Russell VanBrocklen - Top Ten Writing Tips To Help You To Write More

 Here are the ten writing tips that can help you to improve your skills:

=> Tip One: Pay attention to images

 

Your right brain thinks in images, and when you write, you translate images from

your right brain into words. Usually this process happens so quickly that you're

unaware of it. If you can make this process conscious, you can goose up your own

creativity. Stephen King calls this process "writing with the third eye --- the eye of

imagination and memory."

=> Tip Two: Making mud/ laying track

 

Your first draft of any piece of work is "mud" --- raw material. Julia Cameron refers

to your first draft as "laying track", another term I like.

 

If the first draft's awful, great! It's meant to be. It's only raw material. However, if

you don’t create the first draft, or you wait until you have a really great idea that's

worth a first draft, you won’t write anything. Write. Make mud.

 

=> Tip Three: Just write --- think on the page, or on the screen, NOT in your head

 

Thinking too much while you write is treacherous, because you can spend two hours

"writing" and end up with half a page of work. Write-think. That is, think on the

page, not in your head.

 

=> Tip Four: Grow your writing with lists

 

Listing is a form of brainstorming. It grows your writing, and it's fun.

 

Listing is an excellent technique to use when you get stuck in your writing, and it

doesn’t matter what kind of writing you're doing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.

Listing also helps you in the revision process, to add texture to your work.

 

=> Tip Five: Use your magical thesaurus

 

Your most useful listing tool is ---- a thesaurus. Keep one on your desk to kickstart

your brain.

 

Your thesaurus and dictionary are perfect kickstarters. They're also vital tools

whenever you're revising.

 

=> Tip Six: Make writing the FIRST thing you do each day

 

If you write at least page, by hand, as soon as you get up, you'll find that writing

comes more easily to you for the rest of the day. You're also more focused and

relaxed for the rest of the day.

 

=> Tip Seven: Set WIG goals --- the best goals are always unrealistic

 

Writer Martha Beck calls unrealistic goals WIGs: Wildly Improbable Goals. In the

September 2002 issue of Oprah magazine she says: "… learning to invite and accept

your own WIG can awaken you to a kind of ubiquitous, benevolent magic, a river of

enchantment that perpetually flows to your destiny."

 

A WIG is exciting. Just thinking about a WIG will get your heart pounding. Working

toward your WIG (writing a book, writing a screenplay, getting signed on as a

contributor at a mass-market magazine) takes hard work. Lots of hard work.

 

And at the end of that hard work, as Beck points out, you achieve your goal, but

there's a twist. You never achieve it exactly as you envisioned it – you achieve

something even better, something you could never have imagined.

 

I'm a great believer in writing ABOUT your goals. This is because when you write,

you're using both sides of your brain, and are accessing your unconscious mind as

well. You live in your left brain, which you regard as "you", but you have a silent

partner, your right brain, which is also you, and which communicates via images

and feelings.

 

=> Tip Eight: Separate writing and editing

 

Writing comes first, then editing. If you try to combine the two, you will block.

 

Writing should come as easily to you as chatting to a friend. If it doesn’t, you're

trying to edit in your head before you get the words on paper, or on the computer

screen. If you're not aware of the danger of combining writing and editing, you'll

make writing hard for yourself, when it should be easy. If you don’t have trouble

talking, how can you have trouble writing?

 

=> Tip Nine: It's good to struggle with your writing

 

In his book The Breakout Principle, Dr Herbert Benson (who also wrote The

Relaxation Response) describes a struggle/ release process that leads to a new level

of awareness. When you struggle, and then completely give up the struggle --- just

give up --- there's a chance that you can achieve a peak experience which leads you

to a new level of functioning.

 

How does this work in your writing? Let's say that you're writing a novel. This work

is hard for you. However, you keep at it faithfully, working on your novel each day.

You struggle with it for weeks. Then you give up. Although you keep writing, you

say to yourself: "I don’t care any more what garbage I write. I'm just going to do it.

I'm just going to write."

 

This release leads to writing magic. Suddenly you're inspired, and you finish the

book in a rush. Although you will still occasionally struggle with your writing

(because struggle is a part of life), you've broken through to a new level of

functioning in your work.

 

This new level would not, and could not, have happened without the struggle.

 

=> Tip Ten: Good writing = truthful writing

 

Writing truthfully can feel like undressing in public, so many beginning writers worry

about sharing their writing.

 

Be compassionate. Firstly, to yourself. Write. Write for yourself. All writing takes

courage.