How do you write stuff?

[Diamond]

Assuming it's creative writing, I think the approach should vary according to the goals.

*dodgy analogy time*

Think of it like the popular game of association football with you as both player and manager.

The most important thing in the first place is to play (write) and to keep on playing whenever you've got a chance so that you can improve your technique by trial and error, and hopefully have fun doing it.

But then when the game gets more complex and you start introducing five a sides and eleven a sides and tournaments and entire league seasons, you need to start balancing out the basic skills with the full complement of design and information that you'd need to manage a football team - i.e. scouting networks (reading other books and working out why they're good), player analysis (characterisation), tactics (plot, pacing, scene), and your football philosophy or strategy (the thematic purpose etc...)

Those are the two extremes.

You can't move on to the second without starting with the first and somewhere in between lies the happy medium that will be your formula for writing whatever you want to write according to your specific ambition for that piece.

Yeah, so in sum, it depends...

 

[Stoat Boy]

How do you write stuff ?

Just one word at a time.

I think that everybody has to get their own prefered method and that books on writing are good up until a point but its such an individual 'thang' that I dont think you can really say that any one way or the other is correct.

All you need to worry about is getting x amount of words down per day. Perhaps the only golden rule I would say is that you do set yourself a daily goal and try to stick with it no matter what.

For me the best book on writing has been by Stephen King. 'On Writing'. I am a fan of both reading and writing what could be best described as popular fiction and if that is your aim I think he is a man worth listening to.

 

[Sadken]

Cheers all - some helpful ideas I'll try out. Once I get going, I'm golden - I just want to get back into the swing of it.

 

[Sweet FA]

A dictaphone?

Can I use your dictaphone?
No, use your finger like everyone else.