Putting one word after another

There are days when writing is very much a case of just typing one word after another. Those are the days when you have to drag the words out of their hole and make them stay. There are better days too and I like how Neil Gaiman expresses it:

The process of writing can be magical — there times when you step out of an upper-floor window and you just walk across thin air, and it’s absolute and utter happiness. Mostly, it’s a process of putting one word after another.

On a related note, there is also the challenge of finding your voice when you write. My writing feels much easier when I use my voice (whatever that is – I tend to still stumble into it). Gaiman has great advice here too:

Tell your story. Don’t try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Because [as a] starting writer, you always start out with other people’s voices — you’ve been reading other people for years… But, as quickly as you can, start telling the stories that only you can tell — because there will always be better writers than you, there will always be smarter writers than you … but you are the only you.

And, yes, I am still on a writing-about-writing and Neil-Gaiman’s-advice-about writing kick …

Read more on Brain Pickings:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/09/11/neil-gaiman-advice-to-writers/