How to be a Writer Begins with a First Draft
How to be a writer begins with a first draft
Have you ever stared at a blank piece of paper wanting to write the first draft of something important and nothing happens? You may wonder how to be a writer if there are no words in your brain.
Your brain is blank, you put down your pen and decide that you are not a writer and never will be.
Don’t let this happen to you!
I decided to take you on a tour of where my brain goes when I sit down to write. I believe writing is an underutilized creative outlet that many people are afraid to try. I know I was.
In an effort to encourage more writers here is a first draft that illustrates the circuitous route thinking can take us.
The important thing is to begin.
Anywhere.
Without an outline. Without even a hint of a roadmap to where you are going.
Writing in this manner is the path to knowing what you think. But you have to let the path lead you. So how do you stay on the path?
Start with a question
Here is the one I started with today.
What does a model of car reveal about your philosophy of life?
I would need a degree in psychology to respond to this question with authority.
Wait! I do have a degree in psychology, but at an undergraduate level where I learned about Freud and personality types and how to administer psychometric tests.
(Note that my brain was immediately diverted from automobiles to psychology.)
Had I continued in the field of psychology I would probably have gone into research. My favorite course was statistics where we had to come up with a research project, create some tests, administer them and then analyze them according to certain criteria.
I was the only person in the class to get statistically relevant results.
I think the reason is that my data sample crossed many generations and so my ’n’ (number of subjects) was a bit larger than most in the class.
The project I designed looked at how experience with death and dying impacts one’s feelings about death.
(Hang with me here…this is about a writer’s freedom to go wherever the road leads.)
For instance, if your life experience has included the death of a pet, or a significant loved one, or an acquaintance, are you then better equipped emotionally to deal with your own dying processes than if you have had no personal experience with death?
That was my premise for my project in a class on statistics.
( Don’t hesitate to just go wherever your pen or keyboard wants to take you!)
As a university student married to a much older man I also worked as a hospice nurse so my pool of subjects drew from all three sources – students, retirees, and hospice professionals.
What I found out, briefly, is that experience with death is inversely related to comfort in the face of death.
Exactly opposite my premise.
In fact, the person showing the highest anxiety on all the scales I used was the hospice physician, known for her compassion and devotion to dying patients.
What does all this have to do with the type of car I drive?
(Note how my brain skipped abruptly to my original question which has to do with automobiles and philosophy.)
I have done no research here, nor have I read any, so this is purely conjecture, a romp through a field of possible ideas.
(Romping while writing…ah, what a vision!)
First, it seems logical that the higher one’s anxiety about dying, the more safety factors will be built into the car they would consider buying.
(Brains have an uncanny way of connecting unrelated pieces of information!)
Thus big, heavy, recent model SUV’s would be on their shopping list.
But safety is only one factor when we go shopping for a new car. Most often it is style, followed by color and price.
I mean, would you honestly go out and spend major bucks for an oversized meh-looking sedan that cost more than a year’s wages?
I don’t even have to be shopping for a new car to have my head turn for a cute little foreign convertible or an antique sports car.
Both of these autos cost more than the birth of my sons, and getting in and out doesn’t seem to matter.
Here is an example.
(Note I moved from an essay on death to a memoir!).
I had been driving a very sensible and affordable small SUV until my neighbor said he was going to sell his bright red VW bug.
I began to picture myself in that car. My desire, influenced in part by nostalgia, peaked with anticipation.
My first car over a half-century ago was a little yellow VW bug convertible with a black top.
(Creative journeys are not limited by time)
It was more like a bumble bee than a serious vehicle for the transport of full-sized human beings.
Well, a short test drive of this buggy was all it took for me to return my newly leased Subaru and plop down payment in full for a 13-year-old, low mileage wonder that turns heads every place I go—even though it calls me to be a pretzel every time I crawl behind the driver’s seat.
I never thought I had deep anxiety about death and this may be evidence of that.
(Note how my brain connected to the previous two threads – and returns to my original question.)
One fender bender with an eighteen-wheeler and I would be writing this from beyond the veil. But the price was right. The wheeler-dealer in me quicky figured out what this model might be worth when it is twenty years old.
(I don’t take time to replace redundant words or misspellings)
The first thing I did after acquiring ‘Lucy” was to install a yellow daisy on her red dashboard, replace a missing tire rim and polish her shiny exterior.
The daisy and the rim remain. Polishing, well, not so much.
What else does this say about me except that I will not let the stiffness that comes with age keep me from my goals?
(Now my writing begins to take me deeper with my thinking and if I were writing to find out what I think, then I would want to stay on this road a lot longer)
Buying this little red car says I like antiques.
And I am cheap.
And nostalgic.
I live a lot in the past, and although I do not look forward to dying, I am not so terrified that I won’t take my little VW out and navigate between big log trucks and fast-moving SUVs.
It also reveals a side of me that likes to have fun.
I respond with a big smile when people comment on my car which happens often.
Lucy helps me break the ice with total strangers – an important assist for an introvert!
(Now this is where my journey into who I am as revealed by a Volkswagon is just beginning…)
Well, here you have a trip inside the brain of a writer who begins with a simple question.
I have to say it is a bit scary to let writing have this much freedom but as adults, we don’t have to write an essay for a grade, or a report for the boss.
We can write the same way a preschooler plays with finger paints. Just putting words on the page and seeing what happens.
Had I spent time editing this piece I would have removed the abundance of passive verbs, fixed misspellings, and stuffed it with keywords for the google bots to find.
All these things are not necessary. There are no rights and wrongs when starting out.
Except to not begin.
I hope you pick up a pen or a keyboard today and find the freedom to play. If you would like a place to begin, join my FaceBook group TheReflectiveCollective and each day you will receive a question that gets YOUR pen dancing.
