Waiting for inspiration

Writing is supposed to drop from the skies. All we writers have to do is sit there receiving perfect words in the right order in roughly the amount of time it takes a reader to read it. Easy.

I meet so many writers who can’t even start the novel or memoir that’s been bugging them for years because they’re waiting for ‘inspiration’ like this. But writing is trial and error – does this bit work best like this or like that? – with lots of false starts and restarts punctuated by moments of that flying brilliance you knew was in you. There are drudging days too when nothing feels right until, looking over it weeks later, you realise that low day was one of your best.

There are more resources for writers now than ever and a lot of it is cheap or free. In this Better Writing section are some that helped me and still do. You can scroll down the Home page of this site, the middle section, to find a kind of contents list with links to my blog posts about our craft.

My aim is to help you get started and find the confidence to finish, no matter what else is going on in your life. Since 2011, I have been facilitating a writers’ group in Cambridge where people who arrive with no more than ideas and ambitions can finish projects and send them out for the first time. Some are published now or have found jobs in the writing world, several enjoy self-publishing and everyone cultivates a sense of themselves as a writer among writers, where what they write matters. My blogposts combine our group sessions over the years with what I learned from the bumpy road to publication of my own novels and poetry.

My writers’ group in Churchill College, Cambridge is for anyone who has a connection with the college. Please get in touch – rosiejohnstonwrites@gmail.com – if you would like to join my waiting list.

Happy writing, Rosie