How to be a Writer by Ruskin Bond - a brief essence of the book

31 October 2023

How to be a Writer by Ruskin Bond - a brief essence of the book

For the last two days, I have been reading my journal entries and I came across some truly reflective stuff – dreams I have no memory of, ideas I unknowingly put on the shelf, mental conflicts, good quotes, learning methods, science, and physics principles, thought experiments, promises, unfulfilled resolutions, and much more.

 

In this journal entry of mine dated 8th November 2020, I noted down some key insights from Ruskin Bond’s ‘How to be a Writer’ book, which I thought to share. (the complete journal entry is too long, so I have extracted only the part that talks about this book)

 

Today’s achievement would be reading Ruskin Bond’s ‘How to be a Writer’ in one go. Some useful tips which I must note down before I forget any ---

  1. Read a lot.
  2. Choose – being subjective or objective.
  3. Frame your characters well. Don’t let your character ever grow old.
  4. Write everyday – fit your schedule/activities in such a way that you can write daily.
  5. Maintain a notebook. Keep taking notes.
  6. Write – a memoir, travelogue, ghost story, school story.
  7. Record your dreams – they can be good stories.
  8. Be observant.
  9. Be patient especially when it comes to publishing your work.
  10. Practice your craft, enjoy the process. Write for yourself at first but if you write a story that no one would want to read then it is a sad story.
  11. Always choose the right words.
  12. Improve your vocabulary. Open the dictionary at random page and pick a word. See how well you can make use of that word in your writings. Also check the use of the same word by other authors.

 

Since I do not own this book, I cannot verify if there’s more to the list. As I said before, this is only one of my journal entries, which I thought might be useful to the readers who aspire to write, and perhaps a good reminder to the established writers pardon me, I don’t know!

 

Feel free to add more to this content in the comment section, in case you’ve read the book and find that I have missed out on anything.

 

Yours truly,

Nazneen Siraj Kachwala

Wow...Nice tips From Ruskin. Now I will read it.

Vaishali Patel

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