5 Traits Writers Should Develop

 

Our poster today says:  Creativity takes courage. Remember the beginning days of your writing journey? You probably didn't feel confident about your writing at that point, but you had the passion within to want to be a writer. So, you worked up your courage and plunged into the deep pool of the writing world. If you're still writing today, you obviously kept being courageous and continued to write.

I think creativity also takes some other traits and tools. Consider these:

Imagination:  Yes, writers are people who have the ability to imagine. They are not daydreaming when they stare into space. Nope, they are using their imagination and creating something new to write. During my childhood, ages ago, little girls played with paper dolls. We had great fun dressing them in the clothes we'd cut out of the paper doll books and then imagining stories about them. My cousin and I spent hours and hours with our paper dolls and also imagining stories with our regular dolls. Boys played Cowboys and Indians with their cap pistols creating stories as they played. I wonder if some of that has been lost with all the electronic toys and games that 'do it for you.' 

Commitment:  To be a writer you need to make a commitment and, most of all, stay with it. If you commit to becoming a writer and toss it aside in a month, that's not a true commitment, is it? If it helps, commit to a year and perhaps renew that commitment each year thereafter. A year doesn't seem as overwhelming as a lifetime, does it? 

Goals:  Setting goals will help you move on your writing journey. Start out with small objectives. Don't start with the idea of writing a book right away. Set a goal to write a short story and put it through the submission process. Then set a goal of writing 5 stories or essays or poems. Then move on to bigger numbers and bigger projects. People who fail to achieve their goals may have set the bar too high.

Knowledge:  The more you learn about the craft of writing, the better writer you will become. There is no doubt that a writer has a lot to learn but also has many outlets to acquire knowledge about writing. There are myriad numbers of books on the subject, many written by successful authors. Conferences, workshops, local writer meetings--all of these will help you learn about writing and writers. You have search engines at your fingertips to look up questions about writing. All these are available but the writer must take advantage of them. They're no good to you if you bypass.

Enjoyment:  If you're a writer, you should like what you do. If there is little to no satisfaction, if it's just a chore that you do to make some money, then maybe writing isn't for you. If there is no passion within, your writing will show that.

Yes, creativity takes courage, but it also takes more. As writers, we should work on each of the traits mentioned in today's post. They don't come in a ribbon-bedecked box. It's up to you to work on each trait and to renew when you feel it slipping away.