Inspiration to Help You Think Like a Writer

Another guest post today while I’m basking in the Florida sunshine on a long overdue vacation with family.

Geary Smith recently won the Pewter Plate Award from Highlights for Children. He’s been writing for children and young adults for over 30 years. His work has been published in such venues as Highlights for Children, Child Life, McGraw-Hill, ProQuest and many other publications.

His books include *Spiritual Power: Breaking Free from Learned Limitations, NLP Power: Spiritual Tao for Change Forever, and The Juneteenth Celebration all of which can be purchased on Nook Press and Barnes and Nobles.

Geary has a B.S. in Psychology from Morehouse College and an M.Ed. from Stephen F. Austin University. He is a certified Life Coach and Counselor, Assistant Minister and City Councilman/Mayor Pro Tem.

Inspiration to Help You Think Like a Writer

By Geary Smith

“To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”
~Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David McCullough.

I know from personal experience that even after publishing my first story and while still holding and looking at the check for payment, I had some doubts in my mind that I was a “real” writer. It would take some time afterward before I began to truly realize I was a writer and good at writing.

Writing is many times a hard job to perform. Why?

In my opinion, writing is simply putting your thoughts, ideas, and feelings on paper.

So, if you have decided to write you have chosen a great passion and career; however, you can experience some frustration along the way — and even the most talented writers could use guidance from the greats on how to hone their powers of thinking and get those creative juices flowing.

Here are some tips from my personal experiences that might inspire you to think like a writer:

1. Study other Great Writers

Hunter S. Thompson was known to transcribe Ernest Hemingway’s novels in full, just to absorb the words. I know I’ve spent hours in book stores and on line studying famous children’s book writers.

2. Observe Everything in your Environment

Marina Keegan, a brilliant young writer who died tragically, was a master of observation.

She wrote, “observation is perhaps a writer’s greatest asset. That’s what I call it. I’ll admit it’s become a bit of an addiction. I add to it in class, in the library, before bed, and on trains. It has everything from descriptions of a waiter’s hand gestures, to my cab driver’s eyes, to strange things that happen to me or a way to phrase something. I have 32 single-spaced pages of interesting stuff in my life.”

I used to go to the park or sit outside after a long jog just to observe nature and then describe my observations into my story for details and clarity.

3. Daydream

Daydreaming might be bad while driving a car, but it is a good idea for the writing process. Daydreaming can help connect you to what you think and feel, the source of all good (and bad) writing. As Joan Didion once pondered, “Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?”

4. Write from Your Experience

In an interview with the Paris Review, Gabriel García Márquez advised young writers, based on his own experience, to write what they know.

He went on to explain, “If I had to give a young writer some advice I would say to write about something that has happened to him; it’s always easy to tell whether a writer is writing about something that has happened to him or something he has read or been told.”

5. Make Writing a Top Priority

Henry Miller wrote in his 10 commandments for writing that the serious writer must put his craft above all else. I get up early in the mornings to write, before all else. Miller advised, “Write first and always.”

Finally, I believe Stephen King knows something about writing and pretty much boiled it down to this:

“Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

And I would simply add to believe in yourself as a writer, trust in your innate talents and gifts and share your passion and love with your readers.