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Oh I have felt ideas like Athena prodding her spear into Zeus' skull fighting to get out (I believe that image of Athena cracking open Zeus' skull and emerging fully grown is the best metaphor for inspired writing i have heard).

But sometimes you write because well, you're required to. Maybe you're lucky enough to be writing fiction as part of your job, maybe you're writing ad copy for your company, or a newsletter for a club or whatever.

Writing as a passion or an art is great, it can be agonizing, but it is an awesome thing to do.

But sometimes you write because the boss needs a summary of the Gisgard Deal by CoB. And being able to do that quickly, frictionlessly and well is a very useful skill.

So when learning to write let's not neglect the skill of writing well on demand and on subjects you're not passionate about.

I remember one of my coworkers writing remarks for the boss to deliver about f'ing Gatoraide. They were brilliant. I wish I could write that well about BS.

Oh, I do that everyday so I guess I don't think of that as "writing".

However, like I mentioned; writing is still a routine and you have to give yourself the space, time, and structure to write.

Not creative writing at least. I think of creative writing and I think almost exclusively of poetry and prose fiction.

Yeah work writing is a bit off-topic, but one way you develop written communication skills is through creative writing.

And to return to the larger point, if you say 'don't write for an audience' you're missing part of the picture. First because sometimes the rent money means you have to write for an audience (whether the audience thousands of people waiting for the next Ben 10 tie in novel which you're ghost writing or just 3 people on an email chain) but also because writing for an audience forces writers to stretch in new directions.

Knowing when to play the classics and meet expectations, and when to defy them are important skills for writers. But then you have to be very conscious of your audience and what they want and what will surprise them.

2 classics, Gone with the Wind and Casablanca end with the hero not getting the girl (Gone with the Wind has Rhett Butler rejecting her to her face) and are rightly classics because they defy expectations and cliches (and these are from the 1930s!).

Strong points Kid.

I think we all agree, that is you want to learn how to write, you have to write.

The following links are from Reedsy Prompts, a writing resource website. They provide some free articles and guides, but also are a business and an aspiring writer can hire specialists such as proofreaders, illustrators, and editors. The reason I'm posting the two links below is that I think they are relevant to Kid Kyoto's OP.

Muggle Magic incorporates Harry Potter fandom, not as a direct crib, but as an unifying link between father and daughter, and a running theme in this short story.

A Plum Tree's Neighbors is an example of using preconceived notions about a subject as shorthand to clue in your readers. This is especially important when writing a short story, as words are at a premium. In this case the writer uses expectations about Halfings as formed by Tolkien to his advantage for quick characterization and to rebound into his subject.


https://reedsy.com/