by Michelle C

Created on: August 06, 2008

So you've decided to try your hand at writing?! The first hiccup that you are likely to face, whether you are a total novice or attempting to cross over from the domain of the amateur into the professional, is self doubt. Questions such as, "am I good enough"? "Will people actually want to read my work"? and a whole spectrum of similar nigglers will have you chewing your nails down to the quick and tossing and turning into the wee hours. This, believe it or not, is a positive thing. It means that you are not suffering from the number one fatal ailment a writer can suffer from; being overly confident and not open to the fine tuning and development of their talent. The truth is that anyone can write, but not just anyone can write well. The desire to do so is the first step on the road to forging a vocation in this field.

You will hear this time and time again but never was a truer word set down than when a wise person once said that in order to be a prolific writer you must be a prolific reader.The reasoning behind this mantra is quite simple;reading opens the mind to structure, content, style and all the things that make up a good yarn or article. Have you ever read something and thought, I could have written better? Or finished a book that blew you away and decided to replace one of your usual writing strategies with something you had learned from the author? I would imagine that the answer for 99% of writers is a resounding yes. The other 1% are very obviously suffering from some form of delusion!

Another basic staple for the budding writer is the all too obvious getting your finger out and actually writing! Don't fret if you don't know what to write about. In the beginning that is not what is important. Write about the weather, write about a crappy day at the office, anything at all. You see, when trying to hone in on your basic skills as a writer the most important thing to do is to spend time developing your own style. For the fiction writer, that may include discovering scene creation and dialog and for the non fiction writer the use of sound structure and key point development and conclusion. Among the most effective and time efficient ways of achieving these goals is to use blog sites, forums and free writer's websites such as www.helium.com. These facilities give writers an outlet for creativity, provide a spring board for ideas and most importantly act as a stepping stone to becoming a published writer, whatever your genre. Many of these sites encourage readers and fellow writers to rate the work submitted by members so the writer in turn not only gets feedback on the work that they produce but can practice their art and see it develop under the guidance of other writers just like themselves.

So, there you have it. Get out there and read. Read works by writers in your own genre so you can compare and contrast their style against your own and maybe even pick up a few pointers. Read works by those totally outside your area of expertise too so that you have the opportunity of broadening your horizons and opening your mind to new directions and possible cross overs from other genres into your own. While you do all this, remember the number one rule is to let go of your fear and write, write, write. After all how can you be writer if you don't write.

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