Writing - Start young

  I suppose that I'm saying this because of a personal wish. I wished I'd started earlier but like most people, when you're young life is often very busy and writing can be an anti-social activity. It is necessarily solitary and quite often involves conditions ie. music, so finding the time, place and conditions can be difficult. So perhaps you have to consider shorter forms of writing. 

Poetry is an exceedingly flexible writing form that is almost limitless in the range of styles available to a writer including the 17-syllable Japanese haiku. 

Seventeen

Make your first line five

the middle line has seven

words of your choosing.

A descriptive effort taking minutes and conveying a very simplified description of the rules of haiku. If you're interested in this style there is much more information to be found on the internet. 

Diary writing is something that can keep your writing muscle in trim. I have been writing a diary for many years some entries being mundane and of no interest to anyone but myself but keeping diaries can be culturally useful. I try to include the prices of items I purchase so that future readers may gauge the cost of living etc. Also, the current political situation could be of interest, and maybe natural disasters or the deaths of celebrities. Naturally, it would be your diary so your feelings and opinions are important. 

Letter writing is perhaps a rarer activity these days even to the point that there are groups set up simply to practice letter writing, I have been a member of such a group. Even emails are opportunities to write in English. I stress that because when I worked in a bank the manager of our building used to send emails out that would not have passed the SAT for an 11-year-old at the end of Key Stage 2. 

My point is if you want to write books then there are a variety of ways of keeping writing fit. The list above is far from exhaustive as I haven't mentioned writing to papers and magazines but the point is to write even if it is only briefly, it will make you feel as if you're progressing.

God Bless