Key areas to improve on your writing
“Well, its obvious that you have to start writing everyday. That’s how you get good at it.”
That’s like saying how can I learn to play rugby and being tossed to rugby matches, daily.
I’m probably getting mauled and might consider not participating in contact sports altogether.
Yep thanks, just what I need.
That’s the response I get whenever I wanted an answer on how to start writing. It’s probably one of the most banal and stale piece of advice, which can be downright condescending.
To make matters worse, some even cast doubts on my intellect and figured that I probably wanted a career where I can be idling at the coffee shop everyday.
And this is what infuriates me.
After all, why would a barber want to write? About haircuts and how I go on with my daily life? Some view this as a poor investment of personal time — say 10,000 hours — which would be better off working on your craft.
At least this opinion lends its weight that I’m probably just wasting my damn time.
But go ahead, haters gonna hate.
Thankfully, Medium is a great place to find others who are beginning to start writing. At least, these are good key areas to consider for a start.
The quality and the quantity struggle.
There are two camps; those who advocates to publish daily, and those who publish only their best works. I belong to the latter, which I identify more as a procrastinator than a perfectionist. Although I do prefer routine writing as a gradual build up, I hate to put pressures on my writing, which may affect my work.
Your intention
Writing everyday is overrated, especially when you do not keep tabs toward improvement. Ask yourself, are you just churning out writing just to keep at it? Are you broadcasting rather than connecting with an audience?
The foundations of writing
Practice on grammar delivery and vary your sentence structure. Try to vary your words. Like this. Sometimes you need to lengthen the sentences to improve a point. Likewise, you have to shorten it, to get to the message. Variation creates interest.
Example of deliberate practice
Jerry Rice is a professional American footballer. Yet, many are surprised that he didn’t play a lot of matches.
His secret? He is a beast when it comes to training. He evaluated his training needs on where his shortfalls are.
And that is how you become good at it.
Thank you for reading!
