Monday Money: Springboards for Writing Practice

Like Kelly mentioned quite accurately last week, writing is like a muscle. Writing skills are gained through practice. Some professional writers recommend writing for at least 30 minutes every day in order to ensure daily improvement. Many recreational writers who participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which encourages writers to compose 50,000-word novels over the month of November, claim to see major improvements in their writing abilities as their novels progress throughout the month.

For many, the hardest part of the writing process is getting started. It probably seems like there are infinite topics to choose from and infinite ways to write about them. But for the sake of practice, the beginning of the writing process can be as simple as observing, remembering, and reflecting — activities that require no particular talent. So for those of us trying to get started on our own writing projects, perhaps in preparation for our own future novel-writing ventures, here are a few simple springboards to get started:

1. Write about things around you. Take note of the way the sun shines through your window, or how rain falls outside your room. Take 15 minutes to describe the natural phenomena around you. If you do this regularly, you will notice patterns in you writing style. Contemplate those patterns and think about where they come from and how you can use and manipulate those patterns in different writing situations.
2. Begin your writing practice with “I remember.” Choose a memory or a series of small memories and write about them. Everyone has unique memories and ways of describing them. This exercise will help you discover what types of human experiences you enjoy writing about.
3. Write in a public place. Spending time writing in a diverse, dynamic environment such as a cafe, bus stop, or laundromat will ensure that you always have many sources of inspiration right in front of you. How you choose to incorporate this inspiration into your story is up to you.
4. Write about difficulty. Good stories always contain conflict. Choose a phase in your life that posed a challenge to you and write about how you faced that challenge. Did you succeed or fail? Who helped you along the way? What did this experience encourage you to work toward?
5. Write about strong emotions. What are the most joyous/frightening/enraging/depressing moments of your life? Choose one and describe the way those feelings came over you and affected you. Write about how the experience changed you and why it was so impactful.
6. Write “off the page.” Open up a book of poetry, choose a line, write that line at the top of your page, and continue writing from there. Once your imagination is exhausted, write down the same line again, and try to take your writing in a totally different direction. This will open you up to the possibility of your story to progress in various and unexpected ways.

(Inspired by “Writing Down to the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg.)

Post submitted by Jacob.