Five Ways to Kick Start Your Writing
August 12, 2021
Now that I have confessed to not writing for a very long time, I thought it would be a great idea to share five ways to kick start your writing. I’ve used these ideas in the past and I am working through them yet again, in effort to kick start my writing again. I know the struggle is very real for so many writers. Let’s get writing… Here we go!
- Pre-writing… Everyone’s favorite way to jumpstart your writing. Grab a piece of paper, a notebook or a journal and start writing or doodling. Throw some words on the paper. See what thoughts those random words bring up and write some more about those thoughts. As you go through the motions of pre-writing you should see some concepts start developing in the word connections you are making. Clustering is good way to make sense of the words you write on the page. You’re starting some leads. Take one and start writing about it. See where it takes you.
- Freewriting… Grab a notebook, put your pen to the page and start writing. Set a time limit to keep writing. Start with ten minutes and work with that for a few days, increasing the time you free write to twenty, then thirty minutes. With freewriting, there are no rules, just write whatever comes to mind and keep writing. Freewriting is also known as automatic writing. If you keep a journal, you are most likely freewriting or automatic writing. If you don’t keep a journal, you should be. It’s an integral part of the writing process. It’s okay if write a lot of stuff that don’t seem to make sense. When you finish freewriting and read through what you have written, I guarantee you will find at least one nugget in there, maybe more. Freewriting is all about “going with the flow” as I like to say.
- Keep a Journal… As noted in the Freewriting, keeping journal is an integral part of the writing process. If you’re not sure what to write about in journal, put the pen to the paper and write about your day or what you are feeling. Write about something that you saw today, or a conversation you had. The more you journal the more you will find to write about. Keep your journal or an extra notebook with you as you go about your day so you can jot down other ideas that pop into you head – Write that Down!
- Start A Writing Routine… We all have routines that we go about in our lives, day to day routines that we’re so accustomed to that we don’t think of them as routine. If you start your writing routine with a smaller time target to reach every day you might find that easier to work into a longer period of time. You might only have 30 minutes a day that you can write, but if you write 30 minutes every day, you’ll find that the words start adding up and you’re spending more time writing. If you have a day that you don’t spend as much time writing, don’t beat yourself up. Get back at it the next day. The bottom-line is to schedule a specific time every day to dedicate to your writing. Put it in your daily planner. Pencil it in. Show up because you’re working on your writing. That’s your job. Write.
- Read… Read other writers in your chosen genre’s or genre’s you like to read. Practice close reading – read slowly, and pay attention to the author’s style. What draws you in? How does the author write scenes, characters, dialogue, descriptions, plot. Pay attention when you read, to all of that. Read writers on writing. There are so many great books writing by well-known writers about writing. These books and craft books – how to write fiction, short story, poetry, etc – are essential to developing your own writing practice and style. I’ll be sharing my list of craft and writers on writing soon. For now, start reading.
I really hope these suggestions to kick start your writing help you get back on track, if you’ve been struggling with writer’s black, or they get you started as new writer who is unsure about how to get started writing. All writing starts with putting words on the page, whether you hand write or type, just write. Make a date with yourself, set aside the time to write and watch your writing blossom.
