Writing a Wrong

Writing a Wrong You may have heard this before but when polling professional writers, regardless of whether it is short form, long form, no form, there is one piece of advice that always gets passed along time and time again – just write. Write. Write. Write. It sounds obvious, as if you would tell a carpenter to build or a baker to bake. I don’t think I understood why this piece of advice would be so hard to really take on until I challenged myself to really write, more than I ever had, whenever I got the chance, without respect to purpose. There are no architectural floor plans. There is no recipe. That’s the main difference and so the act of getting started with a complete white space can often be intimidating. I, like many of you, have a lot going on. Family, a more than a full-time job and all the responsibilities that accompany them. It is amazing, however, how 10 minutes of waiting time, lack of TV and voice recording into an iPhone can generate lots of content on a daily basis. Sometimes I just “journal” to help me work through a personal issue (a never-ending process) and sometimes I am inspired to pull out my outline to complete one of the screenplays I am working on. Like exercise, the writer’s mantra has to be “just do it”. I used to think that I am not really a writer. However, just like Nike’s mantra that if you’re breathing, you’re an athlete, if you’re transferring your thoughts onto paper, one way or another, you are a writer. If you have a desire to get better and write but aren’t doing it, it’s time to get out the computer, the notebook, the recorder – whatever and write a wrong.