How to Start Writing

Should be simple enough, right?

I lived in a van for a few reasons.

First and foremost, a van is larger than any other car I could have bought with my friend Becky. We both needed room to sleep, hang our wet laundry, and store a (rather short) list of food and camping supplies, including wooden salad servers that we used as regular utensils.

Second, everyone did it. Every 20-something-year-old backpacker bought a van, drove it around New Zealand, and camped wherever they could. The laws regarding where you can camp are pretty lenient, especially if your van is converted. (Ours was not, but we survived.)

Third, I wanted to write.

I was making my way through Jack Kerouac’s novels but didn’t have much to show for myself in terms of fiction. I thought a good old-fashioned road trip would give me all the material I needed to finally write a whole novel.

I remember sitting up in the van at night, or sitting on our lawn chairs at campgrounds, thinking myself into a spiral. We had spent the whole day driving through breathtaking mountains and around steep curves, but those descriptions weren’t a story. I was stuck.

So I wrote about other things. I wrote about our budget (higher than we expected!) and our day walking around wineries in Marlborough. I also wrote about all the ways we used dating apps on our travels. (It’s a PG post.)

It took me quite a bit of time to write my first book, but in the meantime, I ended up writing a lot. And all of the blog posts, social media posts, short stories, journal entries, text messages were all practice for this first book.

I say this because maybe you want to start writing fiction or nonfiction. Maybe you want to build a portfolio. Maybe you want to make a whole career change, but you don’t know where to start. From someone who has had to come up with blog posts and book ideas for quite a long time, here’s my three best tips on how to start writing.

Ask Yourself: What Do You Want to Talk About?

When I talk about my writing career, I usually start with my application to a junior copywriting position that I found on Craigslist, but I should really rewind a few years. In 2013, I started a blog about music called “Beats, Breaks, and Shakes.”

My first post was just a paragraph:

“My name is Megan and I am currently a student of Temple University. My hobbies including attending concerts, attending classes, knitting, and tweeting. I created this blog in attempt to improve my writing skills and somehow learn more about the fast-paced world of music, media, and communications that I hope to one day earn money in. So follow, comment, give suggestions and give praise. I will enjoy every word.”

That says it all, right? I was a big concertgoer back then and loved, loved, loved talking about music. Rather than bore my friends with the same songs and artists over and over again, I started sharing my passion online. Some of the posts were just a few sentences. Others were full album reviews. (This review of Lorde’s first album from ten years ago hits me in my feels.)

You don’t have to have a perfect blog or a curated social media feed to practice writing. Just write what you want to write about. You may end up looking back on it ten years from now and think, “Oh wow, this blog wasn’t half-bad.”

If you like something, write about it. I write about writing on Substack because I love writing about writing. I also write about reality TV, dating apps, and other subjects because I love writing about them. I’m still figuring out the exact purpose of this Substack, but for now, I’m just writing about what I want to write about every other Tuesday and enjoying the journey.

Read a Bunch.

If you don’t know what to write, read. Read a book. Read a blog post. (Congrats! You’re doing it!) Read something on social media. Everyone’s talking about something and after a while, you’ll start to see patterns and trends. (The patterns and trends will be more fun after November, hopefully.)

If people are writing about it, people will want to read about it. So read about something that a lot of people are talking about and add your take.

(A quick note on readership. I didn’t start my music blog for anyone. I didn’t expect anyone outside of my friends and family to see it. But after a few months of posting consistently and connecting with other music bloggers, I started getting invited to write guests posts and review products. You never know who’s reading, so just start writing.)

Be Patient.

I’m not going to lie, I went through a few different ideas before landing on this post. I wanted to review Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion or finally write about our trip to Acadia National Park. But inspiration may strike once, twice, or three times before it catches fire. Give yourself some time to live and observe the world as you think about what to write next. Go for a walk. Talk to a friend. Rent a van and drive around New Zealand. If you start to talk negatively to yourself about not having anything to write, you’re only going to pull yourself farther away from your next great idea.

Ready? Start writing! Or don’t. You’ve got plenty of time to get started. But when you do write your next blog post, let me know. I look forward to reading it.