
Four Easy steps guaranteed to get you writing!
Step 1: Turn off the television!
How much Tube do you
watch every day? How much every week?
What do you really get out of it? turn it off! Better yet give it
away. I'm serious. Me I am pretty lucky. All the buttons on my television
are broken and I can't find the remote. So my TV is stuck on channel
3 which means
the only thing I can do is use the VCR. For a while I could use
the VCR to change channels but I lost
the remote for this too so the only thing I can do is pop in a tape
and press play. I watch one or two
movies a week. I am definitely not missing anything- my gain. Now
I have the time to write and so
will you. Maybe you will even read a little more.
Step 2: Buy a spiral
bound notebook.
I hear it all the time:
"I can't use a computer well. I can't spell. I don't have the
things I need to write.
What kind of software should I get? Well I got something for you.
You only need a notebook and what's in
step 3. . .
Step 3: Buy a pen
or pencil
What have we invested
so far? Five bucks? Don't have the five bucks? Sell your TV. (Two
birds with one stone.)
Step 4: Sit down somewhere
and write.
That's it. Just write.
Don't let your mind psych you out. Don't even give a second thought
to all that
stuff about dialogue, setting, characterizations, plot lines and
the like. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't
even have to be good. That will come later. It is just like exercise.
The more you do, the better
you get. You will improve. But only if you write.
Hey listen, sit down
and write the first sentence and watch it grow into a first paragraph
and
then into a first page and a first chapter. Oh and after you write
that first sentence send it to me.
I would love to read it!
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