My 3 Favourite Tips For Writing!

I started writing last year because I felt I needed to express myself in a creative and positive manner. I started my blog with that in mind; everything else which has happened afterwards (a poetry reading, having articles published on major websites, and publishing an Ebook) are cherries on a very surprised cake.

Don’t write because you want to be famous, or to be the next writer ‘in vogue’. You have to be authentic with your writing, and things will flow naturally from there.

Tip 2: Write What You Enjoy Writing.

This is very important to me. I love celebrity trivia and gossip, for instance, but not enough to dedicate my entire blog to it. It would come off as insincere and readers would sense that I wasn’t being real with them.

I write about random thoughts I have, different things which I have experienced, and my other random interests-makeup, relationships, Nigeria, music, and life in general.

I believe that readers with similar interests would be drawn to your writing, so it is best to write what you really want to write about, and not worry about what is ‘cool’ to write about.

 
Tip 3: Improve Your Skills, But Keep Your Unique Style.

 
I have taken a course and I’m also currently reading books on writing fiction and essays because I would like to improve my writing techniques-writing dialogue, describing scenes, describing characters, and so on. To a great extent, fiction and article writing need a certain level of structure so that the story being told flows easily.

 
However, I do not study how to write poetry, because poetry, for me, is where I experience the ultimate freedom in my self-expression. If you want to know about my mindset and my thoughts, you would find them in my poetry.

With poems, I feel very free to experiment with their length, structure and pattern. Some of my poems have just four lines, while others have 12 lines. Some have rhyming verses, while others are free-flowing. The possibilities for creativity are endless when I write poetry, which is why it is my favourite form of writing. The only concession I make is not to make poems too long-I don’t want readers to fall asleep.

 
So, even though it is great to study different writing techniques, try to balance this out with your own unique writing style.

Well, those are my writing tips-I hope someone out there finds them helpful! What tips do you have which have made your writing experiences more satisfying?

© Ivie M. Eke 2016