Thursday, May 05, 2005

In the Beginning...

Beginnings are hard.

Are you a beginner writer?
Let's first establish what kind of a beginner you are.

If you have written all your life but only recently decided to see if you could do this for a living, get published, or make your words publicly available, please see my post: I wrote something, now I want to publish it

On the other hand, if you have just decided to start writing, then let me congratulate you. You have joined the ranks of many writers, a large, diverse and supportive community whose members are as intelligent as they are kind, as witty and quick tongued as they are helpful and resourceful.

You may not know yet what you want to write. You probably just started and at first you wrote some fiction, then some poetry and now you've written an article about the terrible twos. It doesn't matter. Get those words out.

Like anything else, writing is a large portion skill, and a small amount talent. Get that skill going. Practice. Practice your writing. With time you'll focus more on what you want to write, develop your own style (or not, but that's a different subject) and finally master the art of writing.

Here are some helpful guides that can help you:
  • Grammar

  • For fiction writing: Uncle Orson's Writing Class

  • The Chicago Manual of Style, buy it at Amazon.com Amazon.ca

  • The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
    or buy it at Amazon.com Amazon.ca


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