Write down the thoughts of the moment.

Write down the thoughts of the moment.  Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.  ~Francis Bacon

Right so you need to improve your writing ability these few workshops will be pretty useful :

Unsent letters!  - this is a great tool and I have used it myself- write to someone about something that is bothering you – it could be about them or something that you want to get of your chest. If you don’t have any ideas like that well then maybe just your thoughts. When you have finished read through it- does it convey your mood, what golden nuggets of information can you take from it? Not only are unsent letters a good way to vent (I mean you an send the letter on if you you want to destroy your relationship with the other person.) but they provide a good tool for you to look into your natural writing and tap into your subconscious.

Another good way for tapping away into that subconscious mind of yours is automatic writing. I tried this just the other day. You take a piece of paper and make sure you time yourself for say five minutes. Then all you need to do is write whatever gibberish comes in your mind. The article I read said that 95% of this will be rubbish random letters (mine was filled with the words ‘beef’ and ‘liver’ and ‘cheese’ and ‘silver’ random I know) well this technique is supposed to give you one nugget- one golden idea etc. I am not sure if this worked for me but it was an interesting experience and only took five minutes of my time.

Try it if you get a chance! Maybe you need to do it several times before it works- maybe you don’t need it in your life- either way it provides some way of improving your writing skills.

And lastly for today – do something your character (in your novel) would do. Would she take a walk by the river, would she bake cookies without a recipe- would she get on a random train to Doncaster! What would he or she do if they were living- that’s the idea- bring your characters to life do something they would do- or become them for a day.

I am intrigued by this last idea and it is something I am going to think hard about and try and do to immerse myself further into my new manuscript- The Book Club. I’ll let you know how it goes!