You've read it, you've heard it, maybe it's been pounded into your head by teachers and mentors alike: Writers must write daily. A writer has to write! This seems so obvious, why is it so hard to translate this rule into action?

Part of what makes the act of writing so difficult may be fear of failure. In your head you have these terrific stories, these wonderful ideas. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to get ideas to come out just the way you foresee. Giving up control, giving up the need to have what you produce be perfectly brilliant and beautiful, is a big step toward successfully managing a daily writing practice.

A good first step is to make that transition your primary focus. Take all those expectations you have of yourself, all that desire to sit down and produce a Pulitzer prize winning work, and throw it out the window. Before you can write well, you must simply write. Write what is in your head. Write nonsense words as they come to you. Allow the motion of your pen or your fingers on the keyboard to be the center of your practice at first. Believe it or not: Ideas will come.

And this is so important, truly. Instead of controlling the process and trying to force the ideas onto the page, allow the ideas to come to you naturally, within an avalanche of motion. Your ideas may be buried in a tumble of nonsense, they may be hidden inside an outpouring of words. That's okay! The work of cutting and shaping is an editor's job, not a writer's. You can not edit and write your work at the same time; first.. you must write. Daily. Make it your business to sit down and express the contents of your head- because that is the discipline. That is the meat and potatoes of the writing work.

You will find in time that you can make the transition more quickly and more easily, from motion to ideas. There will be what I describe as a 'click-over' in your head, from your thinking mind to your writing mind. In time it will be much easier to express the ideas you wish to express both clearly and concisely. Through writing, you will find your writer's voice.

Learn more about this author, Alissa King.
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