Advice on writing
Since I’m no expert on writing (my bachelor’s degree was in statistics, I took 1 English course in college) this is mainly advice for myself.
Have someone in mind when you’re writing. By this I mean you should write for a target person or a target audience. This makes it easier to not get hung-up on criticisms and to makes it easier to clarify your thoughts. Writing is a form of communication, it’s best if you know who you’re communicating to. Stephen King calls this person the ideal reader in his book, On Writing. For him it was his wife. For me it’s literally myself.
Practice. I feel like there’s enough outside support for this already. Two books I’d recommend are Atomic Habits by James Clear and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The jist of both books is that you can improve though practice. Gasp. Who would have thunk?
Level-up as you go. Started from the bottom… It’s intimidating when everything you see is professional and you’re amateur. I’ve never read a book that hasn’t been published - if it wasn’t published, it would be impossible for me to read it, lol. Thus every book I’ve been exposed to is worthy of being published. That’s debatable, but you get the point. The great is the enemy of the good. In response, I think the best thing to do is to take small steps to improve. I’d recommend that every time you read, try to learn just 1 new writing aspect.
Have fun. (I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes trying to think of a less cheesy way to put that, but couldn’t come up with something.) It’s easy to do something when you want to do it. I know that is a difficult thought to grasp {read with sarcasm}, but let me give an example to illustrate. People pay money to go on vacation because it’s fun, right. Now imagine that everything related to going on vacation was free. The plane tickets, hotel, rental car, food, events, etc. were all paid for. I imagine people would vacation more often. Paying money isn’t fun. By making vaction free, you’re making it more fun and more likely that you’d do it. Doesn’t that example perfectly illustrates my point {read with sarcasm}.
