3 Simple Ways To Start Empowering The Writer In You

In our previous post, we established the fact that there is a writer in you. We also added that you should be intentional about doing things that will empower that writer in you.

There are things you can begin to do right now to begin empowering the writer in you. If you are interested in finding out what they are, today is your lucky day because that’s why I’m writing this post.

Read on…

3 things you can do to start empowering the writer in you

1. Begin to read more books than you have ever done before

If your dream of becoming a writer means anything worthwhile to you, then you have to be a reader first. It is true that writers write, but it is also true that writers read a lot.

If you cannot bring yourself to the discipline of reading, you cannot subject yourself to the discipline of writing. Apart from the vast information you gain from reading, it also helps you learn the style of writing from other writers.

Read voraciously. Read wide. Don’t be intimidated by the block of texts you come across on the pages of books or on posts online.

Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write” –Annie Proulx

Read regularly every day. Don’t go to bed any day without having read something. Yes, it is that serious!

When I was studying accounting at the undergraduate level, my mantra was, “any day without studying accounting is no day.” (Thanks to a friend who gave me that idea). With that, I was able to motivate myself to study the course until I got the proper handle on it.

You may as well adopt that philosophy, so that no day will pass without you reading something. After all, you want to empower the writer in you.

2. Begin to train on the art of writing

One of the side benefits of reading is that you get to see firsthand how other writers present their works and to learn from them.

To begin empowering the writer in you, apart from committing yourself to continuous reading, another thing you should do is to get trained on the art of writing.

I am not suggesting that you should go back to school for a degree in communication arts. Well if you are still very young, that might not be a bad option. But I want to believe you are eager to birth your writing career so you don’t want to waste more time!

If that is so, you can go through the quicker route. Take condensed trainings on writing. Register and attend writing workshops – both terrestrial and online.

Seek opportunities to interact with writers you admire and learn from them. After all, you want to empower the writer in you.

If learning via video is your thing, do so by any means. Thanks to Youtube, you can find numerous materials on writing to watch and learn from.

3. Start writing now

After all said and done, what is the next practical thing to start doing? You guessed right! Start writing!

If you read all the books there are to read and you attend all writing workshops possible, and you don’t get down to actually start writing, you haven’t helped yourself enough and you will still be very far from achieving your goal of becoming a writer.

Start putting pen to paper and begin to write or get your hands on your computer keyboard and start punching away. You know the computer is an obedient tool. It will record whatever you type in, and it’s not going to tell you to stop writing. So why the waste of time?

If you want to become a writer, you must start writing something. Write stories (real or imagined). One quick way to achieve that is to start blogging. So start a personal blog where you can practice writing for others to read.

Write poems, write anything that comes to your mind. Write about your experiences. Be creative, be imaginative. Just write.

At this point don’t worry about whether someone will like your write-up or not. Just write! The only book that may not be read is the one you fail to write.

In conclusion,

Don’t wait until you have become a writer to start writing. It doesn’t work that way! You can’t put the cart before the horse and expect to go anywhere.

Your dream of becoming a writer is achievable! While you wait for that to come through, start doing what you can do now: start empowering the writer in you. Read more, learn more and write more. You will get there!

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What else are doing to empower the writer in you?

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PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN IN WRITING Part 2

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN IN WRITING Part 2
By Victor Uyanwanne

In part 1 of this piece, we made the point that we should learn to write down our important thoughts whenever they cross our minds. Your important thoughts are the important ideas that come to you at any point in time. As you well know, good ideas don’t give any notice of when they come, neither do they tell you when they want to varnish. If you fail to write them down as and when they come, they may escape from you forever.

A notable international speaker, high profile pastor and accomplished Christian leader I know, once said that you could never find him without a pen and paper at any point in time. What he does is that he writes down any ideas that come to him at any time. That way, he keeps track of his important thoughts and also develops them further.

The revolution in ICT has made things easier; you don’t necessarily have to carry a pen and paper all around – if you don’t want to. I used to do that, but I found out that using my smart phone is indeed smarter, since I am always with it wherever I go. Using my phone I type my important thoughts or ideas as the need arises. I could also speak into the recording device embedded in the phone to record my voice. I have written some songs using this method.

Using my tablet, laptop and desktop computer has also helped me achieve the same purpose of concretizing my ideas. This article is an example of a recent thought I wrote down and later developed. I was sitting at my desktop doing other things when the thought to pen this discourse first filtered into my heart. I wrote it down immediately and referred to it subsequently for further development.

 

When you write down your thoughts, apart from you, other people benefit too. People cannot read your mind, but they can read your thoughts if you put them down in writing. Think about it, the beautiful ideas you have in your head will not profit humanity until you bring them out. The poems you have in your mind, write them out. Surely, someone will be blessed by it.

 

Many of the beautiful songs you have ever listened to began as thoughts. Great businesses around were once ordinary thoughts or ideas in the minds of their creators. In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill asserted, “Ideas rule the World.”

It is true that ideas rule the world. But if your idea must rule the world, you have to rule your ideas first. Ruling your idea, involves harvesting them from your mind into a concrete readable form. In other words, you rule your ideas by writing them down and working on them. That sound so simple but the meaning is very profound.

There are many advantages of writing down your thoughts. Permit me to use what I call the “C.R.I.M.E” principle to drive home the point. (We are not talking about any unlawful acts or misdeeds here, please). In this discourse, CRIME stands for Clarity, Reference, Improvement, Motivation and, Execution.

• Writing down your thoughts or ideas helps you clarify them.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas gives you something to refer to subsequently.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas affords you opportunity to improve on them.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas can motivate you to carry them out.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas gives you something to execute or act upon.

We will explore these areas in our subsequent posts.

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN IN WRITING Part 1

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN IN WRITING Part 1

By Victor Uyanwanne
24/03/2015.

You have good thoughts come into your mind often. Everyone does. It is what you do with the good thoughts that come to you that matter.

Actually, your thoughts – whether good or bad – do not necessarily stay with you permanently; they come and go at their own speed. But some of them are so important you should not let them escape from you just like that. Keep track of them and you will be surprised what they can metamorphose into.

One way of keeping track of your important thoughts is to reduce them to writing. By that I mean you should translate there from ordinary thoughts in your head to a readable form in your hand. That way, you will begin the process of giving form to them.

Whether it is a goal you are setting for yourself, a vision of your future or a plan of action, if you are serious about them, please put them in writing. In the Bible, even God said to the prophet, Habakkuk “Write the vision. And make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it” (Hab.2:2). (To be continued).