First off, I should point out that most ‘real’ first-time writers are around four to six years old. This fact is central to what we’ll be looking at in this post.
It may sound pedantic, but it’s true; pre/early school is typically the age at which we begin developing our writing habits, as we learn to get our point across using the written word.
If you are older than a preschooler, and I’ll assume you are, then you are probably not a ‘first time writer’.
This is obviously a bit trite but it does help to keep it in mind as you work: You have been writing for a long time, you’re not as new to this as it appears. I’m not sure how other writers will react to what I’m saying here but from my own experience, I know how important this idea can be. This particular reminder has already helped me countless times when my writing confidence has taken a nosedive.
So with this trite idea in hand let’s forge on. The first issue to tackle is experience. If you aren’t a ‘first-time writer’ then what are you?
Teenager?
If you are in your teens then you have about a decade of projects and creative writing exercises under your belt.
What’s more, you already have your own perspective on the world. In our teens, we experiment with our identities possibly more than at any other time in our lives. We start to step back from our beginnings and try as best we can to look at them objectively.
If you are a teenager then you are probably currently right in the midst of this existential crisis. Who are you? Is your family ‘normal’? Is your upbringing ‘typical’? Are you seeing cracks in your worldview from asking these questions?
We may call it ‘teenaged rebellion’ but really it’s the beginning of considering who we are and what we truly identify with. This gives you a unique voice that will only become more unique the more you use it. Your writing will be all the stronger if you embrace your individuality as it stands at this moment.
Twenty-Something
In your twenties, you may have gained experience from college/university-level assignments. Perhaps you’ve dabbled in fiction already and/or worked together a collection of short stories.
Alternatively, you may have written reports for work, or you may have provided social media support for an employer. (We all know what it’s like; ‘You’re young. You’ll know how this social media stuff works’.)
Whatever your work or education level, it’s likely you’ll have had to write a few words since leaving school.
This is also a time that most older adults remember fondly (and definitely explains why the TV show ‘Friends’ is still so popular). It’s a time when people form a more independent identity and potentially develop deeper relationships than they did in high school.
With this in mind, what you have to say should appeal to a fairly wide audience. Combine your individuality, a bit of youthful energy, and some more life experiences than you had as a teenager, and you have a backdrop from which to write something excellent.
Thirties
As above, but add ten years of changing jobs, more complex life circumstances, and/or varying responsibilities. By this stage, you’ll likely have written a good few more words.
Chances are you will have honed your ability to get your point across and you may even have found subtle ways to include your own slant in your writing.
Your life choices, experiences, disappointments and triumphs are there to draw from in your writing.
Onwards
You get the idea. Every extra year provides you with more life experience and a more complex skillset.
Whether you’re fifteen or fifty, keep in mind the fact that you will have something to say and there will be someone out there who wants to read it.
The Tip
So what’s the tip?
I’ll try and condense it. Stop thinking of yourself as a ‘first time writer’. Even as a teenager you have around a decade of writing experience. Whilst this might not make you a writing ‘expert’ it’s enough for you to forget the ‘first-time’ label. Throw it away, the term ‘first time writer’ is dead weight.
Remember this and allow yourself to relax. There’s enough work to be done in completing your first book and reworking it over and over into something you feel proud to call your own. Why add the extra work of belittling what you have achieved already?
I could come up with analogies like the relationship between running and completing a marathon, or baking and creating a wedding cake.
You have the basic skills to write your first draft and you can sort out your more obvious mistakes in your second draft.
You’ve got this.
Hold on to your ideas
You have the basic skills needed to write. You may even have more comprehensive capacities drawn from various jobs and other training. You’ll know yourself whether you feel confident in getting an idea across.
However, ‘getting an idea across’ implies that you have an idea and this may not always be the case when you sit down to write. Sometimes all those great ideas evaporate as soon as you switch on your computer. This is the guts of every writer’s primary villain; writers’ block.
There’s one way to minimise the risk of that blank screen; always trust that you can write (at least well enough for your first draft) but I would suggest that you never place too much trust in your memory. The truth is that most of the things we think of writing about are fairly ephemeral until we nail them down onto the page. These woolly ideas can be pretty hard to remember even a few minutes later.
Put simply, don’t trust your memory to hold on to those important plot points, character traits, scene-setting descriptions, and action-driving moments of conflict.
When you have ideas write them down. Send yourself ideas as private messages, carry a notebook with you, phone your house and leave a message on your answering machine, whatever it takes. Just don’t lose your ideas.
When you’re at your laptop/PC get those ideas organised and added to the main text. Get that first draft written. Add to it as often as you possibly can.
After the first draft?
From then on it could be down to asking a (good*) friend to read your work and give you the most detailed feedback they can manage. (*Giving truly objective and detailed feedback is not an easy task so be careful who you ask).
After this, a proofreader or editor is a must. Someone even more objective, and importantly someone with industry experience. You should expect to pay for this service but it really is worth it. This individual will help you make your work the best it can be.
Get that first draft written!
However, none of that is important right now. You only have to think about your first draft.
You are not a ‘first-time writer’, you know enough to get started already. Go write!
You said something about three other tips?
Yep, three more tips (that’s the way these posts work isn’t it?). I’ll keep this brief:
Drink tea
Maybe not tea, but pick a beverage which you will need to prepare somewhere away from your desk/workspace.
