First Step: Getting Inspired.

I've been asked many times how I even got interested in writing. This has been a passion, or more of a strong interest of mine, for years.

I've been wanting to write for a very long time, but life always got in the way and my priorities were different. Also, it helps to have moral support, too, but when I was first interested in writing, I was getting more discouraged than encouraged about doing any of the things I wanted to do.

It all started in my twenties. I got one of those Brother word processors that they sold at Zayre or Ames. It looked like a computer with a screen or monitor. It was as far as any computer that we have today, but the closest thing I had to one at the time. I did some writing on it, but I had absolutely no experience in writing seriously. I had a lot to learn.

Years later, I ended up going to college as a non-traditional student. The bug to write came back, but I was hyper-focused on my studies instead.  However, I did major in English, so I had lots of writing assignments, so I was able to learn more about the writing process and how to structure my writing.

After graduating from college as a teacher, I had to teach the writing process, so I ended up working with my students and teaching it to them. And as the old adage goes, "When one teaches, two learn."

• Brainstorm - Use a writer's notebook. This is where you just jot down your thoughts. The only rule is to not cross anything off, let your thoughts flow. Create a web or use notecards or use a graphic organizer to structure your story and organize your ideas. You might need to refer to this part of the process more than once as you write your story.

• Draft - This is the first write-up of your story. It's more important to tell your story than to worry about the mechanics. Just get your ideas down on paper and worry about the rest later.

• Revise - This is when you expand your story. You can develop your characters more, describe the setting and events with more detail, and expand on your theme. This would be the time when you would ask beta readers to give you feedback on your story, looking for specific things about it.

• Edit - This is when you focus on the mechanics. Using a spelling and grammar checker program is one tool, but it's a great idea to have an editor. This would be someone who can catch the inconsistencies in your story when it comes to past/present tenses, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, point of view, and so on. It may seem daunting to do this next step, but reading your story out loud to yourself is a great way to find errors. You'd be amazed at the errors you'd catch when you do this.

• Publish - After you've revised and edited your story, which can be a process that's repeated several times, then you are ready to publish.

While in college, I had a professor that recommended a book to me by Natalie Goldberg called, Writing Down the Bones. It has stuck with me all these years, and I've used the concepts of a writer's notebook in my language arts classes over the years with much success. But most importantly, I've used some of her ideas personally to get me inspired to write as well.

    If there's one takeaway from what I'm sharing with you today, it's that you need a few things to get you started with writing:

• Desire or Passion. It's not for the faint of heart. You'll most likely sit alone while you write your story and you'll have to probably do lots of research to make sure you get many of the details right. You will have times when you'll sit there and don't know what to write down at all. 

• A Small Circle. Having a small circle of people who encourage you and are willing to listen when you need to vent is important.  Sometimes it's just having someone listen as you bounce ideas off of them, or work out something about your story with them. Either way, having a few people who believe in you and want you to succeed is valuable and motivating.

• Inspiration. This is where keeping a writing notebook is key. It doesn't have to be fancy or leatherbound or anything like that. But have someplace you can keep your ideas so that as you write, you have material to draw from or even just to inspire you.

• Patience. You want to be patient with the process and with yourself. There will be times when you are frustrated because you just can't think of where to take the story next. That's normal. Find strategies that help you get through them.

In my next blog post, I'll focus on how I approached each step of the writing process and the tools and strategies I used along the way.