The Road to Becoming a Professional Writer
Writing is a skill that can be learned like any other skill. Though there is certainly something to be said for innate talent, the truth is that almost anybody can learn to write at a commercial level if they have the dedication and the self-discipline needed to learn the skill on their own.
These articles are designed to teach you how to become a writer. Each article in the series is designed to help you acquire the skills necessary to set you upon the path toward being a writer. Once you have mastered these elementary skills then it is simply a matter of repeating them until you have attained the mastery required for publication.
Many debate that writing is something that can be taught. The truth is that there is much that can be learned in life if we use habit and persistence to help us along the road. The best analogy for writing is to remember back to when and how we learned how to speak. All of us did so through a process of mimicry. Just like parrots we learned how to speak by first copying our parents and other adults and then before long we found that we too were able to form our own words and sentences. Of course the process took time and it required a great deal of information processing. Writing is no different. For the man or woman who wants to write, it would be wise to study the process by which you originally acquired language to begin with.
One important realization is that everything you need to write the kind of books you desire to write is probably already in your possession. If you desire to write fantasy stories then it is likely you probably already own many. The same can be said for almost any genre. It is these tools that you will use to learn how to craft your own writing and stories. Of course, the process will not be easy and it will require that you continue to persevere if you are to create anything other than a bad copy of the authors you currently admire. However, it is the process of repetition, which is the key, and though you may not succeed at first, if you continue then you will eventually emerge victorious.
It is not important that your writing desire be of a different genre than the ones described herein. The same practical principals will apply regardless of your own objectives. The same thing applies to those who aspire to write non-fiction. Again, the key is simply to understand and learn the process by which the books you admire were created and by doing so you will eventually master the process yourself.
The Ten Laws of Becoming a Professional Writer
1. One bite at a time. Writing is a process of small, incremental steps and the key to learning how is to analyze and understand the underlying steps.
2. Habit is one of the first keys to success. By simply practicing day in and day out you will improve regardless of your beginning level of talent and experience.
3. Tracking is another key facet of learning that must be utilized in order to become a better writer. It is not enough to simply write. You must also begin to track your results and analyze your output in order to gain skill.
4. Volume. One law rules all - the more words you write the better you will become. If you simply write day in and day out you will gain skill. Nothing else can replace this. Writing is the only thing that can improve writing.
5. Modeling is the process by which you analyze and understand the writing of others and in so doing learn how to craft your own. As you gain skill in doing this you will eventually be able to follow the process without a model and becoming a master of the process yourself.
6. Risk is another important element of success. Risk implies that you give free reign to your unconscious at times and let it assume the drivers seat. You have to learn to trust the fact that your intuitive side has already learned things that consciously you may not understand.
7. Excitement. One of the biggest keys is to have enthusiasm and excitement about what you are writing. Without this necessary element, most of your writing will fall flat despite talent, skill and work ethic. Learn what excites you and then pursue writing about that subject and you are sure to find success.
8. Reading is just as important as writing. If you are to become a writer then you must read just as often as you write and it should be of the same type of material, which you decide to write. You will learn things regardless of whether you intend to or not. Simply making the material available to your mind will result in benefits and understanding beyond the scope of your conscious mind.
9. Fun. More than anything else you have to learn how to have fun with this despite any outward objectives or goals. If you can do this then you will succeed despite other obstacles.
10. Completion. The last key is to simply complete things. There is something to be said for completing something even if it is below your objective level of talent and professionalism. By completing you finish the process and build the habit of finishing things up and moving on to something else, which is the key element in making a professional living as a writer.
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