To write better, develop a habit of writing
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To write better, develop a habit of writing
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Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#2[deleted]
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#3I see this perspective posted a lot, and while I think it's generally true, it's a bit vague.
What do we mean by writing better? If we're referring to an improved ability to articulate thoughts and produce more text, then sure, writing more will help with that. Maybe quality will improve marginally over time.
But if we're talking about actually producing writing of a higher quality, I'm afraid simply writing more can only help so much. Improving the quality of the craft requires readers to provide feedback on the writing itself and/or writers to actively learn how to actually write better. The former is rare, and I'm not sure many writers actively take part in the latter.
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#4I have two major tools for my writing habit.
1) writingstreak.io which is great for daily word dumps.
2 ) writing.com which is a writer's community and very much reminiscent of the web 1.0 days. It may not be a nostalgia trip in terms of blinking marquees, but it has simple links, a website-specific markup, forums, and probably a LAMP stack based on its unsophisticated styling. You can post your writings there, and review other's writings for in-site currency, which you can spend on getting others to review what you've written for said currency. The community there is friendly and also has other groups for journal passing, mailed handwriting practice, poetry/story contests and more.
Edit Bonus: doing NANOWRIMO each year really helps the writing habit since you are trying to get to 50,000+ words written in a month.
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#5For anyone interested in writing “for real” (professionally or as a hobby) I highly recommend John Scalzi’s blog [1]. He’s cynical, he’s funny, and above all he’s practical.
Among his advice over the years a few things have really stuck with me:
1) Don’t get an MFA, it’s a waste of money. If you need a grammar class, take one. If you need more of a basis in x literary genre because that’s what you want to write in, take a class or just read a ton in that genre.
2) Set up the habit of writing. If you don’t write a lot of crap on a regular basis you’ll never write anything. You will throw away a TON of what you write, but it’s only by writing that 99% of crap that you’ll find the 1% that’s worth keeping.
3) Don’t quit your day job. You will never, ever, ever write for 8 hours a day straight. Rather than sitting around depressed all day because you haven’t written anything worth a damn, you may as well have a basic 8 to 5 office job that pays the bills, health insurance, etc. Not only does it remove money as a concern, but it gets your mind off of the fact that you haven’t written anything good and frees up your creative juices for that next scheduled writing period.
4) Don’t be pretentious and refuse to write anything that isn’t “pure” or “worthy”. All the advertisements you see and brochures you read are written by someone. Being persuasive with your writing can pay really well and give you the security to pound out that next great American novel.
1: https://whatever.scalzi.com/
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Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#6I'm a big fan of Scrivener (the mac version) for my writings. Not only fiction, but also academic writings, or organizing projects with custom templates.
But besides that I think the post lacks a bit of information. For an article about writing, it's pretty basic and feels as if it's written and posted only to create some content and traffic for the website.
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#7For anyone interested in writing “for real” (professionally or as a hobby) I highly recommend John Scalzi’s blog [1]. He’s cynical, he’s funny, and above all he’s practical. Among his advice over the years a few things have really stuck with me: 1) Don’t get an MFA, it’s a waste of money. If you need a grammar class, take one. If you need more of a basis in x literary genre because that’s what you want to write in, t…
Do you have experience as a professional writer? I'm curious, how you think a person without a degree on journalism, writing, etc, can get a job writing? I'm a software engineer, by the way.
Not that I'm interested in changing my career or anything, but your comment was interesting and I do like writing, so I think it's worth knowing!
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#8I have been doing morning pages for 10 years and have been attempting to to force the habit of writing for longer. I don't like writing. You definitely get better at writing, but some things just don't get easier.
Same for running. Daily runner. It is the best thing I have ever done. But it sucks and never gets easier.
Is there anything to get rid of this feeling of suck?
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#9I have been doing morning pages for 10 years and have been attempting to to force the habit of writing for longer. I don't like writing. You definitely get better at writing, but some things just don't get easier. Same for running. Daily runner. It is the best thing I have ever done. But it sucks and never gets easier. Is there anything to get rid of this feeling of suck?
No pain, no gain?
I think it's just learning to be uncomfortable and that it's 'part of the process'.
Imagine how good you'll feel after. It's all I can come up with.
Re: To write better, develop a habit of writing
#10I'm a big fan of Scrivener (the mac version) for my writings. Not only fiction, but also academic writings, or organizing projects with custom templates. But besides that I think the post lacks a bit of information. For an article about writing, it's pretty basic and feels as if it's written and posted only to create some content and traffic for the website.
Scrivener is great. Also probably overkill for people just getting started. It's easy to lose yourself in setting up and optimizing the tools, and thinking of that as "writing work".