5 Very Important Lessons Learned About Writing

Writing and Publishing On Platforms

If you're here, you're writing and publishing on a platform. No matter your reasoning for being here, something about the site attracted you and you suffer from the writer's bug. You need to get things out of you that are jumbling up your mind, whether they're stories you imagined, your life story, commentary on today's many social issues, or you are just sharing your favorite recipes. One way or another, you caught the bug and can't shake it!

There are tons of others in the same shoes you're wearing. You're all wearing the shoes of a writer, and hoping to do something with your time and develop a talent, or heard it was a great way to make a living and are giving it a try. You must think you can do it! If you didn't, you wouldn't be here.

Over the last five years of writing, editing, learning, editing some more, and then writing something again, there've been many lessons come across my desk. Some of these lessons have been learned and others have been taught. Sure, in five years, a person can learn a lot and develop skills they didn't possess on day one. But, never be the person who thinks they know everything. If that's you, you're WRONG!

Along the way in anybody's journey, we find that there are those people who helped us out as we progressed. They might have steared us in the right direction on something small and innocuous, or even just been a sounding board for things we figured out after having a chance to vocalize our problems. Maybe they saw something and recommeded you to a higher up in your career.

Whatever it was, few people get far without help. One of the best things people have done for others is:

Sharing The Benefit Of Experience

Over the past five or so years of writing, these lessons have become self evident. Today, I'm going to share them with you and anyone that finds them, and if it helps someone, great. They're still helping me to this day, so maybe you can get something out of them.

Patience is more than a Virtue

Writing isn't an art that can be rushed. This is particularly true of amateurs or writers who aren't seasoned. It takes time to hone your craft, and even if you're coming out of college with a major in English literature and a minor in creative writing, you can't rush imagination. Most of the writers that I follow, if you look at their history, weren't writers to begin with.

Be patient with things, don't get in a rush. Just because someone sits down and pens a novel that hits the New York Times Best Seller's List on their first try doesn't mean they're going to hit a home run every time. It happens at a speed that is going to work for you, not a time frame you want it to happen within.

Don't Over Do It

How do you get frustrated with something you enjoy doing? You're likely doing more of it than you can handle.

If you're being "prolific" about your writing, is the quality really there? Do you take the time to make sure you're writing isn't suffering from your desire to succeed? If not, you really should.

I look back at my first story on this platform, and I look back at my recent ones. Nothing is perfect, but comparing the first one I did to the most recent ones, the skill level is akin to comparing a first grader with a crayon to Stephen King or J.K. Rowlings.

Set yourself up with a writing plan, and try to stay close to the guidelines or plan you design. You might try working for 50 minutes, and then taking a ten minute break. Come back refreshed, and take a look at what you have so far, before you continue.

EDIT, EDIT, EDIT

Editing is like the cardio portion of a gym routine. Who wants to do that?

Cardiovascular fitness is good for your respiratory and circulatory systems. That's your heart, lungs, brain and organs.

Imagine you push cardio to the bottom of things to focus on, or do as little as possible. Now, imagine you have a stroke or a heart attack! What you didn't do enough of when you could has wound up causing you a greater problem and price to pay. Editing is the same way. Even though you typed or wrote the story, if you submit it with unnecessary mistakes, are you succeeding and building the best brand you can? No!

Edit, edit, and edit again if need be.

Develop Consistent Habits

Whatever your writing habits are going to be, make them consistent. Have a clean workplace everytime you sit down to write. Have an approach that you can keep to, even if it's writing for two hours, three to four days a week, because that's all this period of your life has given you for free time.

Consistency in anything is important, but by being consistent as a writer, you will offer your readers more options, interact with them more, and find more fans of your work. By being consistent, you'll also continue to improve and expand your horizons. And that's growth that any beginning writer needs.

Don't Forget To Relook At Things

Things can be revisited, and sometimes should. Do you have any evergreen content that consistently, year to year, keeps getting reads? What happens to people's opinion of your work and your presentation if there's something new, some new information, and you haven't included that in your piece?

Chances are, some people won't stay if they know your information is inaccurate.

The same needs to happen with fiction ideas. You might have an idea that goes nowhere, or stops shorter than you liked, because you couldn't see what's next in the story. Imagine what you might find if you look back through your works and give it a freshened eye after a few months. You might have the idea that's going to make you the most successful you can be, and finally, the next step of the story comes to you when you revisit it later.

So, dust off those old stories, those unfinished articles, or those old project ideas that never made it past conception.

That's it for today! Those are the five top things I've learned over the past five plus years I've been doing this. Do you have any to share? Let us know your don't forgets in the comments!