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later and write them down. I have tons of my paper building blocks to writing stored in a basket I go through from time to time. You might want to make things neater by transcribing your ideas onto computer. Just make sure you back your ideas up on a CD because computers have been known to crash.

Now here's the funny part. Once you begin to save more of your writing, and to show respect for the process, you begin to write more and better. First of all, you're not always starting from zero whenever you sit down to write. This article is based on these words alone: "Write something about saving your writing." My next poem may be called "Pineapple upside-down cake," or maybe I'll just order some in a restaurant. And your blog entries in which you rage against the political machine or detail the trials and triumphs of raising your children might just turn into a newspaper column or a book.

Try to think of that mysterious part of you from which your writing springs as a person. If you keep telling a friend that what he or she says is no good, silly, impractical, half-baked or a waste of time, pretty soon your friend's going to stop talking to you. Show some respect for your creative process by saying this instead: "That's a great thought. I'm going to write this down and see if I can use it somewhere. I bet I can." With some encouragement, your creative spark will talk some more.

Learn more about this author, Sarah Torribio.
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