By Mary Chizoba Janis
“You don’t start out writing good stuff, you start out crap and thinking. It’s good stuff and then gradually you get better at it.” – Octavia E. Butter
The crux of the matter is due to self-doubt, lack of self-confidence in writing and fear of failure “scare” aspiring writers from writing.
Writing has been a puzzle for me with all the self-evaluation and doubt about my abilities, but what helped me most was when I became a vasertile and observant reader, criteria that helped me overcome the fear of writing.
If you are an aspiring writer but has doubt about your ability to compose your thoughts into lines and lines into paragraphs and subsequently paragraphs into chapters, then you need to imbibe the following:
Do what scares you: What scares you don’t kill you. It’s the act that keeps you safe. You need to learn that because something is scary doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s detrimental to your health. Do what scares you, and keep doing it so the fear will subside.
Stop procrastinating: Procrastination, they say, is a destiny killer. Your house is neat enough .gist can wait. No, you don’t need to play games. Choose the best time for you to write and then write.
in addition to the above, read a lot more than you write (be a voracious reader): Read books that address your needs, that entice your fantacy.
It is the fundamental and most crucial thing you need to know before you start reading; you need to identify your needs or problems you desperately seek to solve. It may be a relationship issue, skill acquisition, financial, spiritual, and so on. For you to Identify this issue, look for a book that gives a remedy to the problem.
To be forthright, every problem has a book that has been written to address that specific challenge.
Reading is very important if you need to write because writers are readers. It will not only open up your mind, but also helps you improve your vocabulary and grammar. Reading will expose you to different writing styles, techniques and adaptations.
Write every day – set a goal for yourself then create an objective to get it done. For example, getting a journal/notepad where you could write about every blessed day experience in school and outside the school premises. If you want to enhance things even faster, make your goal weekly instead of monthly.
Be an intensive reader. This involves close attention to the materials to be able to interpret them. It requires attention to details, especially from the information from the material you have used.
Dear students,
Building a solid foundation now in your writing, at your level will go a mile before you graduate from the University.
Moreso, make use of that little time you have when expecting a lecturer to come into class and lecture you, read rather than be “gisting”, be a versatile, intensive, and voracious reader.
Ultimately, have in mind that for one to begin to write he must “read like a butterfly, and write like a bee.” – Philip Pullman
