Writing Makes Us Writers

                             When you want to be a writer, write. Start writing and keep writing. Your writing makes you a writer. When our object is to write we don't have to be perfect, but it is good to be good.

                        So, write something. Consider taking ten minutes to write a paragraph. Write something about what you would like to write about.

                        I used to use a timer when I wrote and found it helpful in several ways. For example, I found myself stopping to make corrections or to rewrite so often that I lost my line of thought and wasted time. So, I set my timer to ring in five minutes and did not stop for anything until I heard that ring. Then, if I felt like it I made corrections or changes. I also found that it helped to have the nature of a pararagraph somewhere near the conscious level of my mind. Neither of these doings is completely necessary. Certain doings are more important as you begin to write. Having a table and chair handy may prove helful. Pencil and paper and your glasses at hand may be a good idea. Maybe a computer with a speech to print app at hand and warmed up could make your writing flow more easily.

                    For this writing do not stop to make corrections or to edit. Just keep writing. Do not go back to read or anything. Just write. This practice can help you to accomplish writing.

                        When we are note-taking or writing a first draft it is often best not to take time for editing, improving word choice, or executing excelent  punctuation. You may write more efficiently when you complete such acts in your final draft or your penultimate one. It's OK to change your mind, but often best to express that which is on your mind at first. Which is often a more efficient way of writing. Later you can look over your writing and get a better idean of wht you were trying to get at. Seems that I have writen elsewhere recently that that we grow and develp as we write.

                        Well, did you write for five or ten minutes, relax for a while and then read what you have written. If so you can make additions and corrections as you like. Congratulations. Relax for a minute or five. You have written. You are a writer.

                        Now reread what you have written. Don't throw it away yet. You may get a surprisingly use idea from it which you can use right now or later.

                        If  you still feel like writing, do it. You can make your corrections and additions. Maybe you made a wrong meaning in a wrong word. You can double check the meanings of the words you are not completely sure of. This could be a good learning experience for you and good the the meaning and clearity of your paragraph. It could even help your reader to get that which you want her to understand or feel.

                        One changes as one writes. One's writing changes as one changes. We grow and develop as we write and our writing grows and and develops as we do so. 

                        Your most embarrasing paragraph or sentence can contain a gem or seed from great writing. Where you see the possibility for that gem or seed make a stab at bringing it out, clearifying it, or even making it shine and grow.

                    I am so old now that I am losing skill faster than I am learning. Even so, I am remember ing some past experience. After three or so of the writings were were just talkng about and if you have saved that which you have written, you'll have a pile of rubble. When you look over that rubble try not to over look seeds and gems. You are nearly sure to find words, phrases, and a sentence or two which seem important.

                    Use some careful thought and editorial discrimination to see what your words, pharses, and sentences add up to. Decide how much you believe them. Arrange them somehow so that the make sense. write some new and connecting parts if you wish.

                        We could call this your first real draft. We could also say that you have begun your career as a practiced writer. Congratulations!

                        When you feel like writing more you may find that when you keep alert to finding an "an emergent center of gravity" as you write, you may find one.

                        That emergent center may help you to more clearly see what you are writing about. Clarifying what you are writing about is often a big help. I am remembering now that at this point I sometimes found that which I thouht ought to be the beginning of a paper ought to end it and what I thought ought to end it was better as a beginning.

You can find the following as aids to finding and clearifying that center of gravity:

~ As you write you may honestly come to say, "Ah, now I see what I have been getting at." Pay attention.

~ Finish what you are writing about. Put it aside for a time. See useful implications as you look it over again.

~ See that your good idea is crap. Then see tat part of it is les crappy. Sort out the good parts from the bad. You don'thave to throw anything away. You may come to see that some of it is better than your favorite idea.

~ Your first writing may be good scaffolding fir your next writing.

~ You can find a powerful spark in a tiny digression of yours. You may keep the same elements of your work, but change the whole orientation for the better. 

~ See your work improve as you improve. See yourself improve as your work improves. 

~ As you progress in a piece of writing, be alert to an emerging focus or theme. Its OK to let your focus ortheme improve.

~ If notheing emerges in a piece you are writing, sum up thar which you have written, then sumit up again.

~ Push yourself a bit to keep getting some center of gravity or summing-up to occur. 

~ Work gradually toward moderation from extreme positions. If you feel you must be immoderate in a given case, make sure that you are being extremely honest and realistic.

~ Its fair and good to explain your position and its source.

~ Keep writing.

                    It is possible to learn a lot by helpimg others to develop their craft. That could be done in a writing group or you may do it by your suggestions or examples in the "comments" section below. Share an experience, information, or understanding. Pass it on here. You can even ask a question. You can help me by proof reading this piece and making sugestions or correcting my spelling. This is  a way to be a published writer!

                    Thank you for reading and thank you for writing.

                                                                                                rcs

A Writing Center of Gravity

Write With RCS: An Approach to a Center of Gravity.    

      The list below includes many of the ways I have gathered for getting a center of gravity or unifying theme to emerge in one's writing. The ways I included below were inspired by Peter Elbow's book, Writing Without Teachers.

 

Toward identifying your unifying theme:

1.  Start writing X because it seems more believable than Y. Note as you write X what you begin to understand about Y.
2. Continue your struggle with X and Y and see Z come up.
3. As you write along you may honestly say, "Ah, now I see what I have been getting at."
4. Finish what you are writing. Put it aside for a time. See useful implications as you look it over again.

