How I Write a Story — the Medium Lesson Number One

How I get ideas to write about, and how I work with and finish my text

I just get an idea. It’s there, a word or a phrase.

It can be a sensation, a feeling. Or something visual, an image, or a drawing. Something that stays for a few seconds in my mind.

I grab my phone, an iPad or a computer. Or I take a pen and a piece of paper.

I write the words that come to me. I know they will be there just for a little while. I absolutely need to write them down at once, before they go and perhaps are lost.

This is a crucial moment. The writing idea comes to me. It is there — and it’s like a flash — YES!

Write them down! Words on a paper, little groups of letters on a screen.

Then hit save.

Then I am saved. I have saved the idea.

I save everything on my computer. I create new documents, one for each writing idea.

The process of getting writing ideas is not planned. It can be a text I read, it can be something I see before my eyes, an association. Then, come on, do it! Write it down at once!

If I have the time I try to stay with the idea for a while. I develop the associated ideas, I try to connect it with other ideas. Perhaps I start to think of a heading.

I have a collection of writing ideas on my computer. One document for each idea. At that stage, there’s no system in it. I just let them be there on the computer. From time to time when I take a look at them, I open one or more and read. Perhaps I add something.

I am basing my writing on impulses, and on inspiration. It is something that just happens.

Many times it happens in an uncontrolled manner.

• I get or recall an idea.
• I write.
• I read what I write.
• I write more.

This is when it becomes interesting. I suddenly see what I have, where I must go. I write, I develop.

An idea starts living its own life.

Writing. Learning. How to live the longest possible life.

In a recently published article on Medium, Benjamin P. Hardy says:

In the book, BLUE ZONES: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, author Dan Buettner details some incredible science on how to live the longest possible life.

One of the key insights is to continually learn NEW and different things. You will age very quickly if you stop learning.

I think that writing is an important way to learn new things.

Writing is not only about getting down on a screen or on a piece of paper what I know, and what I wish to convey to my readers.

Writing is a fantastic way to practice some of the ways of learning that Benjamin P. Hardy mentions:

• Imagining: coming up with ideas is at the start of each new text I write.
• Reflecting: involves what I learn about the ideas I come up with. In my writing, I try to look at the subject from different sides.
• Analyzing: involves synthesizing what I’ve learned and making strategic plans about what to do with those ideas.
• Deciding: involves making a decision on the ONE WAY I will go with a specific idea. What do I want to develop in my text? What do I want to say with my text? What is my text’s reason for living?
• Acting: involves DOING SOMETHING toward the attainment of my idea. For me, writing is acting! I write to say something about a specific topic.
• Experiencing: involves learning from multiple angles. For me, this means learning from the interaction with other people, the feedback I get or the feedback I do not get from readers. Some times the feedback is great, in other cases, it is failing.

Writing is like breathing.

Breathing is necessary for every human being. Breathing is living. Breathing is being alive.

I am tempted to say the same about writing. Writing is almost as necessary as breathing for me as a writer. Writing is feeling I am living

Okay. I admit it, I exaggerate. I exaggerate a little.

I have always written since I was a child. Not always with success. I remember once at school I invented a place and some people, and I wrote a story about them. It was a piece of writing I had to deliver to the teacher. I was very happy with it.

What a deception when I got it back! The teacher did not appreciate. She had not seen the qualities of what I wrote. At least that’s what I thought then, in my dark deception.

The text I wrote for my teacher was certainly not fabulous. It was probably average. That was a lesson I had to learn. A lesson to learn over and over again.

As a writer, I need to write what I feel I have to write. But I also need to write so that readers want to read. So that readers start reading my texts and keep on reading.

That is a major lesson. A writer can write as well and subtly as he wants for himself, but he still depends on readers.

And who are the readers? They are people just like you and me. And sometimes very different from us.

Readers are different, but we have something in common: the language, and the interest in certain subjects. Many readers also have a special interest in the HOW. How the writer writes, how the writer chooses to express herself.

Some writers do it very targeted. Some writers stick to a receipt that has proved its value.

They write for readers, and they try to trigger the points of success in the audience. That’s certainly a good tactic, they experience (more or less) success.

As a writer, I am directed towards my inner space. And towards the language. I am a listener. I try to captivate the sounds and the music in the language. The hidden senses. I guess I am one of those writers who listen to silence.

I need to feel the silence inside of me. I need to listen to the silence. There are voices that whisper words. Voices that speak softly, at a distance. Out of the silence words come, sentences that I put on the screen.

I know, I should be more targeted, more cynical! Write what is out there, on the surface!

But that’s not me. I am who I am. I need to write what I find inside myself. So let it be that I am not cynical enough. That’s the cost of my choices.

Writing is discovering the world and myself.

Through writing, I learn about the world, about other people and about myself.

Writing is my window to the world, and it is my door to my inner self. I enjoy finding words and putting together words into groups of words. I seek the senses, the meaning hidden in the language.

Words are the writers’ tools to reveal the secrets of the world.

Words are my small soldiers who are combatting for me seeking new meaning

Writing is learning. And writing is creativity.

Since I a couple of months ago started writing and publishing on Medium, I have discovered something awesome: I come up with more and more ideas. My brain seems to produce writing ideas in a quantity that I never have experienced before.

My writing skills also seem to develop, and I have a feeling that this is a product of the fact that I daily write huge amounts of words, sentences, and paragraphs. The more I write, the better the stories I write. Yes, I know this may sound like bragging, and maybe it is. But regarding my writing skills, there is also a change and an evolution. That’s how I see it.

Finally, the fact that I write in English and not in my mother’s language is interesting. After these weeks and months of writing in English, I feel more at ease when writing. I notice that I think and formulate my sentences in English. I do not write in Norwegian first and then translate into English.

All in all, there are a lot of things that have an influence on my writing. I am very grateful for many of the stories I have had the pleasure to read on Medium from the hands of many great writers here. One of the most important lessons these writers give is that volume is important. It pays off to write and publish much, several times a week.

Another important lesson is that I should set high goals and go for much more than what I originally believe I can perform.

I call this the Medium Lesson Number One:

Don’t set too small goals, you can always perform better than you think!

Thank you for reading!

Want to read more?

Try this: Yesterday I Experienced Something Scaring

And this: Alone, yes — but lonely?