Callum Birch

How to start writing

Alistair Taylor was an assistant to the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. One day, while visiting Paul McCartney at his home in London, Taylor asked about songwriting.

''Paul marched me into the dining room, where he had a marvelous old hand-carved harmonium' Taylor recalled in his book, Yesterday.

'Come and sit at the other end of the harmonium. You hit any note you like on the keyboard. Just hit it, and I’ll do the same. Now, whenever I shout out a word, you shout the opposite, and I’ll make up a tune. You watch, it’ll make music.'

'Black,' he started.

'White,' I replied.

'Yes.'

'No.'

'Good.'

'Bad.'

'Hello.'

'Goodbye.''

In 1998, McCartney told author Barry Miles in the book Many Years from Now, ''Hello, Goodbye’ was one of my songs. There are Geminian influences here I think: the twins. It’s such a deep theme in the universe, duality—man, woman, black, white, ebony, ivory, high, low, right, wrong, up, down, hello, goodbye—that it was a very easy song to write.'

Similarly, in his creating workshops, the great Robert Fritz teaches students to start writing by noting down a list of random words.

Then, next to each of those words, they're told to write a contrasting word.

Next, they write a sentence with at least one pair of contrasting words.

Here is an example.

"I took my Cocker Spaniel Bella to the park for a walk, and saw my friend David jogging on the road with his Labrador, Buddy."

The contrasts:

I won't win a Nobel Prize for that sentence.

But that's ok.

I'm sharing this exercise for one reason only:

To help you start writing.

Write one word.

Write a contrasting word next to it.

Then do it again.

And again.

Then try a sentence with contrasts.

And another one.

Before you know it, you'll have a few interesting sentences and paragraphs on the page in front of you.

And who knows, in time, those words may join together into a hit song, blockbuster movie, or Nobel prize-winning Novel.

But one thing's for sure: you'll have started.

And getting started is a pint and a half of the battle.

Because when you've got mother momentum on your side, there'll be no stoppin' ya.