7 Indispensable Factors that Helped Me Become a Better Writer
1) Reading
Reading from early ages on is what gave me the desire to write in the first place. I started with reading the novels that I found in my late uncle’s home library. Then I started to read anything I could get my hands on, including encyclopedias (which was not quite an efficient way to learn things, now I can confess). No reading — no writing. To me the link is very clear. And similarly, more reading always led to improved writing as I came across superior examples of prose and got inspired to emulate such examples.
2) Volume
The more I wrote the better I got. Writing daily, frequently, builds up your writing muscle. When you write every day the “writer’s block” grabs his hat, walks out the door, and you rarely ever see him again. Just like an athlete gets better with regular training, a writer also gets better and better as the number of words and pages pile up.
3) Love
I noticed that when I write about things that I love to do (the topic of “writing,” for example) I could write with very little effort. The love I had inside for the topic gave me the energy and stamina to research the topic, write it at one sitting, do a couple revisions without any resentment. The result was always a much improved piece. So start with “Love” and you’ll always end up with a “Lovely” piece.
4) Freedom
Early on in my writing career, I used to start writing a piece with a mental image of the whole finished piece. This meant, I subconsciously forced myself to start writing the “Introduction” first, the “Middle” second, and the “Conclusion: the third. But later on I realized what kind of a mental block this evolved into. When I started to write from ANY section or point I felt like writing, without any preconditions, my work progressed like lightning even if I ended up writing the “Conclusion” the first and the “Introduction” the last. When you feel that itch to write, sit down and get it on paper fast with total freedom. You can always rearrange the parts. The result would be a piece with a lot of energy and flow.
5) Notes
I always carry a little spiral notebook in the back pocket of my jeans since I never know when I’ll come up with a great idea or observation. I tried it — if I don’t take a written note on the spot, I’ll forget it. Sometimes it’s a piece of conversations I hear at the supermarket. Sometimes it’s a quotation that I read online. Whatever. Many of those notes turn up as elements that enrich my writing at a future date. My notes are the fuel behind my keyboard.
6) Age
As I got older I started to develop a sense of what matters and what does not. That feeling separates the insignificant from those things that are really significant in life. The result is, I started to spend less time and energy on things that doesn’t matter for me and more on things that do. That filtering improved my writing a lot since I could put more of my heart and mind into what I wrote if I knew that what I was doing was not a waste of time and was something significant.
7) Money
This is a rarely spoken truth about writing — if you are rewarded for your writing, you’ll be more motivated to keep doing it while improving it daily. It’s the classical “operant conditioning” behavior first studied by B.F. Skinner: behavior that is rewarded gets repeated. I bought a house and quite a few cars during my career through my writing, sent my son to a private university from where he graduated with no student debt at all. I took care of my loved ones through my career as a professional writer. Thus during the process I always enjoyed reading books on writing and trying to improve my craft and output. When your craft has been good to you, it is very natural that you also try to be good to your craft and get better at it whenever you can.
