getting his first draft completed. Maybe this is the beginning of his acting on his desire to write down the ideas that have been bubbling inside his mind for such a long time. I know some of you reading this intel may be saying, "Give the guy a break! Maybe being a writer isn't his goal anyway!" But the truth is, he has yearned to be able to share his ideas in a clear, coherent way, and writing is a very good way to clarify one's thought. As he has been writing these last few weeks, he has been able to deepen his understanding of what it is he really wants to say. You and I, writing these intels, are meeting some of these same needs to express our thinking, too. No, maybe we don't do the hundred revisions thing -- we aren't writing novels or great poems or treatises when we write intels, after all -- but we are sharing ideas and clarifying thought, aren't we? And sharing and communicating are needs we all share as humans
Sheilamarie is a writer and educator who enjoys making toys and miniature books. Check out her website to find more things you can make with recycled stuff!
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Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1223589
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Thanks Sheilamarie for this nice article. For writers to be writers, they must keep writing. Reading doesn't make you a writer but can help improve your writing. Continue to encourage your husband to put his ideas down on paper regardless of how crude or refined the initial page is. Editing can always polish a poorly done draft just as fire purifies and polishes gold and makes it shine. Is he a member here? Encourage him to write regularly by joining Qondio. We can do with his complex ideas put down on paper. I do not mind if I should read it with a dictionary or encyclopedia beside me. His writings and ideas will surely broaden my reading experience. I am already waiting to read his first article here!
Do have a nice day.
Nnamdi.
Thank you for sharing this valuable information, Sheila.
You are correct, that we're not all the same. However, that is only a half-truth. We may all get the job done using different methods, but the one single truth is that the job can't be done, if we don't do it. As in golf, the only trueism is that when you try to make a putt, it will NEVER go in the hole, if it doesn't reach the hole.
Keep up the good work.
Best wishes.
Frederick
The more you write the easier and faster it becomes. Like any other skill it takes practice. At first I used to fight to get out a 500 word article. I now have to force myself to keep it under 1000 (I only do webpage writing, no books and no one wants to read a page over 1000 words long)
 | | adac Mar 8, 2011 22:35 |  appreciated |
Nice article and information for us writers.
The copyright for this content entitled "If You Want to Be a Writer, You Must Write!" has been specified by the contributor as:
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