Writing Tip #2

Here is another writing tip: Writing is a muscle: the more you work it the easier it becomes and the better you get at it. If you want to write a novel, start writing. Now I am not saying you should go from non-writer to writing a novel. I tried that and it didn’t work so well (if you can do it, great). I suggest you start by writing short stories. Short stories are great for building your writing muscles. You can also use them to practice parts of novel writing. For example, when I finally started with writing short stories, I set goals to work on for each story.

-The first goal was to just write one. It was not my best work but I wrote it and it showed me were I had promise and where I needed work.
-My next one I worked on character relate-ability. That is to say, writing characters that came off the page and that people could relate to.
-The next short short was from a perspective that I was not used to. I wrote a story from a 4 year old boy’s point of view.
-Next I wrote a short story that included a love scene and a death. I also worked on my word pictures (painting the scenery for the reader).

At this point I thought I was ready to tackle a novel so I started one, then I got burned out. I found it hard to write a full novel. I had not worked my writing muscles enough. Not wanting to give up my goal of a novel, I went back to writing short stories. These short stories were going to be about a couple and their cargo ship. My goal for these stories was to just build my writing muscle and have fun. These stories turned into my first novel.

Short stories, being short, also take less time so they are easy to fit into a busy schedule. So get out there and start working out your writing muscles.