Write Everyday

The importance of writing everyday…

I am often asked by those who want to become writers, if there is one thing I would recommend to help them and what might that be. My answer is there is never any “one” answer to that question but I do have a couple suggestions: read everyday something that makes you think and keep a writing journal.

The importance of filling your brain with stimulating information is essential for you to always have thoughts, ideas and words in your mind that stimulate and excite you into wanting to express yourself. A writer writes only about things they know about. (If they are a good writer and they are writing for an audience.) So to know about “things’ you must research and be educated about “things.” Also, reading the words of others that have made it into publication helps you to see what it takes to become a published author. In a good book the words dance off a page, the sentences have style, pace, functionality, the grammar and punctuation is impeccable. The many different things your mind learns and picks up while reading a book, if you are reading like a writer, is immeasurable.

The other recommendation that I think is important is that you keep a writing journal. Start in the morning and kick-start your brain by writing in your journal. Write down what you need to do that day or plan on doing. Write down things that happened yesterday or didn’t happen and how you felt about that. Start you day writing words. Let them flow, here is where you can write for yourself, you can free-form your writing with no one else’s concern about structure, spelling, grammar. Just put words, your words, to paper and exercise that part of your brain where the words spill from.

During the day, don’t be afraid of picking up your journal and jotting down notes of observations, like the car accident on the corner, the dead cat you nearly stepped on while taking your walk or the beautiful and fragrant garden you had an opportunity to visit.

Don’t forget conversations you have been part of or overheard. Each person is unique and if you, by lucky chance, happened to overhear someone expressing themselves in an
uncommon way, remember and record the incident.

Record using your senses, write down the most interesting or stimulating things of your day. How did it make you feel, what did it taste, smell, look like? Make sure you write with details because this is what you are trying to savor and save until another time when you might need this information. It is also training you eye and mind to pick-up on things that are different from the everyday life.

Writers are recorders of life. Perhaps, someday, a few hundred years in the future, your writing might be what helps the people of that day and time to understand who we were as a culture and society.