Friday Write #087
Hi! This is Good Ideas, a newsletter about writing, creativity, and craft, with biweekly prompts designed to help you make progress in your current writing project. Your support of this endeavor—whether via likes, shares, or subscriptions—is deeply appreciated.
Greetings, writers—
Haruki Murakami was 29 years old and drinking beer at a baseball game when he realized that he wanted to write. The thought hit him like an errant pitch.
“The crack of bat meeting ball echoed through the stadium,” he writes. “[The hitter] easily rounded first and pulled up to second. And it was at just that moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel,” he writes. “I still remember the wide-open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and, whatever it was, I accepted it.” [Italics mine.]
When did you realize that you wanted to write? In third grade? At a birthday party in high school? A Barnes & Noble reading ten years ago? Last week, over a spaghetti dinner? Not that it truly matters—“I think you can write at any time of your life,” said Penelope Fitzgerald, who published her first book at 58—but I’m curious.
“I didn’t have any ambition to be a ‘novelist,’” Murakami goes on to say. “I just had the strong desire to write a novel. I had no concrete image of what I wanted to write about—just the conviction that I could come up with something that I’d find convincing.”
I admire his confidence, the simple ballsy innocence of not having any idea where to begin, but trusting that it would all be figured out. Murakami bought himself a sheaf of paper and a fountain pen, and then he started writing.
Is starting the hardest part? No, it is absolutely not! Finishing is! So don’t be afraid to start right now. No hesitation, just acceptance. Pick up a pen and paper, or open your laptop or your dictation app.
Use a character you’re already working with, a new one, or your own self. We’ll call that character, whoever it is, X.
Someone has just said to X one of the following familiar sentences. Pick one and write from immediately after that moment (i.e., don’t include the familiar phrase in your piece—just use it as a jumping off point for whatever you find yourself wanting to write about).
—“Are you sitting down?”
—“I promise it won’t hurt.”
—“Where have you been?”
—“You’re not going to believe this.”
Happy writing—
Emily