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I suck at writing. There, I admitted it.
More often than not, I find my self staring at a blank moleskine page, or the blinking cursor. You see, the problem lies not in writing itself, but writing on a certain topic, or any topic for that matter. For example, "Why dogs make great pets". You could say, "Dogs make great pets because they're loyal, obedient, and aid mental illnesses". It seems easy enough, right? Well, with my creative writing skills, not so much.
At this point you're probably saying, "You just came up with a topic to write about, so what exactly is the problem?". Let me explain further.
I understand that writing is like any other skill. Meaning it can be learned, manipulated, and mastered. However, more often than not, I find myself extremely frustrated when I'm trying to write a blog post. I've read that most people can write a post in less that 20 minute, whereas I, take up to two hours to get no more than 250 words. That's bad, very bad and not productive. To be honest, it took me 57 minutes to write this short question. Why?
At this point, I've tried everything, from free writing to outlining. I just want to be able to write about anything, whether be it Justin Beiber (Yes, I am a belieber), or my new socks.
In brief, how can I effectively develop topics out of thin air without research, or spending hours before actually writing? Moreover, how can improve my creative side without spending hours brainstorming?
(7)More posts by @Nimeshi163
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Your main problem/complaint seems to be that your thoughts don't automatically organize themselves. Take comfort. You are normal. Try the following (in order):
1) First, just get ideas down. I like to use FreeMind for this phase, and also a spiral-bound notebook that has no purpose except to jot down ideas. Note that "jotting down an idea" can run on for a while, several pages sometimes, but it is still very rough. This is the research and ideating phase.
2) Turn your FreeMind diagram and your jotted-down ideas into an outline. It is VERY important to outline in the proper manner. You do NOT write I, then A, then 1., then a., then 1), etc. Nooooo! You write I, II, III, IV, etc. Only then do you go back and put in A, B, C, etc. for your main points. And so on as you get more and more detailed. You do NOT try to flesh out the skeleton until you've got the whole skeleton. Otherwise, you lose the forest for the trees (sorry, mixing my metaphors here) and you get bogged down in a slough of despond (literary allusion, Google it). This is the organizing phase.
3) After you've got a nice detailed outline, then start writing sentences for each sub-point. You can also start pulling in paragraphs you may have in your "jotting-down" notebook. You might also want to talk against your outline, using a speech-to-text program. Don't stop to fix any mistakes in the machine transcription. Don't even look at it. Just keep talking. This is the "crappy first draft" stage.
4) Go back and do a first edit of what you've go so far. At this point, you're just trying to make it coherent. Don't worry about the perfect word or turn of phrase.
5) Go away from what you just wrote. Do something else.
6) Come back and do a final edit.
7) Post it; mail it; turn it in to the teacher. You'll never make it perfect.
One last note: Obviously, depending on the length and importance of your final written whatever, you can speed through some of these steps. But this should be your standard operating procedure.
You say, "I understand that writing is like any other skill. Meaning it can be learned, manipulated, and mastered."
You left out having a capability for the "skill" to begin with. Sorry to say it, but you sound like the last person who should be thinking of becoming a writer.
Is it novels and short stories you want to write? Or just faster emails? All the writers I know knew they wanted to write from childhood. They read endlessly and continue to this day accumulating books in one form or another, usually reading for hours a day.
AND they took all the writing courses their schools offered and got to know at least a few professors personally. Writers typically (in my experience) have circles of friends who are also compulsive about writing.
Writing is an extension of thinking. It's also a way of life. There are certainly skills involved, but first the writer is driven to write, thinks about it all of the time and has a natural inclination for storytelling.
I think your main problem may be that you're sitting down to write without the following:
A PURPOSE
Quite often, for an article, you're simply looking for an "angle". Angles don't just spontaneously come to us. We "look" for them.
When I'm assigned to write about something particular, I research it, and I try to find an angle within the actual subject.
I wrote an article about this pretzel brand, and in my research, I found out that the back story behind the company and its name was very interesting, but not well known, so I had my angle.
Once you have a topic and an angle, you have a purpose. Write the first sentence. The first sentence should hook the audience. By the end of the first paragraph, the audience should know your angle. Now, write the rest of the article.
With practice, you'll find new angles even in old topics.
Musicians often call their own voice mail to hum a tune that was in their head. This doesn't happen to most folks. However, if you were a musician, you'd have tunes in your head too.
