Many creative people have been hatching an idea for a work for years, but they are afraid to start writing it. But there are plenty of helpful writing exercises to help you reach your potential.
Basic problems for aspiring writers
Of course, there may be plenty of reasons, but there are basic ones that most often prevent a person from starting to create his masterpiece:
- Fear of failure. People tend to be afraid of the unknown and the fact that they will fail in the future. It is always unpleasant, having spent enough time and energy on something, to find that it has not brought any results. Such failures negatively affect our psyche, so she decides that it is better not to start any business at all than to experience a possible failure. It is scary to think how many brilliant works were not published due to the fact that the writer was afraid to publish his works!
- Lack of motivation. Sometimes a person seems to feel a desire to write a book, but this desire comes from completely different goals. For example, the initial, deep goal may be wealth or popularity, and a person, looking at the success of some writers, decides that he also needs to write something. Unfortunately, with such motives it is very difficult to start writing, and even more so to reach out to the heart of your reader, because you need to really tell him your story.
- Disorganization. It also happens that a novice talent simply cannot find time for writing. This may be due to a busy schedule at your main job or with your family. In this case, you need to master the techniques of time management and try to make writing your habit, giving it some time every day.
Tips for Overcoming the Fear of Writing
- Write regularly. It doesn't matter if you have inspiration or not - write at least a few pages every day. It is said that appetite comes with eating - with writing as well.
- Don't be a perfectionist. Forget about the opinions of others for a while. The first task of a novice writer is to start writing, no matter how strange it sounds. Just write, and you will have time to edit and bring the text to perfection later. Don't be afraid, everyone starts somewhere.
- Set yourself a clear goal. Consider, for example, writing 100 pages of text in the next 30 days. Be sure to limit yourself in time so that the task does not stretch out for many years.
Exercises for aspiring writers
- Freewriting (from the English free - free and writing - writing) is a technique of free writing. The exercise consists of freely writing whatever comes to mind for 10-15 minutes. Freewriting helps to overcome the fear of a blank slate and understand that each person has thousands of thoughts that can be transformed into a whole story.
- The answer to three questions. In this exercise, you will come up with three random questions and make a story out of them. For example: “Who is Olivia? How does she feel? Why is she sitting on the shore? " etc. The technique stimulates the imagination and helps to push off a topic in order to start writing.
- 10 random words. Come up with 10 absolutely random words - the first ones that come to your mind. Based on these words, create a complete and coherent story.
- Description of the situation. Take a look around your apartment, look out the window, and then write about everything you see. You can exaggerate! Your imagination knows no bounds.
- Text without adjectives. An effective, but at first glance, very difficult exercise is composing a story without a single adjective. Try, for example, to describe a forest landscape in this way. This technique helps to penetrate deeper into the images of the environment and learn how to convey them in non-trivial ways.
