The secret of becoming a writer

THE SECRET OF BECOMING A WRITER

By now we all agree with Augusten Burroughs: “The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or to plan a future life as an author. You really have to…get to work.”

OK. We’re writing as much as we can. We’re not worrying if it is good or not nor are we worrying much about form or format, punctuation, or grammar. What’s the next step? Can we hurry this along?

Actually we’re there. We’re writers.

Ahh, well, but we’re not published.

So now we want to be in the big leagues and get out of the sand lot.

Writing is more a journey than a destination. If we don’t enjoy writing, we’re not on the right road. If we do enjoy writing then we’re going in the right direction. In time we’ll see how far and fast our dedication, talent, and inspiration takes us. This is a great adventure; be sure to enjoy the trip.

Yes, there are things that can move us along faster. We learn the craft from our own experience, but there is much we can do that will help us. Conferences, courses, books, web sites, blogs, schools, writers groups, critique partners, and other writers form a well of resources. It is our experience that determines how big a bucket we take to the well and how much we take away.

Write, write, right now!