Instead, of tunes, writers get story ideas in their heads. Keep a notepad and jot down story ideas as you "discover" them. You'll find that the more you write them down, the more you'll get.
Stay tuned in. Keep up to date on current events. Read. Watch. Listen. Ideas spawn other ideas.
The "without investing too much time" part could be a little problematic, depending on what you mean by that. In my experience (and contrary to what a lot of people believe), creativity is something you practice. That means two things:
It is going to take some time to get good at. Maybe a lot of time. In this sense, there is no getting around the amount of time you'll need to invest.
But since it is something you practice, you don't have to get good at it all at once. You can write for 15 minutes a day, or 30 minutes, or an hour -- whatever you have at your disposal and feels comfortable to you. In this sense, it doesn't take much time at all. Your small daily efforts add up over time, and eventually you find it doesn't take much effort at all.
I think you're just worrying too much about the act of writing itself. Just have confidence in what you're doing, and sit down and enjoy yourself. Of course, you need strong fundamentals for that (sizable vocabulary, good grammar, and a knowledge of what you are writing about).
If you're having trouble developing your creative skills, then I'd recommend you read 'Daily Rituals: How Artists Work' by Mason Currey. It's a good read, if nothing else, and provides valuable insights into how the greats used to unleash their creativity (one writer filled his drawer with writing apples so that he could write, and another actually made a round of the block before sitting down to write and after). The point of this book is that different people work in different ways, and most of them have one thing in common: Consistency. They wrote a lot, and formed strong associations with their triggers for creativity. That, in a sense, was their shortcut.
You said you've tried everything already, but have you tried just doing nothing? Turn off your television (from Stephen King), chuck away your iPhone and iPad. You will find that your creative output will increase greatly. I'm an Engineering student, and I find that when I have too much work, I have a lot of dreams that are worth writing about (I'm desperately bored at times).
Creativity isn't just about discipline: It's also about being able and willing to form new associations. Do an exercise with me: Take an apple, a pencil, or any object you can think of, then sit down and try to write as many words you can associate with it in one minute. The obvious would be red, juicy, fragrant, lunch. The not-so-obvious would be death (think of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. I know, the exact species wasn't specified in the Good Book), roast (roasted pig with an apple in its mouth), throat (Adam's apple), paper bag (the thing we usually place apples in), and destruction (an apple is capable of causing destruction to an anthill).
At the end of the day, the only real solution is to love writing. Love it, and be captivated by it.
You identify two problems in your question.
One is "how can I effectively develop topics out of thin air without research, or spending hours before actually writing?" This is a "what to write about" question, which is not on-topic for Writers. (Plus, there's no such thing as "developing topics without research." You may have done the "research" by reading 40 issues of Tiger Beat, but that's still research. If your problem is "how do I research a topic so I can organize my thoughts and write about it?" then ask that.)
The other is that you struggle to get words to paper. So the real issue here is why? Are you afraid of writing the "wrong" word? Are you afraid that you'll put it down and it won't look right or read well?
Conversely, if you were asked to sit down and chat with a friend about a random topic, do you have the same issues of coming up with spontaneous content?
If spontaneous content (why is Justin Bieber's hair that particular shade in that photo?) is not a problem for you when speaking, then you're "making the perfect the enemy of the good," and there are other questions here you could read to help you with that kind of writer's block.
If the problem is that you literally can't think of the word, any word, like "literally," then that may be a wiring problem beyond the scope of Stack Exchange.
You have to determine what's getting between your brain and your fingers first before we can suggest a solution.
I've found the best solution to improving creative productivity is to practice self-discipline.
Discipline is also a skill, so it will take time to find a routine that works for you. Find an hour or so in which you believe you're the most productive and set it aside exclusively for writing, eliminate any distractions or commitments. Every day, go to your 'work station' and start writing. If you do this repeatedly, you'll find that your creative flow will improve.
By introducing a form of stability into your workflow, you're allowing your brain to prepare for a creative session. You're essentially telling yourself, "this is the time to be creative."
Don't be precious about words. If you want to write for a particular topic then make a list of points you'd like to hit or quickly list your thoughts on that subject. You don't need to start with a complete thought and at this point nothing you write needs to make sense. What matters is that killing the horrible anxiety that a blank page brings. Once you've emptied yourself of those initial thoughts, start rambling about a point that piques your interest.
Your writing skills will improve with time and your ability to write complete pieces within a given period of time will also improve as you grow confident in your abilities. Keep reading. Keep writing. There are no shortcuts for mastering this particular skill.
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