After last month doing a post titled "Business Topics of Interest (& Companies) Written On So Far", it seemed to make sense to also write on some of the things posted about in another area my book segmented into, Writing.
There's been 50 different posts that have Writing as a tag and the contents of them seem to fall into the categories of either (A) accomplished writers dishing on their work or (B) my ruminations on writing as an activity.
Wisdom gleamed from accomplished writers:
Spending the time writing - Biggest thing I saw time and time again written on the topic of writing is if you want to be a writer (or improve as one), just write… and then write more. Between the Internet and available ways to self-publish books, there's avenues to have work seen, but you have to actually be doing writing for those available avenues to matter. Something that seems to be repeated over and over by writers discussing their work is they don’t always produce great work, but they just keep at it. Part of the concept around writing is the importance of rewriting... write it, then write it again, then write more, then repeat, and oh yeah... writers have to read a lot as well.
Writing as building something - Another concept I've seen noted by many different writers is the idea of building a story. This takes difference forms ranging from the importance of researching and reporting to outlining and editing, but the idea is to keep in mind that the work isn't just letting flowery prose flow onto the page... it's often to utilize planning, structure, and a methodical approach to writing works (and rework).
The importance of subject - It may be an obvious point, but good writing on something people don't care about is going to have a lot less impact that something solid on a topic of interest. Going into this idea of interesting... there's both the traditional interesting of a celebrity or sports star, but also a lot of interesting stories on people and things less known, whether they be someone doing dangerous pursuits (which can be very interesting) or just something a bit different than normal.
Having writing matter to you - One thing that I've seen written about often is the need to actually love writing and words to if you're going to spend significant time trying to create good writing. Part of this is the work produced will be better if you care about it, but part of it is writing one of those pursuits that someone may do well, but not get fully recognized or rewarded for (this piece by John Hyduk seems to resonate on the topic). Point is that if writing your thing, then yes, bills have to get paid, but there should also be intrinsic value in the writing itself.
My ramblings on writing:
Some of the posts done where I did the most expository musing on writing are those noted below...
- "Words Written Down Book Process" - posted March 2012
- "Working Towards Something - a Career in Writing" - posted June 2011
- "Wanting to Do Something Not Being Done - Writing as a Career" - posted June 2011
- "Writers Write... And Not Always Well" - posted September 2010
- "How We Value Things & Entertain Ourselves - Roger Ebert on Huck Finn vs a Great Video Game" - posted July 2010
- "Words Written Down - The School Days" posted July 2010
- "Permanence of Words" - posted June 2010
Lots of great stuff from others and lots of personal ramblings that I enjoyed writing.
