While We're On The Subject

[bloodyrosemccoy]

This.

The best way to learn to write is to read.

I would add that your other best tool would definitely be a blank wall. Or a game like Tetris or Minesweeper, if you are the sort of person who can do it with just a little of your mind. But no matter what form you give it, the Blank Wall is one of the most important parts of any writer’s toolkit.

Probably the package of fine-tip Sharpies is just me, though.

Comments

[xaandria.livejournal.com]

Nope. Fine-tip Sharpies are in my toolbox, too. Although I prefer the "Sharpie Pen." that they've just recently come out with, since they don't bleed through paper (much). I've got dozens of them lying around just in case I need to scrawl something somewhere.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I like the range of color available in the marker forms, though--I have a haphazard but workable color coding for my notebooks so that I can write multiple stories and skip around with scenes and not get confused.

[beccastareyes]

I'd add a nice place to walk, an audio notetaker and a set of soap crayons. The first two because I get my best ideas while walking, and the third because showering or washing dishes also gives me a place to think, and I can't think of another way to record thoughts in the shower.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, soap crayons! Good idea.

I can't do audio notes, but I do have small notebooks for ideas. And yeah, the Place to Walk is, for me, another iteration of the Blank Wall. Prettier, though!

[shadesofmauve]

Soap crayons is an AWESOME idea. The two places I come up with writing and art ideas most frequently are in the shower and riding my bike - neither is conducive to recording.

Currently I keep a journal on my nightstand, not so I can write as soon as I wake up (it would say "Blurrrrgh") but so I can write after I run, naked but for a towel and sopping wet, in the safety of my room, without disturbing the room-mates toooo much.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I miss being homeschooled. I had time to read 2-3 books a day. Granted, a large number of those were probably re-reads.

Alas, being a bibliovore does not seem to have translated into the ability to write. I do always have multi-colored fine-tip markers (yay Stabilo) on hand, but they are more likely to, say, be used to draw a unimerpanda or a radish with a backpack on than to be used for marking up a text. (Both of those instances can be blamed on Twitter, too. Which sort of suits my easily-distracted self.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, book-lovers don't always become writers, but I am totally with her in that I hope writers all started out as book lovers.

... I would like to see this unimerpanda.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I actually have TWO iterations of the unimerpanda! Drawn during my copious spare time at my summer internship.

The story behind the unimerpanda is this: one day, I discovered the #followalibrarian tag. Lo and behold, I discovered a very active group of Massachusetts librarians, who all seemed to know each other, at least over Twitter, and began following them, as I, too, want to be a Massachusetts librarian some day. I would watch these twitter conversations when I was bored at work this summer.

One day, they started talking about improbable mythical beasts, and making up their own. They decided that there needed to be one part endangered animal and two parts mythical beast. Somewhere along the line, the unimerpanda was born. Some of them drew her. Truth be told, the first mental impression I was getting of the unimerpanda was a hippocamp with panda markings and ears and a unicorn horn, which I drew at about the same time others were drawing her.

Then, later, I drew a more on-model unimerpanda. Though I think I was the only person to give her a whale-butt.

Really, the only one of the multicolored markers I used for that is the black one, since the container of pens that came with the random office I got shoved into halfway through the summer didn't have any nice black markers in it. (It did have blue and red Col-erase pencils, though, which still kind of baffles me considering the "standard office supply" nature of the rest of the assortment there.) The radish with a backpack on got to use some of the colors, though. (Damn you, Ursula Vernon and your seldom-occurring but distracting tweets!)

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

Ursula Vernon has Twitter? *checks* Woot! *follows* :D

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

To now address the first bit: the problem is, I really WANT to be a writer. I've really wanted to be a writer since I was ten or so. I've got notebooks and notebooks from when I was younger full of bad poetry and odd story fragments, but I never got beyond the fragments.

But then, I also wanted to be an animator in high school. I wanted to be a webcomic artist. I wanted too many things, I suppose.

I guess when I'm at home, I should go through the old story fragments and see if there is anything worthwhile.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

Oh, good for them. I am sure they will turn out awesome. Being homeschooled was probably the best time of my life. After a while my mom just left me to whatever it was I was reading so she could concentrate on my younger siblings, both of whom were far, far more reluctant to do anything resembling schoolwork. As long as I produced a section of work from my math book and some worksheets from a few other books, my mom was okay with me sitting around reading for the rest of the day.

Public high school was a real shock after that...

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the work that was shocking, since the high school I went to wasn't really rigorous at all. It was more the other teenagers and the associated drama.

Now, college! College was a shock. College was HARD.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

The sharpies aren't just you. Sharpies are awesome.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Solitaire is my drug of choice when writing :p. I play until I trip out into writing mode land, and then I'm off!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

So dang true! Boredom leads to brilliance!

I was also thinking that blank walls are important because I spend a good chunk of writing time staring at one trying to fit the words together right. Ideally I'd just do all my writing in the shower, but there's not enough hot water and I'm not sure how I'd keep all my great ideas from disintegrating, anyway.

[shadesofmauve]

Wow, that's way better than my mom's response. She'd say "Only boring people get bored." If you still whined, she'd add "And the toilets need cleaning."

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

Er... Does reading loads and loads of fanfic count?

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

Explain blank wall to me?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

You need a blank wall to stare at while you try to work out what the hell you're going to write next. Writers do an awful lot of staring into space.

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

This is what I love: you have an icon for every single occasion. ALL OF THEM. I could sit here and type about the time my uncle slayed a purple marmoset in the eastern West Indies or whatever, and you'd have an icon of it.

[shadesofmauve]

I like blank walls, and other mind-freeing activities (bicylcing and showering being tops for me). It works for both art ideas and writing. As a visual artist, I have less art on my walls than any of my friends -- it makes the space cleaner, visually relaxing, easier to drift off other places...