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I have been writing professionally for more than two decades and teaching writing nearly that long. Every conference, every writing staff, and every class has always included some writer who asks: “How Can I Become A Better Writer?”

They don’t usually like my answer. “Practice writing every day and read to study the writing of others every day.”

They don’t like the answer for one of two reasons usually. Some people are looking for some quick-fix, magic formula that will make them a good writer in three easy steps. Although my suggestion involves only two steps it is pretty obvious that it is a long-term project. The other group of people will sneer at the first because they consider themselves “real writers” but they don’t like the answer any more than the others. They believe they have a gift that simply needs to be unlocked by the magic key that published, successful writers possess.

The simple truth is that there is no way to improve your writing other than to continually practice your craft. Write every day. Experiment, plan, revise, and revisit. Make challenges and deadlines and competitions. Push yourself and your writing will reward you. I promise. Write something inspired by a writer you admire and then write something completely your own.

However it is not enough to simply write in a vacuum — or an ivory tower. You must also read the writing of others. Read far and wide. Read fiction, nonfiction, poetry and song lyrics. Read argument and persuasion, read informative and biographical, read science and fantasy. Read talented and skilled professionals and read those who are still finding their writing feet.

You are reading to gain inspiration and confidence. You are reading to build your vocabulary and your stockpile of writing tricks. You are reading to learn more about the rhythms and patterns of language. You are reading so that as you write you will be able to develop your own unique voice.

Learning to be a better writer is not the work of a weekend or even a semester. Learning to be a better writer is a life’s work. If you really are a writer then you will never consider your work done. I don’t know a professional writer who sits back and says “I’m done learning now, I’m as good as I’m going to get”. Certainly it need not take a lifetime to reach professional status but you shouldn’t make that your goal. Thinking in those terms can hold you back from becoming the best writer you can be.

For example, perhaps the reason your particular project was rejected had nothing at all to do with your writing but was in fact due to your topic, the particular needs of that publisher, or even the mood of the editor when your submission came across their desk. The truth is that you cannot control when you become a published, professional writer, but you can control your progress toward improving your writing. Believe me, the stronger your writing becomes then the easier it will be to achieve that other goal. When you reach the point that you regularly deliver quality writing then you will find a market. If you write it the rest will come.

I began my writing career as a poet, and I’m still a poet. So my journey into fiction was never a planned career move. In fact, my first short story arrived as a complete shock. No kidding.

Because I have written and published poetry in books and magazines for years, I’ve developed a writing schedule that provides time to write every day, always a half hour after breakfast each morning and again after dinner every evening. I also keep a notepad and pen next to the bed to capture any lines of poetry if they float through my mind while I drift off to sleep. This means I’ve not only learned how to write pages of notes in the dark but also how to decipher those scribbles in the morning.

About eleven years ago, as I fell asleep one night, several lines suddenly appeared. Before I could decide to wake up and write them down, a startling thought flared in my mind like a wild firecracker: “This isn’t a poem…it’s the first paragraph of a short story, and I’ve never written fiction before!”

My eyes popped open, I grabbed the notepad, and followed the thread of those lines until I’d written three paragraphs of a short story in the dark. That was my first experience seeing an imaginary character in my mind and following her around, writing down her words and actions.

Throughout the next year different characters and their stories peopled my mind, and I began writing and publishing short fiction in magazines. I had never taken a writing class, so when I began writing poetry in my early thirties, I studied the books of contemporary poets, and eventually developed my own form of free verse poetry. I approached fiction in the same manner. I read and studied all the short story collections I could find, and ultimately created an experimental format for my short fiction, which resembled a prose poem composed of segments, each signaling a scene change or a change in a character’s thought process. Editors loved it, and almost all of my short stories appeared in magazines and literary journals. Those stories were eventually collected in a book that sold well for many years.

But two years later, short fiction no longer satisfied me, and I began to crave a longer form of creative expression, like a novel or novella. I could feel a novel percolating within me, but I knew nothing about the characters or plot. With no revelations emerging from my subconscious, I sensed this novel needed time to develop, so I began writing poetry again and published several poetry books.

Five years passed, and then one afternoon the title of the novel suddenly sizzled through my mind. The next day the main character appeared and announced her name. And on the third day she began telling her story, and a plot emerged. At the time, I had just started a new collection of poetry, but that hardly mattered. I’d been waiting for this novel for years, and once it arrived I dropped everything, grabbed my notebook (all my first drafts are handwritten), and four months later I had completed a short novel. Years later, I would add more material to this novel and republish it as the first in my series of Occult novels for women.

