Writing your thoughts improves your creative writing!

Keeping a journal is a great practice to explore your ideas and develop your imagination and writing skills.

I am sure you have written a paper, and I am just as sure you have been interrupted by someone in the middle of it. Subsequently, the idea you were writing is gone. There is no way you can retrieve it, because the spark you have gotten disappeared with the interruption. The same thing happens whenever you are writing a paper and trying to edit it. Any effort to correct and revise something becomes more difficult and time consuming.

What I have found helpful is to write just as my brain is thinking. Of course, that will many times lead me to grammatical errors or even incoherent sentences. Without a doubt just jotting ideas will capture the first thought. Once the first idea is captured, if a different version appears, I usually write it down between brackets and then, when the time to edit comes, I chose which sentence is more faithful and fitting to what I want to say. In this way, the creative process of writing is kept, but with the opportunity to work on it and refined it or to totally transform it. Once the main structure is written, the process of embellishing and adjusting can be done without losing sight of the bigger picture of the oeuvre you are trying to accomplish.

Consequently, my invitation is: write as much as you can. Once you have written your thoughts, you can take the time you need to correct and revisit the ideas you have worked on.