Education How To Free Yourself To Write Your Best

You buy books on writing techniques. You study storytelling. You write character sketches and you jot plot outlines and you scribble synopses. You work and work and build your stories and sweat and work and work and sweat some more. What is the fun in that? I'm not saying you shouldn't craft the best story you can. But the story you have in you, the one you want to tell? It wants to be released, not forced. That's right: The words will flow better - and touch your readers better - when you relax and allow the story to come out rather than force it to happen. How do we give ourselves the freedom to write the stories we want to tell? 1. Honor your story. I submit that everyone has a story to tell. And it's a great story. Do not let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You may need work on your writing skills, but your story is unique. It is just waiting to come out if you will step out of the way. You are probably better than you think. Shame on you if you bottle up your precious story just because you afraid to cut loose and write. 2. Kill your internal devil editor. He sits on my shoulder when I'm writing, sometimes. He whispers to me, "That sucks. What makes you think anyone will care about this? Why use that word? Slow down, don't you know it takes forever to write something great? This story is pitiful..." BAM! I shoot him. There's a time for creating and I will not let that gremlin critic impede me. You shouldn't either. 3. Enjoy the process. I know you may have read about how such-and-such author took seven years to write his book blah blah blah. And you think that if the process isn't difficult then the story couldn't be compelling. Bull crap. Your story wants to take you for a ride. Are you going to drive 15 miles per hour or are you going to feel the wind against your face? Wow, what an exhilaration to look at a sentence or a paragraph or a few pages and think: That is my story. I've let it out. This may sound hokey but I don't care: Say it out loud, right now, "I have a story to tell." Come on, do it. I know you believe it, deep down, or you wouldn't be reading my writing tips. Did you say it? Good. That is the first step to freeing yourself to write. The how-to books on writing are going to tell you, "This is the way to write a great story." Then the next book might contradict that advice. And the next one slams the other two. I'm going to tell you the absolute truth: There are a trillion different ways to write a book or a story. Pick a process that feels good for you. The important thing: Get your story out of your head and share it with the rest of us. You have a story. Set it free.

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