✒ A Writer's Stocktake by Matt Wingett Doing a stocktake of what you've already got and what you've achieved is one of
Doing a stocktake really worked for me as a writer. In my early days of writing, I was advised
to work out what I really knew about, my skills and my areas of expertise. It was good advice. Taking some time
to sit down and realise that I knew a lot about children's stories and that I loved my history led me to write a series of children's articles for a national newspaper. I was young, and this simple stocktake gave me a sense of direction, and brought in some money, too! It did something else, as well. It showed
me what I didn't know, the things I would need to learn to become a better writer, and the experiences I would need to get to become a writer of stories. Sure, I had an imagination, but I had not really read around literature. I didn't have an
understanding of different styles or the history of storytelling, and the ways that characters interact. All of that would make a rich addition to my writing. I also wanted some BIG ideas to put
into my stories, and things to make people think. If I wanted to write articles, I wanted to have something underneath the writing to shape it. Part of my big stocktake led me to go
to university and study English Literature and Philosophy. It wasn't an immediate decision, but knowing what I didn't know, just as much as what I did know, helped me come to that decision. It wasn't an obvious choice. I was the
fi rst from our working class family to go to Uni, in an age when it was genuinely uncommon to go. That's what a stocktake did for me! b
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