“the edge of civilization” by devi laskar

1) Write where you love. People both repeat and refute the expression, Write what you know. But start by choosing or creating a place that you love to write in. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I love my local cafe–the steamy warmth, the strangers, the art, the tea.

2) Write what you see, around you or in your mind’s eye. When you drop into your senses–and out of your overactive thinking brain–you connect to the delicious sensate pleasure of capturing fragments of the world itself in the scrapbook of your file. These images communicate all necessary emotion and transport your reader into your story–and your first reader, as you write, is always you.

3) Write to an avid reader. Think of those friends who are always reading a good book, who are hungry for characters, their problems, a tale. Imagine these people curled up in bed with your book, gripped and content. Write for them.

4) Make a plan to tell someone what you’ve done. Internal motivation is grand, but there’s nothing wrong with praise and rewards, either. Knowing that you are going to report your success to a real-life person who exists outside your active imagination can spur you on in the moment.

5) Write what you don’t know. Get your characters into scrapes whose solutions elude you–so that you have to keep writing to find out what happens. Ask questions of your stories and books whose answers matter deeply to you but are not yet in your possession (as Barbara Kingsolver does)–so that you have to write the piece to learn more. Trust your mind as you do your dreams–you don’t work hard to invent those worlds, you just lay yourself open to them, turning away from what is to discover what else could be.

How do you say yes to your writing as you go?