How To Be The Greatest Writer In Your World
You'll need to live and breathe these things.
It’s just you, your computer, and a blank piece of digital paper staring at you — begging you to arrange the thoughts in your head to make it whole.
Not everyone is suited to this lifestyle. The pressure to craft something entertaining, and informative that resonates with your readers can feel suffocating.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far; What makes a good writer isn’t the overnight success or the talent they were born with. It’s about embracing habits and philosophies that transform your mind into a better storyteller.
The wichtigste [most important] thing is to have the right Einstellung [mindset]. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You Embrace Copying Great Works By Hand
To know what’s great, you need to taste, feel, and possess it with every fiber of your being. Hand-copying great writers helps you do just that.
In our world obsessed with digital shortcuts, writing on paper is almost therapeutic — there’s a spark this analog practice ignites in you. Here’s how to do it:
- Find a well-written piece of writing you admire a lot. It doesn't have to be from a great writer — it just has to be something you wish to emulate.
- Grab a pen and a piece of clean paper, and copy it out. Do this word for word.
- Do this at least 2 times a week.
This practice might seem tedious, but it will make you a good writer. Your hands and mind will remember how it feels like to produce good content as you copy great pieces of writing week after week.
If you continue doing this long-term, the ingrained knowledge will start seeping into your writing as well. Don’t believe me, you can check my previous works to see how confident the practice has made me become.
You Take Walks To get Inspired
For years, I was a slave to the desk chair where I did all my work. I am not one to go outside unless I need to and I believe writing requires long and uninterrupted hours completely glued to my computer screen.
Then I stumbled on this great writing advice. Walking every day in tranquility is a writer’s best friend.
Walking gets your blood pumping allowing you to come up with fresh ideas especially when you’re stuck.
Next time you don’t know what to write, go for a walk. If you can’t seem to finish that draft, go for a walk. There is a reason why Hemingway and Dickens were notorious walkers.
My best thinking happens when I’m walking. There’s a rhythm to it that helps me string ideas together. — Shonda Rhimes
Become Your Text To Speech
We all know the great importance of reading to become a good writer. So why don’t you take it a step further and read it aloud?
If you’re shy like me, you don’t have to do it in public. Do it when you’re alone, or with people that won’t look at you as if you’re nuts.
Reading out loud has immense benefits I can’t even begin to do justice to in a single segment.
When you read normally, only your eyes and mind get stimulated. When you read aloud, you utilize three senses. You see the words, you hear the words, and your mind actively processes them as well.
Depending on how you read it, even your soul weeps for the beauty of what it has been exposed to.
Reading aloud allows you to soak up the author’s voice, structure, cadence, and rhythm. This can then subconsciously find its way into your writing as well.
Another huge benefit of reading aloud is gotten during editing your work. You’ll be able to spot errors no grammar check on the planet will pick up.
Journal Loosely And Consistently
I’m still getting around to this myself, but I hear it does wonders for how you express yourself in your writing.
Your journal is for you and your eyes alone so you can get messy, expressive, and vulnerable — all the ingredients of a good draft.
It’s a pressure-free zone where writer’s block dies on its way in. Even the ones strong enough to survive are not allowed to get in — like salt to demons.
Writing consistently in your journal even if it is random, messy, and unreadable stream-of-consciousness ramblings, strengthens your creativity and gets everything flowing the way it should.
Keeping a journal is like whispering to yourself and listening at the same time. — Sylvia Plath