After the main character in that first novel began speaking, the entire writing experience flowed quickly in the white heat of a creative blaze. I always say I’m lucky I remembered to breathe during those amazing months! But don’t let this throw you. That was the first and last time I had to wait for a novel idea. Now new characters and plot ideas arrive frequently, and the day after I finish one novel I usually begin the next.

So, how did I write my first novel? First, I let the main character tell me who she was and what the primary plot of the novel would be. Next, several subplots emerged. And that was all I needed to start writing. For short stories I never used a structured outline. Instead, I patched those stories together organically, as if they were fabric swatches in a quilt, jumping back and forth between the past and present, allowing the characters to tell me what comes next. If you work this way too, you’ll feel comfortable arranging the scene and the characters in your mind, grabbing your notebook, and then following the characters around, writing down their words, thoughts, and actions. However, I found the prose poetry format I created for my short stories wouldn’t work for a novel. It just didn’t feel right. So I tweaked and tweaked and developed another experimental format that I still use today.

As I mentioned before, I do not use an outline for my novels, but I do edit each chapter completely before I continue. I work like this for two reasons. First, I submit each chapter as a short story to magazines and literary journals when I finish it, so the novel will gain publication credits, the kind of acknowledgements publishers and agents love to see. Second, polishing each chapter gives me the time to submerge myself in the characters and to intuit how the story should progress into the next chapter. Best of all, when I finish the last chapter I have a polished novel manuscript. Then it’s just a matter of going back and adding details to earlier chapters, important data that emerged during the process of writing the novel. Finally, I conduct one last punctuation and grammar check, and that’s it. I’ve written another novel ready to be published by one of my publishers.

If you follow this formula, relax, and allow the story to develop organically, you’ll end up with a polished first novel manuscript sitting on your computer desk before you know it. And you’ll enjoy every step of the process!

I just quit my last paying writing gig…and you should too!

I just quit my last paying writing gig. Why? Because I make more money giving my writing away. Yes, that’s right. I make more money giving my writing away than I did selling my articles and columns. In fact I’m making more money writing part-time for free than I did in any of my full-time paid writing jobs and that includes advances and royalties from the publication of three novels. I have been writing professionally for two decades and I never thought I’d make more by writing for free but I am.

But that’s not even the best part — and I know you experienced writers will understand why this is better than money — I can write whatever I want. I pick my topic and my slant. If I want to be funny or irreverent then I can be funny or irreverent. If I want to melancholy or maudlin then I can be melancholy or maudlin. It just doesn’t matter because I’m writing to suit myself! I am my own boss and my own editor — and I’m making money off my writing.

How? I write for the internet. I have been doing so since 1999 and earning money during the entire time. I have written freelance and under contract for a number of internet publications and ventures as well as publishing my own work.

At first I considered my personal internet writing just something to satisfy my creative urge as I transitioned from full-time writing to full-time teaching, but then I noticed something curious — I was making money.

Today, after a lot of work and study I have discovered the right mix that works well for me — and I decided it just doesn’t pay to keep the writing contract any more. The time I used to satisfy the contract can be far more enjoyably and profitably spent writing on the internet.

What internet venues am I using?

~ Ezines and Newsletters

~ Blogs and RSS feeds

~ Web Sites

~ Articles

How do I make money with these efforts?

~ Selling advertising space in my ezines

~ Selling text links on my web sites and blogs

~ Posting pay-per-click ads on my web sites and blogs

~ Promoting affiliate programs on my web sites and blogs as well as in my ezines and newsletters

It really is not a difficult or complicated business model and one any competent writer, or anyone with the ability to string a decent sentence together, could replicate or modify to suit their purpose. I am a writer not a business person, but I know this is working for me and that it could work for you, too.

Now go out there and give your writing away!

I have been writing professionally for more than two decades and teaching writing nearly that long. Every conference, every writing staff, and every class has always included some writer who asks: “How Can I Become A Better Writer?”

They don’t usually like my answer. “Practice writing every day and read to study the writing of others every day.”

