Lessons From My Writing Journey
How I have transitioned from one writing form to another
Being called a writer is a fancy little title but with the title comes responsibilities. Writing is not the easiest thing to engage in regardless how easy it seems to be at first glance. But then, hardly anything — profession or endeavor — is a breeze.
As one that has been writing for a good number of years, writing comes easy but is not easy. And even when you think it would get easier with practice and consistency, it really doesn’t, your outcome just becomes better.
There would still be days when you feel like running away from your manuscripts. Or you think of hitting your head against the wall to jug your memory. Okay, maybe the latter is rather extreme but, the point is clear.
My first memorable attempt at writing aside the compulsory class exercises, was poetry. It was beautiful to read, seeing a multiplicity of ideas woven into a short and concise form. It felt like a compressed form of a novel, one that impresses an image in your head if written well.
Poetry was easy for me. Take an idea, create an image, and leave a mark in the mind of the reader. Easy peasy? Well, so I thought. There are days when it gets extremely difficult to put across certain ideas and paint pictures vivid enough.
Finding comfort and feeling easy with poetry could have been enough to make me focus just on that — avoiding any form of experimentation. But then, I could really make use of an expanded form of the ideas behind some of these poetic pieces. Hence my move to article writing.
Article writing was a totally different playground. It felt like one too large from the onset. Having to transform a thought to poetry is different from transforming the same thoughts to words for an article.
There are quite several things to consider; the tone of voice, the style of writing, conciseness (poetry writing sharpened this skill), explaining enough but not so much that the readers feel dumb, and then passing an information the audience is looking for or willing to learn from. I was by no means ready for this, but my thoughts would not let me be, so I took the dive.
The early days were certainly quite the struggle, from deciding what approach to take, to having things to constantly speak about. It was no easy feat, and honestly there are still days of struggle.
Not long after getting consistent with article writing, I fell into the arms of scriptwriting. This was most unexpected and not premeditated. It was more than a struggle to get used to.
Transitioning from writing for the eyes to writing for the ears takes a lot of willpower, deliberate thought and getting used to. I am still getting accustomed to thinking in a certain way when crafting scripts. Baby steps and more practice.
In my journey with writing and all these transitions, I have picked up a couple of lessons:
- Mastery takes time.
- Moving on to something different after attaining a level of mastery would result in even more mastery.
- Pushing the boundaries and exploring new grounds is sure to help sharpen your skill, resulting in growth.
How long have you been on your writing journey? What gems have you discovered on your writing journey?
