What you can control

by Susan Randazzo
(Perth, Western Australia)

My inspirational tip is more about attitude as opposed to an exercise.

The one thing I have realised with writing is that you have only some control over your story or book. What makes writing sometimes such a daunting adventure is that inspiration and the words come from a part of your mind over which you are not the sole Ruler and Emperor.

So, if you don't know how to control it, how do you switch it on?

I have learned, and it is a tricky lesson, the only thing with writing over which you have total and unashamed control is to sit in front of the blank screen or page and write something. Anything.

Eighteen months ago, with only one story idea in my head (& as hard as I tried no other great ideas) I decided, no matter what, I would write a page a day. After three months, I no longer needed to stick to my discipline, I was firmly on the prolific writing path. So, now, I could allow myself days and weeks off if my life became too busy. I knew I would go back to it.

There was a book I needed to finish because I wanted to know what would happen. A third of the way through, the characters and plot took over and I was just there for the ride. They really surprised me in the end. So I had to keep going.

Everywhere I looked I found ideas for short stories, which I wrote and then sent off to competitions. Some won a place, some were highly commended, five are now published within the last six months. (One winning on this site, thank you Elizabeth so very much.) Others scored nothing-that's how it works.

The other opportunity, I highly recommend, is entering short story competitions with word limits. Having just completed a 500 word story for the current "Writing to Inspire" competition, I was forced to be ruthless with my editing. When I went back to editing my book, I stayed ruthless. So those 500 words taught me a lot.

In a nutshell, the more you write, the more you are inspired. In the beginning, one page took me an hour, now I write around three pages an hour and there is a lot less editing afterwards. Believe me, I am not special. It's true what they say-the more you write the better you get.

Stop reading about it and start writing.