So you want to be a writer

If you want to be a writer, the most important thing you can do is write. The second most important thing you can do is read. I'm told Stephen King gives this advice in a book he wrote about writing titled simply, On Writing.

After those two biggies the list grows more hazy. In no particular order, other helpful hints include the following:

Read Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark. It's amazing. The author tells you all the rules, how they can be used, how they can be broken. Roy Peter Clark is the Morpheus of writing. While reading this book you will feel like you are the Neo of writing. Whoa!

Gather descriptions. Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, once said something to the effect of, "I'm not a great author, I'm just a great pack rat." One of the descriptions (or events rather) he gathered was a project for artists to create frightening art that would transcend culture and language in the Nevada desert to keep people away from the site of buried nuclear waste for generations to come. Wow. Personally, I like to gather character descriptions. Sometimes I will people watch and write about strangers other times I write people that I know. I will write them at varying depths of character. If this person were a 2 dimensional charicature, I ask myself, what would they be like? Then I ask, what do I know about them that makes them deeper?

Take risks. This goes hand in hand with Roy Peter Clark's tips for silencing the inner critic. When the knights of the round table went off in search of the Holy Grail they all went different directions and they each set off in the direction they thought looked darkest and least traveled. Try new things. A lot of teachers will tell you not to overuse adverbs. Personally, I agree, but J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series uses them like crazy, so, I could be wrong.

Even while you are taking risks, breaking rules, and trying new things, let the works of other authors inspire you. Write fan fiction if the muse compels you. I like to read science fiction and often I want to take a premise that an author uses and make it my own. Frank Herbert, author of Dune, asks, "What if advancements in technology changed current trends and made killing from a distance impossible?" In Dune, Herbert describes the results; soldiers must be more highly trained, they must must be highly committed, loyal, and mentally prepared. It is much harder to push the button to launch the cruise missile than to plunge a dagger slowly into the body of a living person close enough to smell. Herbert describes one society in which this is the case. Many others can be envisioned. Feel free to write them.

Soon the promised "adaptive algorithms in video games" post will arrive, but I did not feel like writing it today. This is another lesson for writers: write what inspires you.

Flowing from the previous tip: create an environment for inspiration. The best way to do this is to start or join a writing group. Nothing inspires quite like a blank sheet of paper, a one line prompt, and nine other writing individuals who are expecting you, twenty minutes from now, to read aloud what you are writing.

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