Daily Dispatch 30 - On Writing - How, Why and When to Start?

The first step to writing, I’ve found, is to enjoy reading.

And the first step for me to start loving to read was getting a copy of Sherlock Holmes — Study in Red from my cousin.

I read it while waiting for her to get ready for a party. It was the first book that I loved reading, and it put me on a journey to love plenty more books.

For the first time, I thought “hey, I actually learned something from this book, all the previous ones were just fictional stories with no value that I could see in them”.

Of course, I read tons of nonfiction books afterward and then started opening my mind to fiction as well. Hell, I’m in the middle of reading Dune for God’s sake!

The thing that Sherlock Holmes’ book did for me blew my mind with how much a character could know something so well as he did his job. And I got hooked, I knew then that I wanted that kind of life, the life of being the best at whatever I chose to do.

Why Start?

As I said my beginning in writing was heavily influenced by Sherlock Holmes. So I can only create a hypothesis that if you find someone you really admire and they attribute their successes to a regular journal habit or writing habit, I bet that will give you some inspiration to start.

My Heroes for writing were Sherlock and Leonardo da Vinci.

I then began documenting my life and my troubles in a daily diary (which wasn’t really daily because I was never consistent with it).

It then became a very useful way to cope with stress at college.

I would just jot down all my anxieties and thoughts onto a page and then reread it later on. With this, I started realizing, viscerally, how most of my anxieties were about things that weren’t gonna be the “end of me”.

How to Start?

I just picked up an empty notebook and started writing in it. I would number the entries, and put in the date + the hour I started writing.

Then it really is just putting your thoughts on paper whenever you feel like it. And if you don’t “feel” like it, try at least for a week on a daily basis.

If you still think it’s not for you, then so be it, but do give it time.

Sometimes writing is like beer to some people, an acquired taste.

When to Start?

How about right after you finish this article? There’s nothing stopping you. You can open up Google Keep, or any notetaking app. And just jot down whatever you think you should do for the rest of the day, grocery list, random feelings.

Anything goes.

Writing Online

The last part of this article is just for those that want to write online or feel like they should, but are too afraid.

Two things:

• Most people don’t care about your personal blog
• If you are gonna share something, share with the intention of it being useful to someone else. That will stop you from posting highly self-congratulatory pieces and risk getting into trouble with others online for controversial opinions.

That is it for today, I will see you in the next one 🤘🤗