Hello, Welcome and Congratulations!
Today is the day that we embark on this journey together to write our stories. By now, you should have an idea of the story that you want to write. You don't need to know the whole story, but maybe you have an idea, a theme or a character that has you intrigued that you want to flush out and see where it leads. Writing is an unscientific process, and one that involves the mind as well as emotions.
For this reason, those of you who are writing a novel, be certain that you choose a story that you want to live with day in and day out because as your story unfolds and your characters come to life, you will find that they creep into your waking hours as well as your dreams. If you develop your characters fully enough, they will become life-like and literally take you on their journey; I have described this in that past as living a parallel life. When you experience this, you will know that you are in Flow, a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and represents being totally absorbed in what you are doing that you lose sense of time and space. Personally, writing is the one thing that I do where I experience Flow; hence, I will always write because for me it represents freedom of expression through creativity. While writing non-fiction is a different experience (no parallel life), it can be just as rewarding.
Now, please know that while the experience can be rewarding, self-actualizing and even fun, understand that it requires hard work and dedication to see your thoughts become a tangible thing. Today, if you haven’t already done so, just begin. Sit down and start writing. It really is that simple. Commit to getting something on paper.
Tomorrow, I will discuss the actual mechanics of writing – the tools, the time and the physical space, but for today…just begin.