Writing is a Discipline

If a writer considers writing to become a task, he/she is doomed to failure. Because it cannot be an activity, then the facts? This is a discipline. What does which means that?

A discipline means development, and which means preparation. So a writer must prepare to become a writer and which means study, study of the English language--its words, its structure, its syntax, and its own style. This is the groundwork a writer must follow all his/her life. Therefore training.

Where does a writer obtain this training? From many sources--workshops, seminars, courses, reading, and reference to other writers. Each day becomes section of a writer's training. Every moment increases the writer's store of information, ideas, topics, and themes.

Discipline means the cultivation of input, of broadening the writer's outlook, of developing something to state, and of fabricating ways to say it. Without effort there may be no output--at least no yield that readers are prepared to increase their store of thoughts and ideas.

Discipline means practice. A writer isn't a writer until she or he puts words to paper or screen which may be the application of working out that preceded it. All this implies a love of the art, and when that's not present, then it becomes an activity, and writing can't ever succeed as a chore.

Discipline means exercise, this means action, this means the act of writing, of sitting prior to the blank page or screen and filling it. It is now time of labor, nonetheless it should be a labor of love, a desire, a need, an addiction, actually, to expressing oneself. Needless to say, this action may take many forms--poetry, essays, short stories, articles, novels, and non-fiction books--but it should be treasured and desired because of its own sake before it really is presented to readers.

Without discipline, writing becomes nothing more a job to be completed leaving the writer unfulfilled and wanting.