How To Be A Good Writer The True Key To Your Writing Dreams

Writers tend to spend a lot of time attending conferences or reading books about how to be a good writer. These days, with ready access to the wisdom of agents and editors who blog, many also spend time on blogs learning how to make it as a writer.
But many aspiring writers don’t carve out equal time to build trust in their own creative process. This can make the creative process lopsided and create writer’s block.
The true key to your creative writing dreams is learning to trust your imagination.
Deeply trusting your imagination is also the long-term answer for how to overcome writer’s block.
When you look at it this way, getting some writing “exercise” can take on a whole new meaning. Instead of dreading the session as a time when you’ll have to come up with some “good writing” or risk being a failure, you can think of it as something much greater than that: You’re there to discover the riches your imagination will freely offer once you learn to trust.
Creative Trust: How to Get Started
Your imagination holds an endless supply of treasures. The secret to accessing these treasures is to relax and allow it to flow out of you without judging it. Focusing on what you’re “supposed to” be doing to get it “right” is guaranteed to cramp your writing flow.
So, how can a writer deliberately build trust?
1. Show up to the page and get some exercise
If you don’t make appointments with yourself to write, there’s no way for your imagination to do anything but simmer. The act of showing up at the appointed time and writing something is more powerful than any book you could read about how to please publishers.
2. Devise a simple ritual to make it feel special
This should be done according to personal preference and not be too complex. Even something simple like lighting an aromatherapy candle can signal that this is your special writing time. If you do it often enough, your subconscious mind will eventually associate the candle with a desire to connect with your imagination.
3. Allow another voice to speak
This can be the hardest thing of all. We’re so used to the voice that tells us we’re not good enough–and all the permutations of that falsehood–that we can sometimes barely hear the other voice. But it is there. Often, the only way to hear it is to keep writing.
At first the voice of discouragement will only sound louder. But if you keep writing (even if you fear the writing is really bad) eventually you’ll be able to hear your true creative voice, and feel the difference between them.
4. Expect miracles, but only if you persist
At first the going will seem tough. It might even feel too painful to endure. And that’s exactly right. You’re being tested. Are you going to choose a relationship with your imagination, or the voice of gloom and doom that says you can’t do it?
If it feels worse at first that actually means you’re on the right track! Keep making those appointments with yourself, keep practicing your simple ritual to symbolize your intention, and keep listening for when your real voice shows up.
Soon you’ll know how to get there faster. You’ll have greased your own wheels with repeated action.
The stronger your trust becomes, the easier it will be to recognize the difference between the two voices. One is nothing but negative brainwashing and the other is your pure creative self.