Writing Tips for Budding Writers – Practicalities

Please keep in mind, while these writing tips for budding writers has been successful for the people I have coached, I do not offer any guarantees. I merely hope it might help stoke the fire burning within and get you started on a writing journey.

One last thing I think you should consider prior to actually beginning to write is the practicality of being a serious writer. This might seem obvious, but if lacking any one of these needs, then your dream will be much harder or even impossible to achieve.I’ve chosen four things I believe you must have if you’re going to give yourself any chance at all of succeeding.

1. The support of family and friends. Be prepared! Many may smirk or even laugh out loud at your endeavours. Others may tease. But your closest loved ones must believe in you. They must be ready to encourage and cheer you on because sometimes you will need their belief in you to be able to continue.

2.  An office or dedicated area to work. Very soon you will gather around you a plethora of ‘necessary’ writing paraphernalia. Without space to house these books, files, boxes etc your working area will lose its structure and you’ll soon dread approaching.

3.  The ability to schedule blocks of time for writing. Accept this is not a pastime where you can grab ten minutes now and then and end up with a best seller. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Writing a story takes time. Different writers have different routines. Maybe you’ll rise early and write before your family awakens/its time to leave for work, or perhaps you’ll write late into the night. I got into the habit of writing whenever my children were at school. So even now they are adults, I still expect to be at my computer between 8am and 3pm. I still look at weekends and school holidays as time I do not write. That worked for me, giving me plenty of time for writing but also dedicated time to spend with family. You’ll soon find a routine which fits into your lifestyle.

4.  Self discipline. If you don’t already have a fair amount of self discipline already, you need to grow some, fast! You’ll need it to devote time to writing and exclude those “but I should be doing this instead” thoughts. You’ll need it even more when your ideas dry up and you’re staring at a blank page. You’ll especially need it to ensure you’re not enticed onto the Internet and social media. That “couple of minutes” to check your social media can quickly balloon to take up all of your day’s allocated writing time.

I have my desk. Am I ready to start writing now?

Do you believe you have these four things sorted? Great, then next week we finally start thinking about writing for real.