Wednesday, 5 October 2011

THOSE 500 WORDS....

How do you become a writer?  You write, of course. But how much? And how often? And what kind of writing does a writer write? Shopping lists? Unsent letters? Mad rants? Weird, unpublishable musings? Oddments of anorakish research, of interest to one man and his dog? All of the above, of course. There is no good writing without bad writing. Bad writing is essential. Bad writing is raw material. If you try and get it right first time, as if all the genius was just waiting to pour out, you will drive yourself crazy.


As for how often, every day is the answer. As for how much - if 500 words was good enough for Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene then 500 words is good enough for me....

Portrait by Anthony Palliser, from CatholicAuthors.com