They don’t like the answer for one of two reasons usually. Some people are looking for some quick-fix, magic formula that will make them a good writer in three easy steps. Although my suggestion involves only two steps it is pretty obvious that it is a long-term project. The other group of people will sneer at the first because they consider themselves “real writers” but they don’t like the answer any more than the others. They believe they have a gift that simply needs to be unlocked by the magic key that published, successful writers possess.

The simple truth is that there is no way to improve your writing other than to continually practice your craft. Write every day. Experiment, plan, revise, and revisit. Make challenges and deadlines and competitions. Push yourself and your writing will reward you. I promise. Write something inspired by a writer you admire and then write something completely your own.

However it is not enough to simply write in a vacuum — or an ivory tower. You must also read the writing of others. Read far and wide. Read fiction, nonfiction, poetry and song lyrics. Read argument and persuasion, read informative and biographical, read science and fantasy. Read talented and skilled professionals and read those who are still finding their writing feet.

You are reading to gain inspiration and confidence. You are reading to build your vocabulary and your stockpile of writing tricks. You are reading to learn more about the rhythms and patterns of language. You are reading so that as you write you will be able to develop your own unique voice.

Learning to be a better writer is not the work of a weekend or even a semester. Learning to be a better writer is a life’s work. If you really are a writer then you will never consider your work done. I don’t know a professional writer who sits back and says “I’m done learning now, I’m as good as I’m going to get”. Certainly it need not take a lifetime to reach professional status but you shouldn’t make that your goal. Thinking in those terms can hold you back from becoming the best writer you can be.

For example, perhaps the reason your particular project was rejected had nothing at all to do with your writing but was in fact due to your topic, the particular needs of that publisher, or even the mood of the editor when your submission came across their desk. The truth is that you cannot control when you become a published, professional writer, but you can control your progress toward improving your writing. Believe me, the stronger your writing becomes then the easier it will be to achieve that other goal. When you reach the point that you regularly deliver quality writing then you will find a market. If you write it the rest will come.

If you have a small budget or you are very interested in creating your own content you should make yourself familiar with the necessary steps required when writing content for business use.

Create a Draft

When you start writing you should begin with a draft of your information. Regardless of whether you are writing a paragraph or a book you should write down the basic thought or information that you are trying to put across to your audience.

Many times a writer will go back to the draft for reference or as a starting point if the first efforts are not satisfactory. By preparing a draft you will not need to worry about whether you remembered the points that needed to be covered or what the purpose of the writing was.

You may only need a few words or brief sentences for your draft. Writing your thoughts as well as your references or quotes down ahead of time will free your mind to create compelling content without trying to hold all the important details in your head as you work.

If you are writing an article or report you should just write the thoughts down as they come to you for your first draft. You can go back and edit it when you’ve put everything on paper. If you’re writing longer content, such as a book, you need to create a table of contents along with a brief summary of each chapter as a basis for getting started.

Do not be concerned with proofreading or accuracy on your first draft. If you need to do more research or check a fact you can go back and do it later. Getting started can be the hardest part for most writers. Avoid getting caught up in making it perfect the first time and you will find it much easier to progress from beginning to end without too much stress.

Make it Clear

When you’ve finished your first draft you will need to read it over from start to finish and make notations of areas that need clarification or rewording.

Sometimes the information you write down makes sense to you but is not clear to others. This can easily happen when your writing is based on information you already know but are taking for granted that your audience is also aware of. Even if your readers SHOULD have some knowledge of your topic, if you don’t clarify the basis for your comments they may find the information confusing or misleading.

Carefully read over your information or ask for an objective opinion. If you must do the final check for yourself it is easier to catch mistakes if you leave the information for a while and go back to it later for a fresh look. Try to look at it from the perspective of your reader and determine if they would understand the language or explanations easily.

Accuracy and Proofreading

When your writing is finished it is important to check it for accuracy. Are dates, statistics or facts accurate? Are you using proper spelling, especially for names and places?

It is very easy for readers to double check your information when they are browsing the internet. If something strikes them as being ‘off’ they may actually go see if what you state is referenced somewhere else on the internet.

Proofreading should always be done before publishing your content. Using a spell checking program on your computer will catch most spelling errors but you should try to have a second party review the final copy to catch mistakes that you may have overlooked.

Writing your own content can give you a great sense of accomplishment and ownership. While trying to maintain a professional writing style can be very important, it is also effective to allow your own personality and style to shine through and permits your audience to connect with you.

