There is a progression, sort of, to learning how to write.
Poetry ~ Many people think prose is poetry, but they are wrong, as proved by my little essay on Prose vs Poetry. I used to keep a spiral ring notebook next to my bed because I kept waking up with ideas. Didn’t get much sleep, but writing is more fun than being unconscious.
Porn ~ One should write short squibs of porn. The market is Literotica, or the like. Laugh if you will, consider it low life and disgusting, but the best writers have almost always dabbled in porn. Have you ever read Ben Franklin’s little piece of who farted in the royal palace? Or, if you want to go whole hog, check out A.N. Roquelaure.
My very first tries at writing were a couple of short stories when I was 16. I don’t remember what they were about now, but I do remember that the few fellows who I let read them loved them and asked me to do more. I was a literary pimp at such a young age.
To tell the truth, I don’t have much respect for writers who haven’t dabbled in porn. They are afraid of dirty words, or sex itself. A writer who is afraid of words shouldn’t be a writer; a writer cannot afford to be afraid of any word.
Articles ~ Write about anything and everything. When I was making money through article distribution I would go through newspapers daily and pick out topics that interested me, and which had the public interest for the moment. I would research them, write a 500 word article, and distribute them with a box at the bottom referring people to my websites. $3000 a month.
Google, the tech company with a heart, ruined that. But that’s another story.
Columnist ~ My articles on the martial arts opened the door to being a columnist. This brought me a very minor but enduring fame, and really built up my sales of martial arts video courses.
Technical writing ~ My technical writing was in the field of the martial arts. I discussed physics, mechanics, dynamics, and so on. This type of writing really helps a writer frame his thoughts in a logical manner.
Short Stories ~ A logical step. But before you start spewing out the shorts you should read a few million words, you should read a few thousand shorts and novels. Simply, you need a big database if you are going to be a writer. You need to absorb how people talk, and especially how they talk in books.
You also need to figure out what you love, and write about that. I appreciated porn, so I researched what type of porn and began writing articles. $2000 a month, until Amazon said I was too raunchy and terminated me. Isn’t that funny? A corporation, which has no soul, guarding public morality. That’s like a serial killer being the public executioner. Oh, wait, Torquemada. So I guess that’s not far fetched, or maybe those who don’t learn from history…
Novels ~ if you have done the afore mentioned steps, be prepared to sit in a chair for hours a day, isolated from the world, not making money. In short, you have to be able to commit yourself to having a different type of fun than you have ever imagined.
Dictionaries ~ I have to include this, but it is not necessary. It is an example of technical writing gone crazy. I wrote a dictionary outlining terms I invented to describe the science of Matrixing and the science/philosophy of Neutronics, two subjects which I invented and needed specific clarifications.
Encyclopedia ~ I’ve written a couple of encyclopedias. One was a collection of articles about the martial arts. I had covered the entire martial arts with about a thousand articles that I compiled into a ten volume set, with enough articles left over to write a few more volumes.
The second encyclopedia I wrote was a five volume study of the history of Karate. This was not a history, but collections of techniques for each of five arts. I had written the books over the years and then realized they could be presented as a very comprehensive evolution of the art of Karate.
Obviously, you don’t have to do all the things I did to be a writer, but it’s not going to hurt you, and every type of writing you do will help you become a better writer. I became so well rounded that I could write anything. And I eventually wrote two of the grandest series one will ever read.
‘Monkeyland’ is six volumes that detail a secret history of earth. That’s right, I rewrite the history of earth, giving the ‘real’ reasons for the mess this planet is in. It will rank up there with such series as The Lensmen Series, which is the grand daddy of all science fiction epics.
And ‘Machina’ has no equal. In ads I say that Machina is what would be if Franz Kafka wrote The Stand. It is weird, bizarre, goes into concepts that have never been written about, and is a hoot to read. If you can take it.
Anyway, this has been a list, an evolution of the types of writing one should consider if they want to be a real writer, and write something that might actually be worthy. Now, keep those digits a poundin’ on that keyboard, and have a great day.
About the Author: Al Case has written over 200 novels, 100 martial arts manuals, 1000 blogs, 1000 articles, 1000 short stories, published a few short stories, been a finalist in the Writer’s of the Future Contest. He is the most prolific martial arts writer in history, and was, for five years, the most prolific writer of erotica in the world (10,000 words a day for five years).
