What Is the Natural Way to Write?

I’ve been interested in writing all my life, or at least as far back as I can remember.

For me, writing is a way to examine and explore. It’s a way to tell stories, share experiences, define, and describe. Without writing, confined to oral tradition, humanity would be vastly poorer in almost every way that counts.

Learning to write, and its companion activity, to read, is an early step that our children take. It is probably the most important and abstract set of skills that children learn in grade school. Writing is all this, and much more.

Truth telling, and truly naming people, concepts, and objects are difficult tasks. Although sometimes told using metaphors and stories, good writing is about telling the truth.

To tell the truth, you must know the truth. The process of writing about something is the process of coming to know something, and telling the truth about it. If you write well about something, you truly learn about the thing.

I’ve written The Natural Way to Write to share with you the things I’ve learned about writing in the course of my life, my work as a writer, and in my experience as a reader.

At its heart this is a practical book about exploration through writing.

All literate people are writers, and use writing extensively in their daily lives. I am deeply committed to the belief that everyone can learn to write well.

Even if you think you don’t know how to write, you can learn how. If you think you don’t write well, you can learn to write better. If something is stopping you from writing, you can get unstuck.

The Natural Way to Write will help you to achieve these goals in a no-nonsense and fun way.

The Stretch Your Brain sections are a very important part of The Natural Way to Write. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about them, and you will get the most out of this book if you do the exercises in the "Stretch Your Brain" section for each chapter before reading the related answers and discussion.

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