Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
Books

Need some writing motivation this summer? Hold yourself accountable

"The most important thing if you want to be a writer is to find something to get you going," Stuart McLean, host of The Vinyl Cafe and bestselling author once said.
Dionne Codrington · CBC News ·
Writing advice from award-winning humorist and CBC host Stuart McLean, who died in February 2017. (CBC)

This writing tip is from The Vinyl Cafe host and bestselling author Stuart McLean.

"The most important thing if you want to be a writer is to find something to get you going. What usually works for me is a deadline. Sign up for a writers' class, join a writers' group, look into the Young Writers' Group online, volunteer for a local paper — do whatever you have to do so that someone somewhere is expecting you to hand them something. Make it as good as you can make it, and then show it to someone and listen to what they have to say and then go at it again.

"If that sounds like fun to you, then maybe you are a writer. If it sounds like lunacy, if it sounds like torture — you're probably right too."

Stuart McLean was an award-winning journalist and humorist and host of the CBC Radio program The Vinyl Cafe. He wrote several books, including Extreme Vinyl Cafe and The Vinyl Cafe Notebooks. He died in February 2017.

Related Stories