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Why I Write

My Inspirations and Goals

By Ember JoyPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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I started writing when I was 13-years-old. When I was a kid, I used to love telling stories and putting on performances, and my parents loved to see them. I would tell stories of princesses and magic, made up worlds and enchanted forests.

After my parents divorced, I fell into a state of depression that it took a while for me to get out of, for me to smile again. That's when I started writing. I figured, writing out what I felt would give me some sort of release, then I started looking up what it took to be a professional writer. Five words stood out to me the most in my readings and several websites.

Practice: It does take practice to write. Ray Bradbury said, “Write a thousand words a day and in three years you will be a writer.” You do have to practice your writing skills and improve to sell, and even though I've spent five years writing, I am still practicing every day and writing every single day.

Study: Imagine seeing a bridge or a skyscraper or an automobile and deciding that you’re going to go build one too. Without the knowledge and skills needed to build that bridge or skyscraper or automobile, you won’t get anywhere. Yet this is the approach people take when they want to become a writer. They dream up an idea and just start writing, refusing to learn anything about how stories are put together. Fiercely independent, they never study the craft of writing. This kind of nonsense is the reason so many people fail. Whenever I write my stories, I do vast research on my topic and other important things like vocabulary, structure, scenes, and I do those kinds of studies every day when writing

Patience: It does take a long time to write a novel. First, you have to get an idea, then you have to create characters, next is outline the book; and that can take months. Next, you write it, then you have to edit it, do some rewrites, then you edit again and again before you can even think about publishing, and if you are not self-publishing, then that could take forever. I work hard every day and try to keep the story vivid, but it does take time.

Strategy: This is what can get the story moving. People have different strategies for creating stories. For me, I use mind maps. One big mind map for the story, or mini ones for each chapter. It gives me ideas on how I want each chapter to go, and it's also ideas on what to put in the chapters. I also like to use a writing schedule to say how many words I have to write at least a day or every other day.

Passion: This is the most important part. You have to write with and about something with passion and joy. If you write about something you don't like, you can't write it good or even okay. You have to like what you're writing about, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, you have to like it or you won't want to write about it. For me, I write about romance and the apocalypse. Two polar opposites but they both make me smile when I write about them. It's fun to do it.

I plan on trying to self-publish my novel when I'm done with it. It might take a while, but once I publish it, I feel like all the hard work and studying I do will be worth it.

What inspires me to write is my dad. He died when I was 15 and it hit me hard because I was always a daddy's girl. I want to spend my time working on my novels and try to dedicate them to him because, to me, he was my hero; my everything. I loved him so much and I will always have him in my heart. He is what inspires me to write. He is someone who will always inspire me.

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