“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
-William Wordsworth
When I was in school, once my teacher asked to get up and speak something in front of whole class. I was blank. He guided me. He said, “Suppose you are sitting underneath the tree, tell me your experience.”
I said, “There was shadow of tree and some birds were flying near the branches. One old man was sitting in the shadow and eating his meals. Few children were playing the hide and seek game.”
My narration was not so fluent but whatever I said 90% of them was remembered by my teacher and classmates. Then he made me to write same thing on black board. Few students reminded me for incidents which I forgot to write.
Later on teacher improved the grammatical mistakes and told every body to copy the text which was written on the black board.
The teacher planted the seeds for writer in my mind but I could not become author until I finished my corporate jobs.
There are following six essential steps for creative writing,
1. Why Do You Want To Write
I started writing because I wanted to express myself, to communicate effectively, to stand out in front of people and to create opportunity for myself. Whenever I used to write a good email, I used to remember my words and started taking pride especially when someone appreciated it. Later on I leant that writing a therapy. After writing half a dozen of books, I realised that I would write on daily basis for rest of my life. Writing also gave me tremendous energy when there was massive response from readers from all over the world and money started flowing to my account in the form of distinguished royalty income especially when one of my books become best seller.
Purpose for your writing may be different from mine. One of my writer friends is affluent but he wrote because he wanted to be famous figure. Another one was life coach and wanted to establish the authority for his students and followers. “How to write has importance of 5%.” but “why To write has importance of 95%.” Find your true purpose and I am sure you will be unstoppable.
2. Think
There are more than 50 thousand thoughts in average human mind. But less than 5 % of them is literally retained. Ideas are like butterfly. If you do not note down it will fly. As an useful habit I keep a small pencil and a piece of paper in my pocket. Whenever some good idea is emitted from the mind, I write it down. If I am not able to write immediately, say due to traffic jam or a climatic storm or when both the hands are engage while lifting some bags, I will start repeating the word till I find the time to write it down. I come back to home and I will journalise the points in one of the files of my folder ‘mind blocks’.
3. Free Flow Writing
Some people are night owl and some are early risers. I have been later after reading a great book ‘5 am Club’ I keep all the 5 to 10 points in front of me and start writing something about each point. I thought once I can write a good email, I can also write something creative for me and for people. I started writing just like this for days together. With prolonged time, this writing quantity became more than ten thousand words. I continued this process for some more time, arranged topics in logical manner and gave for editing to a professional. And you know what? It formed my first book. When I published and learned marketing from experts, it started paying me royalty. I was inspired for more writing and with consistent writing I produced six books in international market.
One important point I recommend is the setting of environment. Select time and place in such a way that there is less distraction from others. Turn all your notifications off and if possible, stay away from gadgets when you are writing. It is advisable that you keep of spell check off when you are typing. Spelling and other grammatical checks can be done later on so that you have a good flow of writing.
Well begin is half done. So my friend, start writing from today onwards.
4. Editing
This is game changing step in writing process. When you finish an outline, just read it. You will come across so many mistakes. This is very important process of making your writing flawless and attractive. While writing you should not be much bothered about the grammatical mistakes or spelling because if you are simultaneously starting the editing work, you might miss out some important idea or creativity. I do editing when I am not too much fresh. I give considerable gap between writing and editing.
Editing is something that you consider from readers’ eye. One of the best way to edit the writing is listening. There are number of software that convert text into speech. You will get more clear idea of your writing when you listen the same. The writing is from your unique ideas and experience. Sometimes if you feel that little deep knowledge is needed in the topic, you can search for various website and you can give your wordings or if you want to put the same text you can give reference of the website in your page. In this way you can add quality to your writing. Reading and listening to various eminent authors make your thoughts more qualitative. After reading more than 400 self help and motivational books, I have rich ideas and wisdom to write quite attractive outlines. Because if I write from only my perspective, I may have limited ideas but If I read the book of an author I may have 10 to 20 years of his experience to my advantage.
5. Publishing
Writing is marathon and not the sprint. It may be daily sprint but as a whole it is marathon. Writing is a skill that will develop over a period. With few months writing practice, it will set the rhythm. Before a couple of decades when I switched over from middle distance running to marathon I realised that initially it was very much difficult but later on there was a phase when rhythm was set and I ran kilometres together without strain.
I wrote few hundred words during my active service in corporate sectors, but I never published since it was lying in my cupboard. I always hesitated that what people would think about my writing. But one of my mentors told, “Version One Is Better Than Version None.” These words touched me in such a way that I did not only published my first title but also published another book with this magnificent title. At the same time I happened to read the book ‘Die Empty.’ I thought if I do not publish my thoughts, those thoughts and words would be buried the day I would leave this planet. Since the publication of first book I made a plan and started publishing book after book and I will never stop for rest of my life.
6. Marketing
Most of my author friends published books but very few of them marketed. If people do not know about my book, only two people will purchase my book, my family and a couple of my friends. I therefore learned the organic and inorganic techniques of marketing and made the books reach in the hands of people in India and abroad.
Create The History In Your Family
Great emperor made wonderful monuments after his loving wife. Every body knows him even he has died 350 years ago. My forefathers also lived in those era but I do not even know their names. They are not known because they did not do something great so that people could remember them. If I write quality books, people will read, get benefits, my children and my grand children will definitely remember me because I am going to leave royalty income for them. People may or may not like Osho but his literature is creating 100 crore royalty every year. Only thing he did not have a will for end use of royalty and therefore legal proceedings are still in the court for disbursement of amount generated.
Take Away
1. Writers are 3% minority. They are considered to be class over mass.
2. Do not carry your thoughts to graveyard. Let the community get benefits.
