How to Start Your Writing

Many writers will say they never wait to be inspired in order to write. Instead, they’ll share their tips and tricks of their habit: a cup of coffee, a walk in the morning, a good pen. Some of us put a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven, set a timer, and sit at the kitchen table while the cookies bake. (This way, even if we don’t write well or a lot we’ve still made an attempt, and then we get something delicious out of it).

I agree for the most part. I can’t think of much that would ever get started if I waited for inspiration to strike. On the other hand, though, I think of listening to a poet read from his work, or finishing a book that leaves me breathless, or attending a writer’s conference, or simply going to the library, or reading and then rereading a favorite poem, and the itch to write — to just dive in — is overwhelming.

Or think of it this way: you’ve been eating fast food all your life, and then one day someone makes you a from-scratch, farm-fresh, organic salt-of-the-earth meal, and you taste it and think, “Oh, THAT’S how it’s supposed to taste?” Suddenly you want to learn how to do the same thing.

You won’t make it exactly the same way, and thank goodness. That’s the magic of inspiration — it allows us all to revel in each other’s creative expressions and urges us on, to see what beauty we can share with the world.

Try It: Start Your Writing with Inspiration

Choose a favorite poem and use it to prompt you to write your own. Here’s one I wrote after reading Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son:

The stairs I climb
are sometimes steep
sometimes easy.
No matter,
I can never
go back down.
I can
remember
but I always
keep
climbing

Featured Poem

Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s one from Pauline E Beck that we enjoyed.

Starting at the End

When the rumbling sky
Turns from sprinkling
To spewing torrents
And turns you away
From late August work
Of repairing the lane
And readying the lawn
For Autumn’s advance
Winter’s sure precursor

You turn inside and inward
Finding time now to notice
Signs of life’s slipping
From green growth of youth
Into the gentle fading of age
Trees turning to rust
Gardens giving up their last
Gifts on the altar of time

Inside you find that seed
That starts to grow a poem
A grain of winter wheat
Waiting to germinate and
Bear fruit a hundred-fold
You hold it close and close
Out all the world’s calling
You to get busy and do
Late August’s inside work

You stop and start to write
Your poem–your last gift
On the altar of time

—Pauline E Beck

Photo by Tambako The Jaguar Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.

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I have been a fan of Callie Feyen’s writing for quite some time but I finished this book in almost one sitting. If you have ever been in 8th grade, fallen in love, had a best friend, or loved reading, you will love this book. As the mother of an 8th grader, my other genuine hope is that my son will one day have a teacher as gifted as Callie.

—Celena Roldan

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Callie Feyen

Callie Feyen likes Converse tennis shoes and colorful high heels, reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Twilight series. Her favorite outfit has always been a well-worn pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, but she wants hoop skirts with loads of tulle to come back into style. Her favorite line from literature comes from Sharon Creech’s Absolutely Normal Chaos: “I don’t know who I am yet. I’m still waiting to find out.” Feyen has served as the At-Risk Literacy Specialist in the Ypsilanti Public Schools and is the author of Twirl: my life with stories, writing & clothes and The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet.

Latest posts by Callie Feyen (see all)

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