Tuesday's Inspiration Discovering Writer

Looking through the books I've read that helped me write and inspired me to go beyond just writing for myself, I came upon Discovering The Writer Within by Ballinter and Lane. There are some interesting things here that I remember from way back inthe dark ages when I began to write. Those were the days of typewriters and carbon paper and sending off whole manuscripts to an editor and having the manuscript returned needing to be re-typed. Now we have the computer which makes life easier for the writer. But some of the things contained in this book are good bits of advice.

One of the first things was to put aside 30 minutes a day and just write. Sort of like the sprint writes people do. This means turning the editor off and for some writers this is hard. The editor makes one look at every word and ask is this the right one? Is there a better one? What am I trying to say? If you're just writing without the editor the words may not make sense when you read them over but perhaps the idea comes through.

Another thing that made sense then and now is what they call the Watcher. This is the little voice that says you can only write on the computer or you can only write with pen in hand. Sometimes this creature dictates the time of day you write. You need to turn this whoever off and forget those habits. Chnge one of your writing rituals during your 30 minutes of free style writing time and see what happens.