TOP THREE THINGS: (these won’t be a surprise!)
1) The first and best thing you can do to bring more spontaneity, imperfection, and risk into your work is to MAKE TIME TO WRITE – REGULARLY. If you don’t do this, every time you do manage to squeeze out time, you will be overwhelmed with all your ideas, guilt because you haven’t written, and the feeling like you really have to make it count, so what you write needs to be great, and you will end up squeezing the life out of your writing. When you only have little bits and pieces of time, it’s hard to keep in the mental and emotional swing of the piece you’re working on. You spend a lot of time just settling down and organizing your thoughts.
If you have a really busy schedule, see where you can cut back. A creative mind needs time and space to open, to daydream, to gather, to play around. It doesn’t do well with fifteen minutes here and there (though take those if they're all you have). So you need to make time to write – at least 3 times a week – regular days and times, like an appt with yourself. Give yourself a minimum of two hours if you can. No less than one. (As you get regular times under your belt, you can be more flexible and reschedule as needed. Create the habit first.)
2) You also should have a writer’s journal that you carry with you at all times. One with you and one in the car. Jot down impressions, ideas for stories, bits of dialogue you heard, something you saw, something you felt, a question you want to answer.
3) Writing exercises. Get some books of these and work your way through them – pick random exercises or start at the beginning (or start at the end). Whatever feels right to you. These will allow you to experiment with a range of ideas, images, feelings, experiences. It’s like an exercise or health plan for the writer. Sometimes you will produce something amazing and sometimes you won’t. That’s not how doing exercises should be judged – on what you produce. It’s the act itself – of writing, of exploring and experimenting – that's where the real gold is.
Stay tuned for more detailed tips...
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