"It's not about WHAT you write
BUT 
How you write it." ~~ Jack Grapes

Story is a vague term. Story is the events. This happens. This happens. Then this happens. Story will happen. There are only sentences. You are making a work of art and you are constructing it with sentences. 

Most people only have ideas. You want more. And it is with a methodology that you take your idea and make it interesting. Story is story, but writing is a craft. 

If you focus solely on the story without thinking about the underpinnings, you may write your story, but it may not be a story worth reading. There, I said it. Your story might not be great, or even good or compelling or readable. Okay, masterpiece, let's take that word and replace it with good, great, compelling, or readable. You want your story to be one that people want to read.

I teach writers how to let go of the events, the plot, the story, and the structure and write.

"But I don't know how to start," he says. He's been playing with the idea for days, months, weeks, years, for what seems a lifetime. He sits at his writing desk, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Ellroy's The Black Dhalia, and Chester Himes' The Real Cool Killers stacked next to his laptop. A green paperclip lies in front of the mug where he keeps his pens and pencils. An I ❤️ NY mug. His grandmother bought it for him in one of those souvenir shops on 7th Avenue.

They had been to the park that day. Sat on a bench. Fed the pigeons. They witnessed life in the park that day. He can still feel her translucent hand in his palm. He remembers imagining the lives of those people in the park as they walked by—the old man in the cashmere coat and black fedora, the young girl in a pink tutu and matching ugg boots, arm stretched up, her small hand held by her mother's. The stories were in his head. Those stories and so many more. But now he sits, pencil poised over a crisp page in his journal. A page that wants his words, a page that's willing and able to receive them. And yet. . .nothing comes.

"I can't do this," He says.

He closes the journal. He stands up. Drops the pencil on his desk. It bounces, rolls, and falls to the floor as he walks out of his office.  

But I know, if he shifts his focus from story to sentences, to language, to voice. . . he WILL write that story and others.

That's what you do—focus on the writing. Write for the sake of writing. Write because you're called to write. Don't worry about what you write.** Have a little faith. Focus on the foundation—the words, the bricks that build your sentences. Word by word, sentence by sentence, until you have written your story.

This is what I teach, Jack Grapes Method Writing©.
Focus on the writing. On the exercise. On the process and your product will follow. 

The first technique I teach is the most advanced, and that is "Go to Ralphs and buy a chicken." 
In other words, open your journal and write. Write a word. Then another. Then one more. And keep going for 20 minutes or so. About two pages worth. Then, do it again the next day. Then do it again the day after. Then do it again and again and again. If you do just this, go to Ralphs, buy your chicken, every day for a year, by the end of the year you'll have written about 500 words a day, and you'll have 182,500 words at the end of the year. A novel is anywhere from 70,000-120,000 words.

You're voice will surface. From there, you'll notice characters. Your characters will go places, meet other characters, and do things; they will have thoughts and feelings. They will have a story. And you will write it!

Voila. 

It sounds simple. And in theory, it is. But you have to do it. And you have to commit to it and maybe the hardest thing of all, you have to trust it, the process, yourself, your voice, your characters. Have a little faith. That's all it takes. A LITTLE FAITH. you have to trust it.  

So, sit down. Open the to a blank page. Pick up the pen. And write one word. Then another and so on, and you've got this . . .

And if you want support, guidance, community, fun, learning, and the structure and methodology to guide you to your story, my Jack Grapes Method Writing@ classes begin in APRIL. 




**Unless you are being paid to write something specific. In that case, call me, we'll talk.