Getting Started 3

Wow! December already...the past week has been consumed with getting my December issue magazines to the printers, my full-time job, so now at last I have a few moments to speak with you. Hopefully you have fitted out a corner of your home for writing. Now to the task.

The first thing you must do is determine your audience. A writer does not use the same language and tone for children as for adults, neither does he write the same for specialist media as for mass market. The more you know about your audience, the better you will be able to connect with them.

Determine, if you can, the following: age, educational level, nationality, sex, cultural orientation and special interests. This will help you to choose vocabulary your readers will understand; select idioms, similes and metaphors they will grasp; present situations and characterisations they will find believable and engaging; establish the credibility of your 'voice' and avoid references that could be offensive.

I recall one time, while I was living in Hong Kong, editing an article in which the writer tried to use idioms with which she herself was unfamiliar. When she tried to convey that a certain woman had someone 'twisted around her little finger' (meaning that the woman had someone under her total influence), she wrote that she had someone "running around her ring finger". It took me awhile to try to figure out what she meant to say (were we talking wedding proposals or what?). The phrase "twisted around her little finger" is an American idiom. If your audience comes from elsewhere, they may not understand such idioms. Some people may call English "the universal language", but this language has many variations and contributions from the areas in which it is spoken. For example, many areas of Asia were taught British English. As a writer and editor, I have had to adapt my spelling and usage from my native American to British formats for my audiences here. When I am in Australia, I have to tweak it again, perhaps inserting "He's as popular as a blowie at a butcher's picnic" to indicate a person who is most unwelcome (a 'blowie' is one of those huge, slow flies that you sometimes see buzzing around people's faces in outdoor summer television coverage Down Under inspiring those wide-brimmed hats with dangling corks so especially enamored by today's tourists!). Important point: when using an expression not in your own common usage, double-check it for accurate application!

If you wish to write for a global audience, then you will have to avoid idiomatic expressions except for use when establishing a character -- and then remember that you will somehow have to weave an explanation of the idiom into your text for your readers.

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Getting Started 2

You've seen writers in movies spinning their craft in all manner of ways: speaking into a tape recorder on the go, dictating to a proficient assistant, writing longhand by the dim light of a nearly spent candle, two-finger typing on an old Remington, scribbling into a notebook under bed sheets by flashlight, leaning against a park's tree balancing a laptop on your thighs. Yes, these all work as I will attest from experience -- even, on more than one occasion, I have written an entire article on my Treo handphone (thank goodness for its qwerty keyboard!).

However, to set yourself on the road to writing professionally, you need to find a base from which to operate, someplace you can call your 'office'. If you are reading this, you have access to a computer. Great! If it's yours, so much the better. If you are at a library, yes, that can work too, as can a neighborhood Internet cafe or a club. However, if you are reading this from your workplace or someone else's home, it's time for you to exercise a little of your nesting instinct.

Set aside some space in your own home as your writing place. It may be an elaborate home office or it may be a fold-away table in a corner of one room (if the latter, keep the fold-away in sight, not hidden in a closet -- your place has to beckon you). If you are surrounded by family, I strongly urge an investment in noise-cancelling earphones and an MP3 player (sometimes listening to music through your computer slows down your machine's speed to an aggravating level). You want to insulate yourself from interruption. I share a study room with my spouse. We each have our own desks and sit back to back to minimise visual disruption. We also have our own Aiwa noise-cancelling headsets -- mine are currently playing Keola and Kapono Beamer (I love writing to Hawaiian music!). I suggest if you are putting your writing table in your bedroom, also place it so that your back is to the bed. You don't want to be enticed to lay down and day-dream. Heavy zzz's could result. A corner in a kitchen also works, except at meal times.

Once you have your space, outfit it with your tools. Keep them to a minimum: computer, printer, headphones, dictionary, thesaurus, book of quotations, voice recorder, paper, writing instruments and a lamp. Online dictionaries and other references are useful but I prefer to use a separate digital dictionary and thesaurus as well as a paperback book of quotations so that my writing stays in front of me on my computer screen. I am also a big list writer, so the paper and pencils/pens come in handy constantly both for noting ideas and research points that require checking. Aside from the computer and lamp, the rest of these items can be kept in a basket at your feet.

Now you are ready to start -- almost.

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Getting Started

So, you want to be a writer. Easy enough: if you can read, you can write. OK, wait a minute. You want SOMEONE ELSE to read your writing. That changes the whole ballgame. How do you write engaging text that draws a reader's attention? How do you establish credibility so that your writing is believable?

What's more: how do you get paid for your writing?

I intend to explore each of these subjects and much more on this blog. "Watch this space."

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