I am a writer. It's in my soul to write. How did I know that I am a writer? Well, for starters, I liked to convey my ideas, philosophy, and inspiration. If I were to convey those stuffs, the best way to do it is thru the internet by HTML protocol. That means writing. And the easiest way to publish my writings to thru blogging.
Touch typing
Touch typing refers to the ability to type without looking at your keyboard. I can touch type reasonable well. It's a requirement in my day job to type lines of codes after lines of codes. Do you know how to touch type?
It's is surprisingly easy to learn how to touch type. Just follow the rules below:
* No thinking
* No memorizing
What? What the batshit insane stuff am I smoking?
Calm down. Let me explain this further. It's all about muscle memory. It's like riding a bike or driving a car. You don't need to be thinking about moving your fingers in order to move your fingers. You don't need memorize the layout of the letters. Thinking and trying to recall from your memory would just slow down your typing speed. If you really want to know how to type, just put your fingers on the keyboard and think of a character. Your fingers would automatically move in order to type the character.
Of course, your finger would not get it right the first time. When you hit the wrong key, just back space and try again. Try hitting the correct key for five times. If you still failed, only then look at the keyboard to find the correct key. Remember that we are training our finger mucles here and not our brain.
You just have to type a lot. Don't worry about using which fingers to hit which key because those corrections can be made latter. The first thing you need to have is the confidence that you can actually touch type. Then, you can re-learn touch typing thru the "correct way". Then, you could worry about your typing speed.
Knowledge
Being a writer means you have to read a lot too. Reading is a requirement. You ought to spend as much time reading as you are writing. There are a few reasons why you need to do so. Reading other people’s writing:
· Exposes you to new ideas
· Keeps you update with the latest news and trends
· Helps you in developing your own writing style.
· Helps with your grammar and vocabulary.
Thankful, there is the internet. So, you can just log on and browse thru the several thousands of blogs that are related to your topic of interest.
I don’t think many writers have problem in reading to increasing their knowledge. The knowledge of grammar and the ability to write in an engaging way should be main concern when reading. When you start out, you will have to spend for quite some time (a year, perhaps) before your writing style mature. You will have to spend that much time too before you are able to write an article of decent length.
Compulsion
Writing is a compulsion or it is nothing. You are either obsessed to write or you don't write at all. Without a strong and persistence interest in writing, you would not ever complete any writing that you start.
So, what topics am I writing about? The general rule is that I write about things that I know, things that I am good at, and things that I am familiar with; which are motivation and productivity. Other than that, I write about stuffs that I came across thru my personal life. Experience, observations, and useful insights.
How do I get the ideas for what I am writing? The general rule that I adopt is that I write the first thing that came into my mind. Unless the first idea that I thought of is really inappropriate, my policy with coming out with ideas is to "just say yes".
Of course, starting a topic is the easiest part. What really counts is the completion of your final published article. To quote the words of St. Jobs of Cupertino: “Real artist ships”. Thus, my personal rule #2 is that I "complete whatever topic that I am writing".
End note
So, if you want to become a writer (or a blogger, author, columnist, whatever), I hope that what I have written is useful to your. If you have any of your own ideas on how to become a better writer, let me know.
In a future article, I will share with you the process that I take to create an article.
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