Three Ways to Improve Your Writing
When I was a young bassoonist aspiring to be an orchestral conductor, Maestro Robert Spano of the Boston Symphony gave me some sage advice.
“If you want to be a better conductor,” he said, “the best thing you can do is to conduct. The second best thing is to watch other conductors. The third best thing you can do” — I had just asked him for a lesson — “is to take a conducting lesson.”
His words stuck. They were certainly true of conducting, and I’ve come to believe that they are relevant to every craft.
Whether it’s meditation, yoga, or lifting weights, the best way to get better at something is by doing it over and over, and by making lots of mistakes in the process. If you want to get really good at something, you may need to do it for around 10,000 hours (at least according to Malcolm Gladwell and Macklemore).
Yet learning and listening are also important. Blindly repeating something is rarely the path to developing a strong practice. If we want to create, we also need to reflect, develop skills, be inspired.
So, with a hat tip to Maestro Spano, here are three ways to improve your writing:
1. Write
2. Read
3. Learn
1. Write: Start writing!
If you want to get better at writing, you need to write. If you want to get better at writing poems, you need to write poems. If you want to get better at writing essays, you need to write — and rewrite — essays. If you want to write novels…OK, you can see where this is going.
Now of course this is easier said than done. Writing involves…well, writing. While sometimes the words simply flow, the act of writing can be labored, even painful. Even worse, writing usually means starting with a blank page, one of the most terrifying things known to humanity.
Tip #1: The Artist’s Way
If you want to start writing more and have been stuck, my Number One Secret Weapon is Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. Actually it’s not a secret at all — the book is an international best-seller — but I’m always surprised by how many people haven’t heard of it, or if they’ve heard of it, have never tried it.
I’ve been using The Artist’s Way for nearly 20 years. The book is filled with marvelous and creative tools for tricking yourself out of fear and into creativity. One of her best ideas is the “Morning Pages,” three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing you do morning. It’s a powerful practice that gets the creative juices flowing while reducing one’s fear of the blank page.
If this resonates with you, I strongly urge you to get a copy today. Like literally, stop reading this and order a book right now! It’s available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local independent bookseller. It’s really that good.
Tip #2: Accountability
My other tip for someone who wants to start writing is: find external sources of accountability.
When I’m starting a new play or a musical, one of my first steps is to schedule a reading of the script with friends and colleagues. I want their feedback, of course, but the primary motivation is that I literally will not finish a draft of the script unless there is a deadline.
Personally, I love the research phrase of writing: learning new things, exploring ideas, playing with possibilities. So I resist putting things on the page and making decisions. The combination of excitement and terror that accompanies a group of people coming together to read my script on an appointed day is, for me, a necessary motivation for actually writing the script.
If you’re writing plays, I highly recommend readings. If not, there are other ways to accomplish the same goal.
One of the easiest is to join a writing group — typically a group of friends/acquaintances who meet every few weeks to read other’s writing. Sometimes writing groups give feedback, sometimes they give support. ften they gave both.
You could also sign up for an online writing course; these days there are literally thousands of them. Or you could set a goal of what you want to create — e.g. one poem per month, one blog post per week — tell it to another person, and check in with them to report on if you did it or not. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference that simple contract can make.
2. Read: Study the classics and follow your interests
Maestro Spano did end up giving me that conducting lesson. Midway through he asked “So, who are your favorite conductors?”
I was stunned and couldn’t give him any names — except Leonard Bernstein, my childhood hero — because at that point I didn’t have many favorites. This was a problem. A budding conductor learns by watching other conductors and listening to their recordings. Seeing and hearing them in action, you begin to see what works and what doesn’t, what you like and what you don’t, and most importantly, you start to discern your own voice.
The same applies to writing. If you want to write, you need to read. If you want to write short stories, start reading short stories, then pull them apart to figure out how they work and what makes them good. The same applies to poetry, novels, even academic or legal writing. I’m currently re-reading James Cordell’s Noble House for the fourth or fifth time, not because it’s the best book ever written, but because I find it incredibly complex yet cohesive and satisfying. I’m still trying to tease apart exactly how he did it!
Another important lesson on reading came while I was in grad school at Yale. Emilie Townes, a professor and academic dean, emphasized during orientation that it was important to do two things: read the required reading, and read according to our interests.
What she was saying, I think, was that it’s important both to study the canonical texts and to listen to your own inner guidance. This was essential to developing my voice as a scholar, and I think it applies to any genre a writer wants to work in. If you want to write plays, it’s a good idea to start with Shakespeare, Chekhov, and other canonical playwrights. Beyond that, read the stuff that speaks to you and get to know it intimately.
3. Learn: Develop your craft
Accord to Maestro Spano, the third-best way to study conducting is to sit down with a more experienced conductor and discuss the art of conducting – i.e. to take a lesson.
The same is true in writing. The final step in becoming a better writer is to study writing.
To clarify, by putting this step last I don’t mean to diminish the importance of education. I am a writing teacher, after all! A good teacher, class, or book about writing can help you develop skills, give you insight into the mechanics of literature, and provide the kind of feedback, encouragement, and community that is necessary to find your voice and persevere.
My point — and I think this was Mr. Spano’s point, too — is that taking a class is not a substitute for writing or reading. If study helps you get into a practice of writing and reading more often, great! Mission accomplished. But learning is ultimately an adjunct to one’s own practice. As many of us know , taking classes and reading books about things can be a very effective strategy for avoiding actually doing them. It’s a mistake I’ve made often — please don’t fall into that trap.
Keep Writing!
In a talk she gave last week, teacher-writer-activist Minal Hajratwala emphasized how writing is a journey. I agree, and would add that writing, reading, and learning are all parts of that journey.
Hajratwala also described the writing process as a spiral, in which we keep coming back to the same lessons and practices again and again. The same is true of these three practices of writing, reading, and learning. While they are prioritized here, the reality is that we all need to move through them in different ways, at different times.
Writing is a challenge, yet it can also be one of the most rewarding ways to spend your time. If you commit to the practice, know there will be detours and roadblocks on the way. Keep in mind that that’s normal. Do the best you can at any given moment, and remember that if you keep doing the work, you will ultimately find your path.
