I have often heard when I began introducing my book to the world from community of lover’s of books that heart felt expressed dream:

“You know I always wanted to be a writer.”

“I have to tell a story but I can’t seem to find the time to write. I’m just to busy.” 

I know logically from experience that being a writer is part volunteer action of the mind and part of one’s nature’s compulsion to use words, stories and construction of ideas into written form.  At least from my experience and the study I’ve done on successful writers and moderates who just have that literary itch that begs to be scratched. Simple, if you wanted to write a story, nothing in this world would keep you from doing it.

However,  the question drives me to answer it in a practical way. There are systems that writer’s employ to get their ideas/stories out of their heads and then present them all into a clear form and timely matter.

I’m not going to get every system just to keep this post short. I will present my system. Though not the best it’s what works for me.

I start out with a general outline in my head where I detail the beginning, middle and end and chapter headings if I’m inclined to do. I use the outline as a map of sorts to keep my mind focused on where I am and where I’m going. Some times I have to write it out just keep my mind focused sometimes I just have the map in my head set. Honestly though, I end up writing it out because my mind some times can’t keep on the subject or single map at a time.

Okay with my map in hand I have to figure out if this is a short story map (20,000 to 50,000 words) or a novella map (50,000 to 60,000 words). I’m not worrying about the word count because I know I need at least 198 to 300 pages. I prefer to write short stories and short novella books partly because I’m some times in a rush get the story written so I can read it and partly because I’m getting older and if I don’t get the story out of my head I’ll forget it or major details about it later.

When I began to write stories I found the faster way to get a first draft done was to write it out by hand in a notebook each chapter as it came to me. I like characters in stories  more then the settings of the stories and I hear the dialog in my head and write conversations out as it comes. The conversations are like a string to me that leads me from one setting to another until I get to the end of the story. Currently, I just use my Notebook computer as my notebook or Note Text Document but occasionally I have a need to use my hand to write because it’s a relaxing way to keep my thoughts in the motion of writing and not think about the 300 pages or how many words I need to have down on the page or computer document. The beautiful scale of editing always adds in more pounds to the completed work.

My advice: Keep focused and keep writing in whatever way makes it easy for you. Don’t worry about plot or page counts until the first draft is completed.

My chapters aren’t long but I add in a lot of them into a book. In the second drafting I begin to read over the story I see some details missing or questions that need answering with another chapter or I need to delete a sentence or two that doesn’t make sense for a character’s motives or personality.  I could go on but in a elementary view point this is my system for writing a story.

L M. Parker.

I’ve experienced three sides of the science of learning in all my twenty plus years as a student. The prime examples being: The formal intuitional factory style of learning, The one on one teacher and student style of learning and lastly the self-styled way of learning.

I never liked government or intuitional schools of learning. As an adolescent government schooling in general gave me a combination of mental hang-ups of utter boredom and emotional humiliation that I couldn’t learn a subject I had no interest in or was given a view point of a application of usefulness in the real world.

I have discovered over the years upon personal observation of myself that the personal application of a subject matter has to be important to me on a personal level or I can’t maintain an interest on the subject’s information. Though, I wasn’t really self-aware of this factor of my mental psyche at the time of course of early years.

Self knowledge isn’t something you can learn in a book. It’s is a time consuming discoverable science.

Though I hated governmental schooling and I did not hate learning.  In fact there was apart of me that I wanted to learn and master the subjects that were pushed on me. Who doesn’t want to fit in a cultural setting how be it a forced upon setting. I wanted to learn when I was younger was how to write however some times being at “school” got in the way of learning what I most cared about at the time because in my head writing was my future.

Both then and now I can still say writing is the subject I have the fondest affection for in it’s beauty to evoke emotion, song and meaning. On occasion, I would learn something about writing that brought me an insight to put into my tool box of the trade. Of course, I would forget the rest even though I was told it was very important for me to learn all the basics and every other tool. Whether or not I would use it in the real world or not was not told to me.

I didn’t spend long in the intuitional style of learning as a youth. I was really an idiot to this system of learning. I think in general because I didn’t want to learn to master intuitional style of learning to write or any subject that didn’t hold my mental attention. I wanted to master the elements of style that best worked for me so I could convey my own thoughts and messages to the world.

One on One instruction (Homeschool and single college classes) was a weird hit and miss for me when I was younger (Homeschool) and when I became a young adult (college). I found it useful in learning to write and play piano better. The lessons followed patterns of bite size bites of information fed to me weekly. I would given something new to master and figure out in small bits until I climbed up gradually in proficiency of mastery. This style of learning helped greatly with learning songs in music but lagged behind in advancing me in creating music of my own. But, again I took what I was given and figured out the improvisation on my own.

I learned. No. I’m continually learning writing in a self-styled way now. I read and analyzed the methods of great and poor writers every day. I’m taking bits of their styles and flows in their methods and seeing what could or not work for me by pain staking practice. I don’t take everything because what works for one writer wouldn’t work for me. Though, I have my voice I confess that I am not nor will I ever be my own autonomous man of letters. I am a combination of my western written cultural heritage and the Black writers of the 1960s. Though, I am not half as good a writer as some of the giants of the past were and are. I never wanted to be. I just wanted to write to convey as deep a feeling as the works of literature have given me.

On a whole out of the three styles of learning I rate them as such:

Government enforced learning taught me a few tools and compounded on me more tools then I needed and emotional break downs. C –

One on One learning is great for piano instruction and learning a few tools here and there for your tool box. Though to be honest every pianist I’ve had didn’t know how to improv with scales or cords to create patterns and melodies. B+

Self styled learning is hands on and how I learned to gain my own style in writing. I read a lot and got the rhythm and pose over time with practice I learned to enjoy mastering small steps at a time.  A+

This is the Inspiration for me writing this post

L. M. Parker