New Writer in an Old World of Literature by Charlotte Andrews

The recipe to writing comprises of the simplest ingredients.  One slice of paper, a dashing of ink and one large dollop of imagination.  Mix together into a smooth paste and bake until slightly brown.  Sprinkle with a colourful array of artistic decoration and anticipate that others will enjoy the cumulative taste of your masterpiece.

The problems and anxieties that new writers confront, are the self-limiting and personal judgements writers put upon themselves in thinking that there will consistently be exceptionally better writers in the world than them.  When becoming judgemental and self-critical about our own works of literature, how can we then challenge our own levels of self-confidence so that we may arise in our beliefs that we really can be as good as the person standing next to us?  Well, of course we can’t alone.  Confidence stems from the belief that readers have in us and what we have to say.  By acquiring a substantial support mechanism of ample interest from the general reading public, we should feel encouraged enough to accredit our work to be just as good as that person standing next to us.  Unfortunately, until a writer receives both public and publishing credit and acknowledgement  our inherent and genetically advanced brains insist that as human beings, we simply must self criticise all that we do, but in turn, following a series of carefully selected modifications, those criticisms are the things which lead to better performance in general.

With the wide range of topics to consider writing about, how do you then decide what to write?  Write what you feel and not what you know, as you may discover that writing with feeling uncovers underlying knowledge only an emotion can retrieve from information formerly held but now mislaid.  We know more about what we feel than what we think we know about knowledge, therefore, when writing with feeling, we can be sure, that we are writing about what we know.

I feel pretty lucky, that as a writer I can quite easily allow my feelings to flow to paper (or keyboard, this is the 21st century after all) however, finding the starting point a struggle at times I find it always encouraging to know that whether or not anything interesting is happening in the world around me, I always have a feeling to play with and a feeling to write about.  Twist it, turn it, flip it over or whatever may be, so long as your heart beats and your imagination flows, you should never struggle to write for too long.

By Charlotte Andrews

The Unofficial ‘Brit Writers and Writers Everywhere’ blog.