Some advice to young writers

If youve decided you are going to be a writer and so you have the urge to sit down and write resist it!
First, read, read, read. Read everything you can lay your hands on. Read the newest books and poems and plays, read the classics, read comics, read everything and read all the time. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas describes himself as a young person, reading with my eyes hanging out. You wont necessarily be aware of it, but youll be learning to tell whats good from whats bad.
The young John Keats is a good example of the new writer. He was a young medical student aged 18 when he tried writing his first poem. He had an older friend who was a mentor and guide (whod told John years before to read, read, read!), but it took John a whole year to show this friend a poem hed written. He didnt even tell him he was writing anything! He talked only about the things he was reading.
In other words, when you do start writing, write for yourself, first. You will try writing in different styles (the first poem Keats wrote he actually called Imitation of Spenser, one of the classic poets hed read). Keep all these poems, but dont flash them around, put them away somewhere safe.
Read them some time later  maybe a week, a month, six months. Then youll start to have a feel for which of them are good, which are worth working on, and which you must never let anyone else see!
Keats points to two (apparently contradictory) things about writing. First, in a letter to a friend, he says: I find that I cannot exist without poetry  I had become all of a Tremble from not having written any thing of late  the Sonnet overleaf did me some good. I slept the better last night for it. So theres the compulsion, the need, the drive, to write.
But, equally important, theres the other side, theres the fact that you cant force poetry to come. Keats wrote: If Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.
So, dont worry if you havent written anything for one whole week, or even for weeks. Use the time just to take in experiences in life  thats also preparation for writing. When you need to write, then youll write.
Also, know that writing (poetry or prose) is bigger than you are. Youre there to serve it, not it to serve you.
When youve written quite a few poems, and youve sifted the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff, then start thinking about whom you trust enough to show one of your poems to. Let it be someone who you know is not going to trash your work or make light of it. By this time, youll know which poem is worth showing to someone.
If that goes well, youll be encouraged, of course. But still, go slowly. See if you can find a small publication of some sort to submit your work to. Something like your school magazine. Or a youth club magazine. Or even risk a small community newspaper. Dont send it to a mainstream publisher, or the biggest national newspaper, or your countrys foremost literary journal. That comes later.
If you feel confident enough about sharing your writing, maybe you can find a writing group you can join. Then your work can be tested on four or five people  thats a big enough audience for now.
As you grow in confidence and skill, and more and more people take notice of your work, then you can start thinking of the small literary journals or magazines. You may have to search around to find these, because there arent many of them and they cant afford to advertise themselves. Ask librarians if they know of any. Even try the Internet.
Talking of which, its probably wise to avoid having anything to do with Internet websites that offer to publish you  they usually insist you send them hundreds of $$$ first!
Perhaps one of the literary magazines will take a poem of yours, and youll see your poem in print. What an exciting moment! Its a genuine thrill to see your work in print, perhaps for the first time. For a bit, you pretend a nonchalance  and then you frantically flash through the magazine to find your piece  there it is  and its so exciting to see it there, you dont even really see the words. But, tonight, before you go to sleep, youll quietly find the right page again, and youll read it through, slowly, savouring it. Youll touch it on the page, and pat it. Youll memorise the page-number, so that tomorrow, when someone asks, Wheres your piece?, you can casually say, Oh, I dunno, I think its on page 57. You might even gently bend the magazine open a bit, so that it opens, quite by chance, at that page.
Dont collect a whole wodge of precious poems and expect some major publisher to push aside other writers work in order to publish your collection of poems. It doesnt happen that way. You need to be really established, your work tried and tested, before any publisher is going to risk publishing a whole collection of your work. Think of the brilliant poet Gerard Manley Hopkins: the first collection of his poems was published twenty-nine years after his death!
Lets hope youre luckier than that! But know that its a long, hard road to walk. But its such an exciting and fulfilling one, with so much to experience on the way! Good luck with it.
Always, be humbled by Keats: There is no greater Sin after the 7 deadly, than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great poet.

Robin Malan
2004

© Copyright Robin Malan