Writing is immensely important. And it is honed by practice. Throughout my short life, I’ve found a few methods to improve\u00a0my writing, first in quantity then in quality.<\/p>\n
1.) Journal\u00a0Keeping. \u00a0<\/strong>QUANTITY<\/span><\/p>\n Don’t freak out as you read this. Immediately, the association pops to mind of that middle school book with a cheap lock on it, reading DIARY on its front, covered in hearts, and filled with “I think so-and-so likes so-and-so.” Erase that thought. Erase all idiotic stereotypes.\u00a0This is not to record your deepest, darkest secrets and thoughts. Nor is it a dull ship’s log\u00a0in which to\u00a0write, “I drank coffee this morning. Then I went to work. Then I came home and ate dinner and went to bed.” \u00a0Write about whatever is in your noggin at the moment, or what has been bothering you during the day, or a philosophy you’ve been thinking about. Write about something new you’ve learned. Analyze somebody’s personality. You may even use this to record dreams. (or daydreams). Keep it nice and random and effortless in the beginning.<\/p>\n But for some of you, the problem is sometimes not so much getting started as keeping momentum. A hardcopy book could be lost or forgotten on a shelf, or stuffed under the bed. Lazy bums like me will purposely let it slip the\u00a0mind, especially if the journal’s been shut up in a desk. However, we all use our computers (evidence rests in the fact that you are reading this). Almost everybody has email. You can use this computer craving to your advantage.<\/p>\n Sign up\u00a0to www.ahhlife.com, a website that sends you an email each day, asking you how your day went. Write a sentence, write a paragraph, write a novel. Doesn’t matter how much you write. It could be one word. Then, after a year, read what you have written. It’s easy to do and pays off. In the end, your writing will have become easier and you will have written your lifestory for a year. If you want, continue to do this your entire life. In this\u00a0digital age, journal\u00a0keeping has become just that much easier.<\/p>\n 2.) Find evocative images on Pinterest (etc.)<\/strong>\u00a0QUANTITY<\/span><\/p>\n Pictures are the best writing prompts. “A picture’s worth a thousand words” the saying goes. So write one thousand words on one! Prompts like these can unexpectedly yield great short stories. Have fun and surprise yourself:) As I mentioned with the journal keeping, you can start out random and effortless, but once you get yourself going, apply Strunk and White (see #3) and discipline yourself.<\/p>\n 3.) Read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style<\/span>. \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>QUALITY<\/span><\/p>\n Just do it. My English teacher lent this to me after she told me my writing was too extravagant and shallow. Through this book, you will learn to eliminate stupid adverbs, cut to the bone, and write in powerful style. There are some pretty nifty tricks to make your writing flow too.\u00a0It’s a tiny book but crammed full of writing wisdom.<\/p>\n 4.) Try writing some poetry. <\/strong>QUANTITY and QUALITY<\/span><\/p>\n This is not for everyone, but<\/strong> you may as well try it if you haven’t since elementary school. I find it the easiest form of writing in many ways. You could go for rhyming or freeverse, depending on your strengths. I began with loving whimsy, overdramatic stuff, but branched out into other genres and styles of poetry. It’s very fun and will force you to make your writing interesting.<\/p>\n 5.) Start a blog . . . .<\/strong> QUANTITY and QUALITY<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes this is stupid because you don’t have anything worthwhile to say. Or so you may think. . . . If you try the above methods, and find you have plenty to say and enjoy writing very much, this may be the way to go. Having a beautiful little domain of your own is scrumptiously motivating and knowing people can see it will make you want to write with more wit and skill. Use\u00a0www.blogger.com, www.typepad.com and\u00a0wordpress.com, some free blog hosts for people who want to share their thoughts with the world. However, if you want to make an income on advertisements, I would advise buying a domain from wordpress.org. (If you want your blog to be quite private, wordpress gives the option of discouraging search engines. This WILL NOT stop visits completely, but very few people will find your site.)<\/p>\n 6.) Don’t make excuses.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>QUANTITY<\/span><\/p>\n There is always time to jot down a paragraph. If you actually are short on time, turn your 5 minutes of writing into a speed exercise.<\/p>\n By the way, do not be discouraged if you think your writing is bad. The whole point is to improve your writing, right? And you always can know there is someone worse than you – maybe. *evil smile*<\/span><\/p>\n Farewell.<\/span><\/p>\n P.S. I would like to mention the fact that this was just an exercise in making myself write. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing is immensely important. And it is honed by practice. Throughout my short life, I’ve found a few methods to improve\u00a0my writing, first in quantity then in quality. 1.) Journal\u00a0Keeping. \u00a0QUANTITY Don’t freak out as you read this. Immediately, the association pops to mind of that middle school book with a cheap lock on it,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[129,130,3,117,85],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings","tag-advice","tag-methods","tag-poetry","tag-tips","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WcVY-au","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasmusen.org\/special\/ameliajane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}