Write Now!

Some writers are in the midst of National Novel Writing Month. Others can't get beyond the blank page. In today's Salad Bowl Saturday offering Denise Weeks, aka Shalanna Collins, provides her thoughts on how to face your fears and take the plunge.

~ Jim

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Many people want to write.  By daring to write, they could work through their personal issues; they could tell about important moments in the past so their children will know them better; they could make up things and tell entertaining lies like every fictioneer.  Writing can help you make up your mind; after all, how do I know what I think until I write about it?

But often people are afraid--and understandably so.  They use a smokescreen of reasonable-sounding excuses and procrastinate so that they never fulfill their destinies as writers.  Do you want to write?  You might as well.  Everyone is publishing now.  Why not you?  You are unique.  As the song says, "there will never be another you."  You alone have the honor of documenting your life and times, at the very least.  What will be your legacy?

Yes, YOU have a RIGHT to your legacy!  You're just as important as those other people who are turning out books, poems, songs, and Kindle shorts.  You need to get it in gear, dear.

If you write professionally, aspire to write professionally, write as a fan, write for your circle of friends/readers, write for therapy, or whatever, these questions may help you progress. Don't feel that you have to use ALL of them--you can cherry-pick. Or don't use any of them. It's up to you, because this is meant to help you write (or not).

Complete one or both of the following sentences, using your current top reason for not writing more or finishing your novel:

I can't finish my current novel because ...

I can't write more because ...

Would it make more sense to replace "can't" in the above sentence(s) with "don't," "won't," or "I'm afraid to"? Sometimes at the root of a writing reluctance/difficulty is some underlying fear. Are you allowing fear to prevent you from attempting/achieving? Does this make it easier, because you "aren't really trying" and therefore will never discover that "you're not worthy" or "not good enough?"

You must identify and acknowledge fear (or internal stressors, or blocks, or whatever) before you can remove it. In fact, you must be READY to remove it before you can begin to deal with it.

What are your most time-consuming daily activities?  Are they things like "cleaning house," "driving/commuting/hauling family members around," "watching TV," "messing on the computer (but not producing original work)," and the like?  Are these what you would like to be remembered for?

Replace one of those daily activities with writing time.  Fifteen minutes daily will do for a start.  You don't have to write during this ENTIRE time, but you do have to sit in the chair and stare at the page, occasionally making marks that might be Roman alphabet letters or Egyptian hieroglyphics.  If you need writing prompts, search on the 'net.  Hundreds of sites provide daily or weekly prompts for writers.  Or if there's a novel you have always wanted to write . . . start.  The first sentence doesn't have to be perfect.  Writing is rewriting.  So let yourself do garbage.  You can always fix it later.

If you can't get going on a computer screen, use pen and paper.  Get the best gel pen or fountain pen you can afford, in a pretty color, and get a nice Moleskine notebook.  Or write with crayon on a Big Chief pad (but don't blame me if your crayon smears.)  Do the lines across the page keep your Muse from singing?  Turn the pad to "landscape" mode and write ACROSS it.  Use a sketchbook and write across the blank page in a spiral, if that helps.  Whatever works.  This is for YOU alone at first.  No one is grading you.  Just get words down for your fifteen minutes.

It'll get easier, I promise.

Are you more energetic in the early morning?  Are you a night owl like me?  This might influence the time you choose for your writing experiment.  Use your body clock to advantage.  Write with a little "book light" on a tiny spiral if you have to, in the dark, while watching the baby sleep.  Whatever you find that works for you is right.

If you are one of those people who does mission statements, write one on the flyleaf of your writing journal/spiral/sketchbook.  Talk about your writing time, how you deserve to accomplish things, what you want in your work area, the types of stories you hope to tell, or whatever you believe belongs in such a statement.  List five short-term goals for your writing career, i. e., immediate steps you can take towards creating the future you envision for yourself as a writer.

Do it YOUR way, as Sinatra sang.  "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right," says Kipling.

Use your time as ME time.  It is, after all, the only thing that is truly yours, and it is measured out in teaspoons.  "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you," advises the master poet Carl Sandburg.

Please, follow your own heart.  If you want to write, it will be the best guide you ever have.

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Denise Weeks’ mystery Nice Work, the first of the Jacquidon “Snoop Sisters” Carroll series, recently published by Oak Tree Press, won the Dark Oak Novel Contest. She also writes the Ariadne French Mysteries. Under her pseudonym Shalanna Collins she has written a number of YA fantasy/urban fantasy novels. Find her Amazon author pages at

http://www.amazon.com/author/deniseweeks and http://www.amazon.com/author/shalannacollins. She contributes to several blogs including her official blog.