You’re likely to find your drink cold or at least feel thirsty within about a half-hour to an hour of taking your beverage to your desk and this gives you an excuse to step away from the screen.
If you’re feeling the dreaded ‘writers’ block’ kicking in, you’ve now got an excuse to leave the keyboard/notebook and clear your head for five minutes. (And stop staring at a blinking cursor.)
Alternatively, if you’re immersed in your writing, then you won’t notice you need another cup. Another cup of tea isn’t important enough or jarring enough to draw your attention away when things are going well. This means that you can happily write away until you reach a natural stopping point and the only price is a slightly dry throat.
It’s honestly the most useful writing habit I have formed.
Leave the house/ get exercise
Fresh air can’t be beaten to help you feel better. Add to that some green spaces and you have a recipe for a huge wellbeing increase. Even in the current lockdown, most places are still allowing individuals a bit of time outside for exercise. Go out and use it, go somewhere with life in it if you can, green spaces, in particular, can be great mood enhancers (this sounds like hippy-dippy stuff but there’s some real science behind it, the citations in this post on heart.org are pretty comprehensive)
Alternatively, take up some other activity which gets you moving. I used to go for a swim as a one-hour break before I had lunch. I would try and beat my previous speed/ number of lengths. Swimming isn’t an option for most of us now but some other activity which allows you to compete purely with your past self could be just as good.
The personal challenge and the change in focus got me ready for my afternoon writing session. What’s more, I can’t help but feel that the increase in oxygen in my blood helped sharpen my mind.
The afternoon soon became my most productive writing time.
Talk to other writers
It can be hard to meet other writers in person but I can heartily recommend using Twitter as a means of sharing the highs and lows of writing.
Great hashtags to follow are #amwriting #WritingCommunity and #writerslife.
If you feel like chatting about writing with me you’ll find me at @Johntoyshopguy.
If you aren’t a Twitter user then I can’t suggest any alternative I’m afraid. In terms of a free to use, easy to access, writing community resource, my own experience has led me to realise that there simply is nothing remotely comparable as a place to communicate with other writers.
It’s easy to join Twitter. It’s much less probing than Facebook, You can use a pseudonym, you don’t have to display any personal details, and all you need is an email address to join. Click this link to join now.
(Bonus tip) Reward yourself
Pick an achievable short to mid-term goal and choose a reward to give yourself when you reach it. Here are some I use.
- A (small) favourite chocolate bar when you complete a chapter (mine is a Kinder Maxi bar, at 21g every few hours of writing, it’s not going to ruin my health).
- Ten minutes of a favourite show/ podcast/ book when you’ve written a thousand words.
- A very special treat (you pick) once you reach a special stopping point. E.g. half-way through your plan, once an important scene is complete, once you finish your first draft.
- Etc. Etc. You get the idea. Basically, look after yourself. Writing a book is a large undertaking. It can be emotionally draining. Make sure you look after your own needs and find ways to congratulate yourself as you progress.
Be nice, leave a comment
I’d love to hear about your project or anything else you’d like to share about your experiences with your first book.
Please leave a comment below. I’m happy to respond to any comments/ questions.
As always thanks for reading, and all the best with your writing, cheers, John
No one warned me about this when I started writing but sometimes characters appear in your work by accident. They must come from somewhere but you have no way of figuring out where, it’s like they’ve made themselves out of nothing.
However, while I agree with the idea that reading with your children is a good thing, I’m not sure if I agree with the hefty role being given to word volume, or the assumption that parents should only care about test scores. It’s part of the growing inclination of so many to try and quantify childhood learning.
When a child reads a story where a character loses their memories, they aren’t simply exposed to a vocabulary-building exercise; they have been given access to some fairly complex notions about identity. This might lead them to ask questions about whether we are the sum of our memories, or something more. In essence, books (and perhaps fantasy books in particular) provide simple, digestible ways of thinking about some pretty big questions.
The abilities of a teacher are often assessed based on the test scores of the children they teach, but this can leave little room for some truly vital skills; like bolstered inquisitiveness, social understanding, and the ability to ground ideas within a real-world backdrop.
‘Literary fiction’ is a genre often found on university reading lists. It can sometimes be seen as the more ‘serious’ side of storytelling. One of its sub-genres, magical realism, mixes everyday life with magical moments in a way that is fascinating and quite different from typical fantasy books. The magic is subtle, unspoken, and completely mixed in with the ordinary and everyday.
The most notable element of the genre is that when magical or fantastical events occur in an otherwise ordinary setting, no one within the story takes much notice (including the narrator).
That’s also probably why they’re considered literary fiction; they treat the magic as background, not plot.
Roald Dahl’s writing is so distinctive that I’ll be exploring it in more detail in a later post.
Write a story about an ordinary day. Come up with something dramatic (yet ordinary) that could be going on. Show the object doing something unusual, but don’t explain how or why.
Focus on how it affects people. What are all the main characters feeling at the end?
The quadrants on the worksheet don’t have to be the order your story goes in. Once you have notes in 1, 2, 3, and 4, you could grab a separate piece of paper (or a jotter) and write up a story there.
However, sometimes that freedom can be a bit of a problem. When you have too many choices, just making a single choice can feel like the hard part.
Here’s a Canva link to access the presentation file
