Advice to someone who wants to write.

Today through Face book, I received a message from one of my added friends. She send me greetings and told me a bit about herself. She had a desire to write but so far she had put it off. I recognized a bit of myself in that. I also had put myself off from writing, it took me a long time before I started.

I told her a bit about my progress so far in writing my work in progress. If you read my previous post, you know it is going slower than I planned. Still I try to write everyday. Today I managed a mere 200 words, still better than zero, it does make me feel less bad. Even if I go slow eventually it will get finished.

Knowing how it feels wanting to write but not doing it, I could not help myself but give her some advice. My advice I was:

• If you really desire to write, to just start doing it. To start today, even if it's just the title and one sentence.
• To figure out which story she wishes to write.
• To not expect the first draft to be any good.
• To start writing a second book when finished with the first.
  
• By writing more, your skill and experience increases.
• After finishing the second book to use the experience gained to rewrite the first.

The thing is, if you want to write a book, you should start doing so. If you keep putting it off, you will never finish one. You will go in life questioning yourself "What if". Not knowing will surely leave a sad spot behind.

I hope my advice gets her to start writing. Also for anybody who wants to write, but has not yet started, if this advice resonates with your feelings, I hope it may aid you in writing and to keep writing.