First things first, if you have always thought about writing, but have not yet put pen to paper you are not alone. Maybe fear has held you back; the thought of putting your words into the public can seem frightening. You might wonder what others might think of your writing. You wonder is it good enough? You want your work to be compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald's or Shakespeare's. You have a vision in your mind of being one of the greatest writers to have ever lived.
Do not give up on your visions, whatever they are. Hold tight to them and believe in them with everything in your heart.
Next, take the steps to make sure you achieve them.
I started out being very afraid to share my writing with the world. Without realizing it, I began taking steps toward my goals. I started by publishing some work on a writing site that did not pay any monetary residual, but allowed other writing peers in the field to read and rate my work. At the time, that in and of itself felt frightening, but I did it anyway.
That site is called WritersCafe.org
and it is growing steadily in popularity. It is a free service and anyone can sign up to be a member. As a member, you can create your own profile and start uploading all the writing pieces you want to. You can publish poetry, short stories, longer stories, and even articles on the site. It is a great networking site as well. In addition, any piece of work that you publish will automatically be given a copyrighted date, which will help to protect your material.
WritersCafe.org also has different forums that you can post general questions to. In one such forum I had the great honor (I say honor because it was the opportunity to work with other aspiring artists who just might end up being the next J.K. Rowling among us) of playing a poem game that greatly helped my creative skills. It was a game in which we set a particular structure to how a poem could be made.
For example, the first line had to have four syllables, the second six, and so on. I was surprised at how unlike my initial thoughts, structure actually enhanced my creative abilities rather than stifle them. WritersCafe.org also allows writers to participate in small contests that award monetary prizes as well as opportunities to become published in their anthologies.
Starting with WritersCafe.org helped me receive helpful feedback from my fellow peers that was much needed. Some of the members are published authors, newspaper journalists, etc. people who are making a living off their writing and they were reading my work and saying it was good! This helped give me the confidence to know that others would and will read my work and that I can become a better writer everyday, just as you can too.
