Ready, Steady, Write! - Day 2

Today my pen is….

Today my pen is……..

What do you like to write with? Do you have a special pen with glittery green ink or a giant pencil with a rubber on the end? Do you need a smooth fast-writing pen that glides quickly enough to catch your fleeting thoughts or do you like to type your words straight onto the screen?

There’s no right answer. Writers write with all kinds of implements. Some people like to write in pencil so that they can rub words out, others prefer to write in pen and some find it easier to type. It’s all good.

My advice is not to worry about making mistakes. You can always write things up neatly later, when you’ve worked out what you want to say. If you write quickly, without thinking too hard, your ideas will surprise you and you’ll discover that there are stories in your fingertips and poems in your pen that you didn’t even know were there. If you try to make your writing perfect, sometimes the ideas dry up and you can’t even think what to write about. Let your pen, or your fingers do the writing and don’t worry about getting things wrong. This is your book. No-one cares if you cross things out.

No-one cares what you write with, either. You’re a writer which means you’re a magician. You can conjure words out of anything. Your pen could be a peacock feather or a guitar string. You pen could be your big toe in wet sand, or a sparkler in the night sky. What’s your pen today?

Here’s mine:

Today my pen is made of moondust and mistletoe. My pen is the bristle of a witch’s broom and a cat’s tail. My pen is a wooden spoon in a vat of stew. My pen is the shimmer of a shooting star, writing its story across the sky.

Now it’s your turn. Don’t overthink it. It doesn’t even need to make sense. Just write.