4 ways to improve your writing
One reason I have heard from friends and family and on some Facebook groups I am part of for not starting a personal blog and publishing your work regularly is “I am not good at writing”. To a blogger and amateur writer, I find this crazy as a blog will improve your writing over time.
We all need to write and we all need to be good at writing to a certain extent. Think about the number of emails you write each week, or your Facebook posts, or even text messages with your friends and family. These can all be improved by becoming a better writer.
Write about your interests
A good place to start is writing about what interests you and this is something you will find a lot of here on my blog. I write about what takes my interest at the time. This not only makes writing easier but also more enjoyable. If you write on interests you probably don’t need to go and do a lot of research as you already know the subject area.
A interesting writer is an interested person
I don’t know who said the above quote but this is something I have really found helpful when it comes to staring at the flashing cursor on a blank page when I sit down to writing.
Read widely
Reading books and other articles will expand your interests and in turn knowledge, not just on different subjects to write about but different writing styles. When reading, make notes on the style the author is using and the way they use language.
As you read more your own writing will become better but you need to practice this. When you have read something try writing about what you have just read in your own words and your own style. Repeating this process will like improve your writing over time.
Write often
Writing is a skill and like all skills it needs practice. A lot like riding a bike.
When you first get on a bike it feels unnatural and hard but after some practice, you master the basic movements and start to learn additional things like coasting and riding with one hand. Writing is the same, once you have enough practice in the basics you start to expand your style and language.
You can form habits around writing that make it easier to get into the zone. Personally, I make a cup of hot tea, sit down with just my laptop on the dining table and away I go. I use the dining table for my writing as there is less here to distract me and it is not my desk so writing doesn’t feel like work.
The hardest part of writing is starting so once you get in the flow of writing don’t stop after only writing one article. I often write 2 or 3 articles for this site in a single afternoon as it is easier to continue writing once I have started.
Having the place to start writing where you can continue for long periods of time is beneficial as you don’t want to be forced into packing up and leaving when your creative juices are flowing midstream.
Write now, edit later
One of the biggest hurdles in writing is stopping as we have covered a few times already and one of the biggest ways to halt your creative flow is stopping to edit.
Editing is less creative than the act of actually writing and requires a different state of mind. Don’t worry if you have spelt something wrong or missing a comma just keep writing. This idea of rough drafting is not new and almost every author you look up to doesn’t get it right on the first pass.
