B: Better Your Writing

And today’s letter is B! I’m not going to go through make every B bold, becuase… this is a long(er) post and it would take a while. Anyways. The topic for today is Better your writing! One thing I’ve learned in life is that you always need to be improving your skill as a writer. If you want to write good quality five star books, well, you’ve gotta be upping your game constantly. Here are some resources that have helped me to grow.

Short Story Contests

Often times, if you can find a short story contest where the judges will give constructive criticism, you can learn a lot. There was a group that did that and my writing grew so much. There was a contest every weekend and I entered almost every weekend. Unfortunately, the person who ran it became too busy to keep it up and our little writer’s group disbanded. I wish I could find something like that again. (If any of you know of such a thing, please let me know!!)

Writing Groups

I don’t mean writing groups that you just… talk about writing with. I mean writing group as in you show your writing to each other with the expectation that it’ll get ripped to shreds. Okay, maybe not quite that much, but you get the point. A group where you are pushed and where you can push others. Where you’re doing more than simply and lackadaisically “talking” about writing. I’ve never had one… I’ve always had to do my editing and criticizing for myself or beg it out of friends, but some of my friends have been apart of such a group. And they credit a good deal of their writing growth to it.

One place I’ve found that I’m dying to try is Inked Voices. I may or may not super want to do it. I may or may not be saving my money for college and wondering if $75 a year is too much to pay for this super neat platform… I may or may not be shuffling around on the line of “buy-or-not-to-buy”… (be advised; if I get profits from my books, you can bet what the first thing I’m going to buy is… after the celebratory treat-my-family-to-an-ice-cream).

Another one is Scribophile. However, unlike Inked Voices, there is a free account and it is not so much as a “writing group” as it is a “everyone critiques everyone”. I recently got the free account.  The best thing about it is that it does give you critiques and you have to critique others. And unlike Figment and Wattpad, both of which I joined to get critiques from, there is a spotlight and your work does not leave the spotlight until you get three long critiques. Unfortunately, the premium account is only ten dollars less than Inked Voices: $65.

Practice

Okay, guys… listen here. Everything gets better with practice. Even writing. Your brain is a muscle and the more you use it, the better you’ll get. I suggest writing. And more writing. And more writing. Then look over your work and push yourself. What can I do better? Is this character actually realistic? Then go and… you got it, write some more!

Learn!

I don’t remember who said this, but I’ll always remember hearing this: “To learn, you must be willing to learn.” If you don’t want to learn, you won’t. It’s as easy as that. Once you are willing to learn, you can learn anything from anywhere and everyone. You can learn from books, from bloggers, from reading good fiction…

Go ahead and do it!

 

What are your favorite resources to learn about the art of reading?