We are born with talents. Writing is a developing skill
Skills are developed and maintained with practice.
As
an aid to improving your writing skills you can keep a free-writing
diary as a practice tool. You may also find that it is a great source of
writing ideas.
Keep
your free-writing in a private diary, journal, or notebook. No one but
you need ever read a word you put there. In that private place you can
write whatever you want in any way you want to.
"Free-writing"
is writing without judgement or criticism. Do no editing,
corrections, or rewrites. All there is to it is to do it.
Do not throw away what you have free written. You can use it to discover subjects you can enjoy writing more about.
In your notebook, journal, diary, write. Produce a finished piece of
writing. Keep a topic in mind. Digressions are okay, but when you find
yourself digressing in this practice bring yourself gently back to the
topic.
Digression are to be honored and respected. After all they do come from your beautiful mind.
The
idea in this practice is to keep writing. Do not stop writing. Do not
stop for anything but the most serious and urgent reason.
You
may say to yourself "Let's remember the topic," but do not let a little
digression of yours bother you. Gently practice the
discipline of keeping the topic in mind as you honor and value your
digressions.
It
does seem that we writers are very much about digressions. They may
lead us to our best writing. Still we do not want them to keep us from
finishing a piece of work.
As
an aid toward helping myself to finish a piece of work I have told
myself to write down everything I can think about the topic at the
moment.
Later you can look for your digressions in you work above. Do another writing exercise based on your digressions. Let your digressions enrich your writing. Your digressions may give you topics that motivate the real you.
Peter Elbow's book WRITING WITHOUT TEACHERS has inspired me know that it is truly possible to write better with appropriate practice and Useful attitude.
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Thank you for reading.
Keep writing.
rcs