There's No Right Way To Write

Whether you write by the seat of your pants or you’re a meticulous planner, finding a way to embrace your approach to writing shouldn’t be a drag. The chances are you have been writing for most of your life, right? So it feels like something that should come naturally to you but let’s face it sometimes it doesn’t. However, the fact that you have been using the written word since you were a child to communicate demonstrates that there are no hard and fast rules to approach the process only the ones you have burdened yourself with. From shopping lists to Haiku’s the most important thing is to get your ideas out of your head and into the world.

I let you in on a secret. It’s no biggie but I personally, have always felt a little bit embarrassed about using the notes section on my phone to do “serious” writing. In fact, up until quite recently, I don’t think I’d ever been vocal about the fact that I use this facility to do any writing at all. That was until I attended an online talk with some other writers whose work I respect and admire and I discovered that some of my favourite authors have written whole first manuscripts in notes on their phones.

That was when I realised I was attached to my own romanticised way of writing and because of this the way I approached my writing had become antiquated and stuffy. Was this possibly one of the reasons I was struggling so much because I was stuck in my ways not stuck where my writing was concerned? Even though I had access to so many ways of getting my work down on a page and out into the world, I was still very much a fountain pen and notebook person, which there is nothing wrong with at all, but what happens when the ink runs out or you forget your notebook?

This got me thinking about writing as a more pervasive and fluid activity that transcends paper and pencil or even the books it ends up in. After all, it is in the brain that the words we use as our craft animate and construct worlds for our audience. And so I got to thinking about how we as writers actually write and why I had made so many rules and conditions surrounding the coming together of my stories. I began to experiment. Moreover, I began to trust my imagination and go on adventures there. I got more comfortable with the notion that good ideas don’t just disappear, in fact, it’s quite the opposite, once a good idea finds you it will haunt you until you let it out.

And this is how I came up with the idea of the workshop, ‘There’s No Right Way To Write’. Because I found that actually freeing myself from the burdens and pressures of feeling I have to or, should write as well as how I get the ideas out has allowed for more room to rest in my imagination and trust my instincts. Not every book will make it. Your favourite line may get cut or you may go in a different direction than you thought with your work. But not one single word of what you write is wasted. And how you write your idea down? Well, in the end, no one is watching so why not pop it on a voice note while you are waiting for your instant noodles to cook. Because if you don’t, no one else can do it for you and that book you’re writing will never exist!

Book your place on Nadine's There's No Right Way to Write one-off masterclass, taking place on Thursday 28th October.

Nadine is a writer and creator of: stories, books, songs, poetry, scripts, comedy, music and theatre. Her debut children's novel The Tunnels Below was published by Pushkin Press in Spring 2019. She loves words and voices, so it only made sense for her to become a Voice-over Artist too. If you watch TV there’s a chance you’ve heard her chatting away on the box at some point, as I’m a Continuity Announcer. Nadine has worked for Channel 4, E4 and Together. Nadine studied Drama and Cultural studies at the University of Sussex before completing her MA in Creative and Critical Writing. She has worked as an Actor professionally touring shows and playing a wide range of roles from a pregnant teenager on the run from a gang in Crossings to Phoebe in Shakespeare’s As you Like It on stage.