Hey Warriors! Today’s video is for the beginners out there—anyone who has ever said, “I wish I could start writing, but I just don’t know where to begin.”
So today we’ve got five tips that can help you if you’re at the beginning of your writing journey. Five tips to help you start writing. Hi, I’m Allison Spooner, author, yoga instructor, and creative warrior, and once upon a time, I was a beginner as well.
I’ve written four books now, too many short stories to count, and dozens and dozens and dozens of false starts. But once upon a time, I was faced with a blank piece of paper. Yes, it was paper, because I didn’t have a computer when I first started writing, and I wondered, “How do I even do this?” Frankly, every time I start a new project, it’s like I’m a beginner writer again, and I’m starting all over from the beginning of my journey.
So these tips can help you if you feel like a beginner or if you are a beginner.
The first thing you can do if you’re just starting your writing journey and you don’t know where to start is use prompts. Prompts are an introduction to an idea or a topic and can help you get the wheels turning and find new ideas when you’re feeling stuck or you feel like you don’t know where to start.
Once upon a time in my writing journey, I was stuck in a creative rut. With all the ideas in the world to choose from, I didn’t choose any—it was too overwhelming. Prompts helped me narrow my focus, taking an idea that was too big at one point and making it smaller and giving it a direction. Prompts can be anything; they can be three words that you put into a story, a sentence, a concept—just an idea. Anything that can help take you from, “I have no idea what I want to write about,” to “Okay, I can work with this.”
Prompts can help make the blank page seem less overwhelming because you can start writing from the prompt, put it on the blank page, and then let your fingers take it from there. Did that sound weird? That kind of sounded weird.
The next thing you can do if you are a beginning writer and you don’t know where to start is give yourself a word limit. If you have a prompt and it’s giving you a new idea and it’s starting to take you on a writing journey, how long does that journey last? Indefinitely?
That can be a little overwhelming, especially if you’re a beginner trying to jump in and write a novel right on your first try or even shooting for a short story that’s 10,000 words. That’s a lot! Give yourself a small manageable word count when you’re just starting out. Flash fiction is great for this; it is a full story in 1,000 words or less, and you can even make them shorter by giving yourself a 500-word word limit—or 400 words—something that’s going to feel manageable for you.
And if it helps, those 200, 400, or 500 words don’t have to be a complete story. Just tell yourself, “I’m going to take the idea I got from this prompt, and I’m going to write for 300 words.” That’s it, and then I’ll stop. If you like what you’ve been doing and you’re feeling good and you can keep going, keep going! Maybe make your next goal 1,000 words. Boom! Keep going until you hit 1,000 words. But give yourself these small manageable word limits to help you get started.
My next tip for beginner writers who don’t know where to start: start in the middle. No, you don’t always have to start at the beginning. If you have an idea but you don’t know that perfect opening scene yet, that’s okay. Those opening scenes are so hard to write, and most writers go back and rewrite them a million times anyway before they get them the way they want. So don’t even worry about the beginning scene if you’re just starting out.
If you have an idea for a concept and you know you want a scene that has two characters doing something—I’m not writing the story; you are—start at that scene! If you have something you know you want to write about, write about that. Don’t force yourself to go backwards just to start at the beginning if you don’t know how it’s going to start yet. Feel free to start in the middle or start at the end. There are no rules!
I mean, there are some rules, but they’re more like guidelines. Yes, I’ve made that joke before.
My next tip that can help you start your writing journey is to find a writing community. Writing doesn’t have to be lonely, and I think a lot of writers who are just starting out think that’s how it’s going to look—sitting at their computer day after day by themselves, isolated from the world. That might be appealing to some people, and on some days it is for me. If that’s what you want, cool! But at one point, you’re going to get stuck, and you’re going to need to bounce ideas off of someone. You’re going to need to say, “I don’t know what to do with this character. I don’t know why this scene feels wrong.”
If you have a writing community, you will have people there to help support you when you’re feeling overwhelmed and stuck. So if you’re just starting out, do a quick Google search to find a local writing community, or head on over to the Creative Warriors Facebook group, where there is a community waiting to welcome you with open arms. Not literally—don’t worry; we’re not gonna hug you.
The Creative Warrior community is super supportive. We share tips, we share these videos, we do write-ins where we write together—just a space where writers can share ideas and talk to each other and be there for each other. So if you need a writing community, check it out! I will put the link in the description below.
If you’re looking to start your writing journey but feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of sitting down to write—“When will I write? How long will I write? When will I find the time?”—I get it. Set yourself a writing schedule.
And spoiler: it doesn’t have to be every day! You don’t have to write every day to be considered a writer or to reach your writing goals. Set a writing schedule that’s going to work for you and your life, because if it doesn’t, you’re not going to stick to it, and you’re going to get frustrated. You’ll think, “I can’t be a writer because I can’t sit down to write.”
And that’s not the problem. The problem a lot of the time ends up being that writers set these gigantic goals of sitting down to write for two hours a day every day, and for most of us, that’s just not realistic. So if you’re just starting out, set a schedule that allows you to write for maybe 30 minutes in the morning.
Maybe it’s 30 minutes every other day at first, or maybe it’s right when you get done with work. I work from home, so when I log out of my job, I’m still on my computer. So I could say, “Okay, now I’m just going to write for 30 minutes.” If that doesn’t work for you, if your brain needs a break, do what works for you: go for a walk, get a snack, and then maybe come back to writing for 30 minutes.
Or set a goal of writing for an hour after the kids go to bed—whatever works for you! The point is, it has to work in your schedule. It doesn’t have to be every day, and it has to be manageable. So set a writing schedule. If you have no idea when you’re even going to start working writing into your life, make sure to remember that it can be changed.
If you need some extra assistance figuring out how you can work writing into your life—how you can make a plan that works for you—talk to me! Check out the link in the description below to set up a free 45-minute discovery session with me, and we can talk about your writing challenges and your writing goals and how a writing schedule or plan can work for you.
So if you’re just starting on your writing journey, remember it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be scary. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be! It might be sometimes, but it’s okay. Your writing community, the Creative Warrior community, is here for you. I’m here for you, so don’t feel overwhelmed. If you don’t know where to start, use some of the tips from this video. Check out my other videos on this channel that can help you get out of writer’s block, help you start moving, and doing yoga to stimulate your creativity.
Make sure to remember that your creativity isn’t going to just show up when you need it, so you have to fight for your creativity.
Thanks for joining me today, Warriors! Have a wonderful day!
Reference
- Original Source: https://youtu.be/kGNwOZZXH-c