: I do not want to dissuade you from writing a book, no matter what your age is. However, this forum is designed to help the writer who has already selected an idea and is now looking for

@Phylliss352

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I do not want to dissuade you from writing a book, no matter what your age is. However, this forum is designed to help the writer who has already selected an idea and is now looking for advice on achieving a given effect. This might be the design of characters, the structuring of scenes, the specifics of dialogue, or the use of point of view. Not what to write, but how to go about writing. The possible topics are endless.

Rather than dumping paragraphs of technique and process on you, let me suggest three practical things that you can do at any age.

First, start small. Write a short story that focuses in on a single topic; expresses a narrow, constrained notion; and can be written in a limited amount of time. Do not worry overly much about quality. Get the words down, finish the story, and celebrate. You now have something that you can revise, something that you can show others, something that you can get feedback on (even if it is only from your future self). Take it out after enough time has passed to make a re-reading fresh and untainted by the memories of what you thought that you wrote. You may well find that the story on the page is only a shadow of the story that was in your head.

Second, write every day, if possible. Even if it is only for 20 minutes. It might be an outline of what you want to say in your writing. It might be (what you hope will be) finished prose. It might be the revision of a single paragraph. The goal here is to develop the habit of writing, no matter what the distractions are, no matter how you feel, no matter whatever.

Third, invest in technique. Spelling, grammar, story structure, and punctuation are all things that you can spend a few minutes on and achieve some skill and speed. Accept the fact that you will never achieve mastery. Console yourself that few if any writers get even close. But try anyway.

If you follow these suggestions, almost all of what you write will not be excellent. The goal of these (and other) suggestions is for you to develop judgement about what is "sort of good" and what is not. The "sort of good" items can perhaps be revised into something that is very good. And perhaps a fraction of these might be good enough to publish. Focus on these survivors. Even one of these published stories gives you the right to declare yourself an author. And that, at any age, is a wondrous thing.

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