As many of you may know, I'm an academic writing coach and ESL teacher. As we've seen a spike in online tutoring sessions over the past few months, what with the pandemic and all, I've noticed a pattern of advice I often give students when it comes to writing... which I really need to apply to my own writing process!
I thought I'd take a moment to explore a few of those. They're all things that I'm really good at telling other writers to do but don't always do myself when I'm drafting my book. 1. Give yourself permission to "write it wrong." This is a piece of advice I've often given to students suffering from perfectionism, or those rushing to get the assignment "done" and "over with." They want to get it "right" the first try, and I can totally relate! I've often sighed over the fact that words don't flow perfectly onto the page like they do when I'm reading a favorite book. The key part in this advice, I just realized, is giving yourself permission. This is an essential part of the writing process, though, because if you don't write anything down, you can't fix it. So give yourself permission to make mistakes. This is how we learn! (That's something I also tell students a lot.) 2. Writing is trial and error This is something Victoria told me once. We were talking about Point of View, I think, and she said it's usually a good to write a chapter or two in first person and then write the same chapters in limited third person, etc. It's often the only way you'll know if something is working or not. This of course, can apply to other aspects other than point of view. I've added in a character, taken him out again; written a scene one way and wrote the same scene a totally different way; wrote in present tense and switched it to past tense, etc. My students might need to do similar trial and error types of activities with their writing. This is a hard piece of advice--for myself, not just for my students-- because it's a lot of work! ha ha! I sometimes talk students into doing this with their outlines. It's usually faster to write a bunch of different outlines to see the best way to organize your essay than writing entire drafts more than once. But, essentially, good writing is rewriting. Yeah... this is something I need to remember, for sure! 3. Ideas come when we don't expect them, so be ready! This is one my favorite things to tell students. It's pretty common for me to talk about prewriting and brainstorming activities in a tutoring session. I encourage doing t-charts, mind maps, outlines, and free writing. But rarely do I ever sit down and do them. ha ha! But one thing I'm really good at is recognizing ideas when they come when I'm not expecting them. I get ideas in the shower, while I'm doing dishes, talking with a friend or my husband, and when I'm trying to go to sleep. (That last one can be pretty darn annoying.) I actually did keep a little notebook with me everywhere I went for a long time. Now I try to record ideas in my phone. By the way, Liz Gilbert has a really awesome Ted Talk about where ideas come from. It's worth checking out if you haven't seen it before. 4. No one writes it perfect the first time This is pretty similar to the first advice I listed, but this goes beyond giving yourself permission to write badly. It's recognizing that the first time is going to be bad, and that's normal! Again, this is something I'm trying to remind myself of. Each time I give this advice to a student, it's like a flick on my own nose. Come on, Kassie! You can't tell students this if you don't believe it yourself. I'm trying, I'm trying... So there you have it! Four things I tell students that I really need to work on telling myself when I'm working on my work in progress. Teacher or not, what advice to you tell other writers that you're still working on doing yourself?
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