Know what guys, I spend a bunch of my time teaching creative writing workshops to all ages, and figuring out the different problems and struggles people have with writing, as well as being a writer. There’re five things I reckon are useful So if you need to write, There’s no onesizefitsall approach, no magical secret. You don’t need to decide just yet, and so often top-notch ideas happen when a few preexisting scraps collide in an interesting way. If you feel self conscious whipping out a Moleskine nearly any time you have a thought, use your phone, To be honest I tend to keep notebooks, and ‘keep a notebook’ is pretty typical writerly advice. With all that said… Having scribbles and bits and pieces means that you’re gathering potential material instead of asking yourself to come up with both idea and execution when you start. Actually, keep track of your ideas or scraps or fragments instead of immediately judging whether something is an ideal idea or a bad idea. Unless it was an uching friendship between a young child and an older person which taught us a lesson about life, books about friendship -not a lot.
In uni there were worthwhile pics for essays and there were silly, trivial things you just knew you shouldn’t write about.
Books about events in history were important.
It was very clear which books were ‘worthy’ and which ones were dismissed by teachers, when I was in university. Certainly, I frequently see young people who can write gorgeously about fantasy worlds or romantic relationships being frustrated that their teachers don’t like that sort of thing. Known books featuring talking animals which taught us something about nature were important. On p of that, you can’t wait for inspiration. For example, watch TV or a movie. One of my favourite quotes about writing comes from Jack London. We’ve got some things you can consciously do. For instance, other times we need to go looking, sometimes ideas just come to us. Listen to music. I want to ask you something. Look through newspapers and magazines and ask yourself ‘what if?’ questions about any story that interests you.