Everything You Need To Know About How I Started Writing

The Princess Diaries is a glorious book about a teenage girl, Mia Thermopolis, coming to terms with the knowledge of her being a princess of Genovia - a fact that was well-hidden for the major part of her life. I was introduced to this book by a friend, who like every girl our age was obsessed with this series. It wasn't until Book 10 that I realized I loved it too - although, for completely different reasons.

Years later, I remember very little about the series, having read it only once and watched the movies way too many times than is recommended for someone who prefers reading. But there is one thing I remember and that is Mia's ambition. Along with being the Queen of Genovia, Mia wishes to be a writer. This is where I got the inspiration and this is when I realized I could write my own book too. Unlike other careers, all I needed to do was form able bodied sentences, right? Wrong.

Writing is an art, and like all art, it needs to be practice too. Being good at the language does not mean you can write a good book - you need to learn how to do it (be it at school or Youtube), you need to hone those skills and write better.

This realization came to me after several failed WIP attempts - some which were finished and pathetic, others just started and left incomplete. When I graduated, I had nearly four months before I joined work and that's when I first finished my first complete novel. When I printed it, my first physical manuscript, I was devastated at how bad it was. Despite all the praises from my peers I knew it was garbage and it was not too difficult to analyze why it was so.

During my first WIP, I spent very little time on researching. By research I mean being an active part of the writing community and learning from it. It was shocking when I watched the first few videos on the internet and they told me much that I did not imagine was required to work on. I knew nothing of planning, outlining, ensuring that characters had their own separate voices, what flat characters were and how important worldbuilding was. There was so much to learn, but the most important thing I learnt was to make it a habit to write.

When I came up with my second WIP idea, I was overcome with all the information. It was still unknown if I preferred outlining or pantsing (discovery writing) and so I went overboard with the outline. Here's something I recently learned from Brandon Sanderson: Many times pantsers don't know that they are discovery writers and outline extensively. The problem with that is when pantsers outline too much, they feel like they have already written their book and loose all motivation to work on their first draft.

This was the problem I faced while working on the second WIP. And thus the idea was abandoned.

My most recent, third WIP, was a success in all manners. I was successful at getting into the habit of writing and instead of dreading it, I was excited for it. The writer's block syndrome that I usually faced reduced and I was able to write close to 1500 words each day. I like to believe that this was only possible because of my previous failures and however cliched it may sound, it is true. Unless I had failed in those attempts, I wouldn't have been propelled to go forward and learn from my mistakes.

Here are a few resources that I found helpful during my several attempts:

Alexa Donne - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwTRhTSM2NyJImC8HeUd1Q

Susan Dennard's blog - https://susandennard.com/for-writers/

Brandon Sanderson's classes - https://www.youtube.com/user/BrandSanderson

If this was helpful, to you or your friends, please let me know on my Instagram account @writingyouthereviewsyouneed.

I will also be coming up with a detailed account of how I actually started writing my final WIP which stands completed (and demands to be edited haha) and take you through my journey!

- Aishwarya