Let´s start writing: step one

How to start writing? It's the obvious. That's what you're doing right now: reading. Read what you want, what you can, what you can because reading is part of the foundation of writing.

Reading lays the foundation for the thinking that develops as the lines are deciphered. Calm down about the genre you like to consume the most. Whatever your preferences, your reading builds a road that naturally leads to writing. Just want it. There are two sides of the coin: reading and writing. And vice versa.

From the first step, I propose an activity: buy a notebook and write down the phrases and sentences that most impressed you. Have this notebook with you whenever you are reading. Reproducing excerpts that you identified with is a way of appropriating the work and this will solidify your ideas because reading is not something passive. Absolutely not: it is an active attitude that opens up the most diverse horizons in the mind. 

Just look at this shiny little piece of Nietzsche's work: “Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman: a rope over the abyss; dangerous crossing, dangerous walking; dangerous to look back, dangerous to tremble and stop. What is of great value in man is that he is a bridge and not an end; what can be loved in man is that he is a passage and a finish.” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

It doesn't matter where we go. We are and we build our road. Our steps trace the path and are confused with the choices we make. The paths that the brain takes when faced with books are complex and necessary for the act of growing up. The more we read, the more we grow as readers. We started to be more demanding because devouring entire works will become a habit. There are no contraindications for the act of reading. The more the better.

Have the notebook with you whenever you are reading. Also get a smaller one, like a notebook and take it with you wherever you go. Write whatever comes into your head. Thoughts of you and others. Put it on paper uncensored. Just keep the words from flying too far away. Grab them. Imprison them in your notebook.

I maintain the custom of copying texts from others to this day. I have volumes and volumes full of quotations. It's nice to collect them and that shows how everything that has ever been printed builds a universal collection that is within reach of anyone who starts looking. I believe that books are patchwork of an infinite quilt of human sensations, emotions, feelings and dreams, all too human. And you? What is your view on literature? How about writing about it?

Ah, another tip: spread books throughout your house – less in places accessible to your dog, please. Dogs love to eat paper, don't they?

Maybe you're in the living room to watch that series about World War II.

... so, the first lesson is: read. Quite. If you don't like reading, start doing movie reviews. Or documentaries. It could be a game. Or a manga. You don't have to model a perfect review. Do it with the basics. Identify the name of the work; release year; producer; direction; road map. Do. Do not be shy. Don't be afraid of criticism. It is for your own consumption. You will see that you will unlock your writing.

Try to write every day. Start your notes with what you like best. In my journey as a reader, I found some wonderful books. Most of the time, it was the books that found me.

That was the first lesson for his note-thousand essay. Lesson that unfolds in others like a Russian doll. One inside the other.

Thanks for reading.

!!!