Writing 101 - What's a Writer?

So you think you want to be a writer. Or maybe you think you are a writer. Maybe you think you are not a writer.

How do you know? What's a writer?

Let's come at this obliquely.

What is a musician? A person who performs music.

What is a plumber? A person who plumbs.

What is a cook? A person who cooks.

What is a programmer? A person who writes programs.

By ostension a writer is one who... writes.

Some writers hit the big time right away; the first thing they write, or close to it, nets them big bucks and big attention.. Precious few, but some. Most of us start by writing. And writing. And writing.

What both groups have in common is that they write.

We all want to write brilliantly, to craft words in such a way that people are immediately moved, whether to tears, laughter, awe, inspiration, action, or simply to give us money. But for most of us, this means a lot of writing that doesn't do that. It means writing a lot of crap and mediocre stuff. It means practicing, just as a musician practices. It means reading and studying. It means taking risks and letting people read things you aren't sure about. But without writing, none of that happens.

You need to know the basics:

• sentence structure;
• grammar;
• spelling;
• punctuation.

All these are learned. It's easier for some of us than others, but nobody comes out of the womb knowing these things.

But what about compositional skills? What about this, that and the other? What else you need to know will depend on what you are writing. It really helps to know how to tell a story... if you are telling a story. Not everyone tells stories. Poets, especially, may simply describe scenes or objects, or relate feelings, or turn abstract thoughts into concrete (or liquid gold) words. It's good to learn all you can, but if you are writing love poems, or greeting cards, or haiku, you don't need world class compositional skills.

One thing you do need is a mastery of the language[s] you will write in. It may be a formal language, a street language, church speak, technobabble, or marketing buzz, but you need to be fluent. To this end, read, listen, and study. And write.

You can pick a time or grab time. But find or make time to write.If it's ten minutes a day to start, go with that, but find or make more as you move forward. A writer writes. Writing takes time.

Composing things in your head is not writing. Do that if you like, but write it down.

If you don't know what to write about, write anyway. Describe a nearby object. Write down what you are feeling. Capture a moment, whether present or past, or even a possible future. I once started describing a coffee cup, and three pages later realized I had written about feelings I hadn't known I had. Another time I stared with "I don't know what to write, so I am writing about not knowing what to write about, This feels stupid. It's gray out. I feel gray. I remember a song I liked, called 'Grey Day'..." It turned into a story from my hippie days. Just write.

Save everything you write. All of it has value. Fragments may inspire you later. If nothing else, you can look back at it and laugh and realize you have improved. Assuming you have, but if you write you almost certainly will. So write.

If you are still reading, I hope you are inspired to write. But perhaps you think this is too simplistic. If that's the case, I can offer one other piece of advice.

Capture your thoughts via physically transcribed language in the forms of symbols conveying meaning to the eyes in your language of choice. I believe the technical translation of this is, "write".

So go write!