How To Start Writing

It's important simply to write. It doesn't matter what you write, it doesn't matter where you write, it doesn't matter when you write. You become a writer only by writing; you don't become a writer by thinking about writing.

When you begin, you are not going to be brilliant. If you started to learn the violin, you would not expect that three weeks later, you would be performing on stage with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. So, just start by writing anything.

Write a description of your living room, write about the view you can see from your window, write about the old man you can see emptying his dustbin downstairs, write about a memory from your childhood. It really doesn't matter to begin with what you write about as long as you write. And as you write, you will start to find out the kind of things you are really interested in writing and the kind of things that you are not.

It's also important to remember that drafting and editing are two very different parts of the writing process. It's a bit like with writing, that when you write your draft, it's like producing your clay and then editing is a bit like making your pot out of your clay. So, it's important that you just write to produce the material that you are going to go on and work with later.

Write in your notebook, write when you are going to bed, write when you get up in the morning. Any five-minute slot that you have got in your day when you are not doing anything in particular, just write even if it's a sentence. If you write a page a day for 365 days at the end of a year, you will have 365 pages - a whole novel.

And that's the way to start writing. .