No Easy Way Around It

         For my loyal readers, I have decided to reveal the ultimate, (practically) guaranteed way to improve your skills with the art of writing, be it fiction, poetry, or non-fiction.

        Ready?

I'm ready Master!

        Brace yourselves . . . .

"The best way to write better is to write more. The best way to write more is to write whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer."

(Writing Magic, Gail Carson Levine)


       That's right, practice is the only guarantee you can give yourself of success. According to one of my creative writing professors, everyone experiences those times when putting down your daily five hundred words (or whatever your goal is) is inconvenient because of exhaustion, work, or school. Still, writing is an art, and any art can only be perfected by repeatedly doing it until excerpts from your work flutter around your eyes in your sleep.

        A tip. If it seems impossible for you to write in your work-in-progress, try practicing with a different form. If you don't feel like working on your novel, try working on a short story. If you don't want to write that poem, try an essay. Don't feel like posting on your blog? Do it anyway, otherwise you'll lose readers.

       Just kidding, but you get the idea. Variety can kill a rut, but even missing one to three days of writing time can seriously hurt your writing.