As interesting as the writing process is, there are some warnings to keep in mind when you choose to write for yourself.

Learn more about the many benefits of using content. Visit at: .SubmitYourNewArticle.com, and download our free report “The Importance of Content” from the members area!

I began my writing career as a poet, and I’m still a poet. So my journey into fiction was never a planned career move. In fact, my first short story arrived as a complete shock. No kidding.

Because I have written and published poetry in books and magazines for years, I’ve developed a writing schedule that provides time to write every day, always a half hour after breakfast each morning and again after dinner every evening. I also keep a notepad and pen next to the bed to capture any lines of poetry if they float through my mind while I drift off to sleep. This means I’ve not only learned how to write pages of notes in the dark but also how to decipher those scribbles in the morning.

About eleven years ago, as I fell asleep one night, several lines suddenly appeared. Before I could decide to wake up and write them down, a startling thought flared in my mind like a wild firecracker: “This isn’t a poem…it’s the first paragraph of a short story, and I’ve never written fiction before!”

My eyes popped open, I grabbed the notepad, and followed the thread of those lines until I’d written three paragraphs of a short story in the dark. That was my first experience seeing an imaginary character in my mind and following her around, writing down her words and actions.

Throughout the next year different characters and their stories peopled my mind, and I began writing and publishing short fiction in magazines. I had never taken a writing class, so when I began writing poetry in my early thirties, I studied the books of contemporary poets, and eventually developed my own form of free verse poetry. I approached fiction in the same manner. I read and studied all the short story collections I could find, and ultimately created an experimental format for my short fiction, which resembled a prose poem composed of segments, each signaling a scene change or a change in a character’s thought process. Editors loved it, and almost all of my short stories appeared in magazines and literary journals. Those stories were eventually collected in a book that sold well for many years.

But two years later, short fiction no longer satisfied me, and I began to crave a longer form of creative expression, like a novel or novella. I could feel a novel percolating within me, but I knew nothing about the characters or plot. With no revelations emerging from my subconscious, I sensed this novel needed time to develop, so I began writing poetry again and published several poetry books.

Five years passed, and then one afternoon the title of the novel suddenly sizzled through my mind. The next day the main character appeared and announced her name. And on the third day she began telling her story, and a plot emerged. At the time, I had just started a new collection of poetry, but that hardly mattered. I’d been waiting for this novel for years, and once it arrived I dropped everything, grabbed my notebook (all my first drafts are handwritten), and four months later I had completed a short novel. Years later, I would add more material to this novel and republish it as the first in my series of Occult novels for women.

After the main character in that first novel began speaking, the entire writing experience flowed quickly in the white heat of a creative blaze. I always say I’m lucky I remembered to breathe during those amazing months! But don’t let this throw you. That was the first and last time I had to wait for a novel idea. Now new characters and plot ideas arrive frequently, and the day after I finish one novel I usually begin the next.

So, how did I write my first novel? First, I let the main character tell me who she was and what the primary plot of the novel would be. Next, several subplots emerged. And that was all I needed to start writing. For short stories I never used a structured outline. Instead, I patched those stories together organically, as if they were fabric swatches in a quilt, jumping back and forth between the past and present, allowing the characters to tell me what comes next. If you work this way too, you’ll feel comfortable arranging the scene and the characters in your mind, grabbing your notebook, and then following the characters around, writing down their words, thoughts, and actions. However, I found the prose poetry format I created for my short stories wouldn’t work for a novel. It just didn’t feel right. So I tweaked and tweaked and developed another experimental format that I still use today.

As I mentioned before, I do not use an outline for my novels, but I do edit each chapter completely before I continue. I work like this for two reasons. First, I submit each chapter as a short story to magazines and literary journals when I finish it, so the novel will gain publication credits, the kind of acknowledgements publishers and agents love to see. Second, polishing each chapter gives me the time to submerge myself in the characters and to intuit how the story should progress into the next chapter. Best of all, when I finish the last chapter I have a polished novel manuscript. Then it’s just a matter of going back and adding details to earlier chapters, important data that emerged during the process of writing the novel. Finally, I conduct one last punctuation and grammar check, and that’s it. I’ve written another novel ready to be published by one of my publishers.

If you follow this formula, relax, and allow the story to develop organically, you’ll end up with a polished first novel manuscript sitting on your computer desk before you know it. And you’ll enjoy every step of the process!