I am sharing 10 writing insights from the masters that have inspired me. I started writing recently, it is more of “notes to myself” on random topics.

I am an amateur blogger at best. I have a harsh critic at home, my teenage son tells me that I might struggle to pass 11+ creative writing exams for 10-year-olds in the UK.

It is my quest to improve by learning from the masters, here you go.

1. “If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.” – Leslie Lampart

2. “I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.” – Mark Twain

3. “A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what he thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing”. – Paul Graham

4. “The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” - Mortimer Adler

5. “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

6. Write what you know.” – Mark Twain. I write about what I am learning and discovering.

7. “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong Words.” – Unknown

8. "A Book is never finished, Only Abandoned” – Gene Fowler. Forget books, I abandon my short blog every week, it feels unfinished all the time.

9. “Writing requires the compression of an idea. When done poorly, compression removes insights. When done well, compression keeps the insights and removes the rest. Compression requires both thinking and understanding, which is one reason writing is so important.”- Shane Parish

10. “Either Write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin

Finally, I’ll leave you with the greatest short story ever written – Six words.

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."  - Unknown, although it is popularly attributed to Ernest Hemingway.

Read all my “Notes to Self” at view all blogs.