5. See that your good idea is crap. Then see that some part of the crap looks a lot less crappy. You sort out good part from the bad. You don't have to throw it away. In fact, some of it is better than your favorite idea.

6. See your first writing providing a good scaffolding for your next writing. Consider the function of scaffolding. 

7. You find a powerful spark in a tiny digression. You keep the same elements but change the whole orientation for the better. 

8.As you progress in your writing be alert to emerging focus of theme.

9. If nothing emerges, sum up what you have written, then sum it up again. 

10. Push yourself a bit to keep getting a center of gravity or summing-up to occur. Reconsider the nature of a center of gravity.  

11. Work gradually toward moderation from extreme positions.

            And like that.

 

            Keep writing.

                                       

                                                                                        Richard 

 

You Can Write: Stuck? You don't have to fight to get unstuck

Write With RCS:  It Seems we can all feel stuck. It can feel so bad that one may feel like giving up. When it gets that bad you can do this:

 

 

            Talk out loud. keep talking out-loud as though some one were listening. Talk about comparing words to meanings. Talk about cooking and growing. If that doesn't work or you can't do it. quit.

            

             I don't mean that you should quit forever, I mean just lay your work aside for a time. You want to write and there are actions you can take to start you writing and keep you writing until you write something good. You might take some time to consider what is going on with you, Are you hungry? Is there something in your life that needs doing other than your writing.

            

             By the way, "talking out-loud" and the rest of that little paragraph above could prove helpful.

            

             Do you have notes? Keep your notebook and a writing implement handy. You notes can help your writing. The little essays I've posted about writing here are not much more than my good notes. Check out the other pieces available on this blog. They are intended to be helpful.

Right now you might try sitting Comfortably and completing a writing cycle. What's a writing cycle? Its easy if you have a timer, watch, or clock.  I have a little timer I like. If you have one, set it for ten minutes. You are about to do ten minutes of focused involved writing and then stopping to see what it adds up to, or what it is trying to add up to. Your focus might b your topic or theme. Your involvement might be sincerely writing that which you feel. For perhaps a worst case example, you might have written, "I'm stuck, stuck stuck and it sucks, sucks, sucks!" It might not be deeply sincere, but it could be an approach to your feelings.

To complete a writing cycle start putting words and sentences on paper and keep doing that for ten minutes. A timer is useful. No need to be much concerned about quality yet. Try to include include something that you know you wanted to write about. When you complete your full ten minutes, stop for a minute and then look back over that which you have written. Then try to write a sentence or two or even a short paragraph of what your cycle seems to be trying to add up to. So, you are reviewing what you have written. Good for you. When you come to a thought, feeling, perception, image you can gather up into one sentence or assertion, do so. Write it down.

             

            You wrote. You are writing. You are a writer. Do not be squeamish about letting yourself write badly. You are writing. You are a writer.

            

             In your next writing project your purpose could be to cook and grow and not take  your work as a disaster to be stamped out. Keep writing. Self-development and growth are occurring as you write. Such personal growth and development is not a waste of time. It is a big deal, an important happening. When you cooperate with the process it is a great doing. Keep writing and keep growing. 

            

             You might at some point try to see cooking and growing as a sort of global task; seeing all your writing as interdependent, seeing that no parts are complete until all parts are done, seeing that you want to get your material to interact, seeing that the important interaction is writing and summing up, and seeing what it means to alternately work in words and work in meanings.

            

              little warning; I can imagine one of us trying to do all of the above at once and so doing experience a sudden and extended case of crossed eyes. There are some valuable suggestions above that which may best be considered one at a time, beginning, say, tomorrow.

            

             Understanding what it means to see your writing as interdependent can better your writing. No need to do it all today. Cooking and growing take time and can be better done with your conscious  cooperation.

            

             You can let your goal be good writing. Your best writing is probably mixed-up with with your worst writing. You can find some excellent parts in what you have written. Some of your best sounds, rhythms, and textures, and some of your best insights may come from your most careless writing.

             

            Your purpose on a final draft and editing might be to get your meaning straight and to use the best words you can to express that meaning.

             

            There is a reason for the "comment" page below. I love to read  comments on specific posts. I read them and try to answer each one.

 

            Keep writing.

                                                                                RCS

 

A Writing Center of Gravity

 Be alert to emerging focus of theme

Instead of focus of them or center of gravity you may want to call it the heart of the heart of a writing of yours:

 

            Peter Elbow, my old writing guru, wrote of a "center of gravity." The list below includes a way, I have gathered from him, for getting a center of gravity or unifying theme to emerge in my writing.

1.  Start writing X because it seems more believable than Y. Note as you write X what you begin to understand about Y.
2. Continue your struggle with X and Y and see Z come up.
3. As you write along you may honestly say, "Ah, now I see what I have been getting at."
4. Finish what you are writing. Put it aside for a time. See useful implications as you look it over again.
5. See that your good idea is crap. Then see that some part of the crap looks a lot less crappy. You sort out good part from the bad. You don't have to throw it away. In fact, some of it is better than your favorite idea.
6. See your first writing providing a good scaffolding for your next writing. Consider the function of scaffolding.
7. You find a powerful spark in a tiny digression. You keep the same elements but change the whole orientation for the better.
8. As you progress in your writing be alert to emerging focus of theme.
9. If nothing emerges, sum up what you have written, then sum it up again.
10. Push yourself a bit to keep getting a center of gravity or summing-up to occur. Reconsider the nature of a center of gravity.

     11. Work gradually toward moderation from extreme positions.

                And like that.

                Keep writing.

                                       

                                                                        RCS