How to Become a Writer: A Comprehensive Guide

Why do you want to become a writer? All the writers we know say that this is very hard work, and also poorly paid. There are only a few people who become popular and sell bestsellers to earn money for villas in California, and tens of thousands of people who spend their whole lives publishing a worthy novel or non-fiction book. But when we ask these people why they don’t stop doing what they do, they say they can’t stop writing. Therefore, from the very beginning of this article, we can advise you one thing. If you can live without writing, then don’t write. But, if you can’t stop writing, then we hope that the tips in this article will help you at least a little to become a real writer, find your audience, and even make money from what you write.

Write Instead of Dreaming about it

Let’s start with the most banal advice that we have to give, but in fact it is the very first one that you should follow. People who have a talent for writing very often don’t write the lyrics they want to write and don’t write anything artistic at all, don’t write anything for themselves because they think it’s not good enough yet, or that someone has already written on this subject, or that it is a shame to someone to show.

The most important thing that you have to do to become a writer is to start writing a lot and typically, even if it’s just morning pages, dedicate at least half an hour a day to free writing, and you will already be able to write out a certain number of standard and banal phrases and emotions in the text. After that, you will feel that your brain starts to work more creatively and more actively, starts looking for some interesting forms and thinks about how to write something beyond how you feel, what your life is like, about the people around you. Free writing is a very psychotherapeutic practice, and writers say it helps them reduce the amount of platitudes in the text, as well as transfer some of their problems into novels and other works less.

Don’t Compare Yourself with Famous Writers

Another very toxic practice is to constantly compare yourself to famous writers and think that you are not worthy of them, and therefore you should not write. You can’t really compare yourself to these writers because right now you’re at the very beginning of your journey, and you’re comparing yourself to hundreds of thousands of people who have succeeded in writing and who work with quality editors, proofreaders, and publishing houses. You can’t compare your first novel to the later works of Heinlein or Hemingway, because they have traveled a path that you haven’t traveled yet. If you open some student work of these writers, you will realize that you are not that far off from how they write, think, and how they structure their writing.

Comparing yourself to people who have already achieved something significant in the area where you are just about to do something is very paralyzing, and you just can’t get started. Therefore, despite the fact that many advise you to read as much as possible in order to be a good writer, we will advise you to write more than read. We are sure that if you are interested in books, you have already read a huge amount of literature, and what you need to do is start writing your story.

Check on NaNoWriMo

International November writing month brings together tens of thousands of people around the world who want to write their own book, or at least learn how to write every day. We strongly advise you to check closely this month and take part in this event. It’s completely free and very simple. You can find a great community of emerging authors who will support you, who you will be interested in talking to, and who will inspire you to create quality content.

There are no prizes, but the general motivation to write at least a little every day and work on your future book works, and a lot of people, even if they do not write the target 50 thousand words that need to be written on NaNoWriMo, they create a good structure of the book, think over which publishers to contact, write a synopsis, write several chapters, which they can pre-submit to the publisher. Even if it’s not November, be sure to register on the site and wait for announcements from the organizers.

Better Done Than Perfect

We do not mean that you have to submit a raw manuscript to the publisher without any editing just because you can no longer look at this text, which is a sure way to fail. But we ask you not to edit the same text a hundred times, not to try to constantly rewrite characters, change structure, and so on. You shouldn’t spend more on editing than half the time it took to write your work. At least because the longer you edit, the more it seems impossible for you to edit this book well, and most likely you will not send it anywhere.

Spend the amount of time we told you on editing, and most likely this will be enough to basically put the manuscript in order. Send it to the publisher, or alpha and beta readers for feedback. It is very good if there are people in your environment, and these people are not your friends and not your relatives, and these people are not interested in the topic you are writing about. Perhaps from them, you can also get high-quality feedback on how to improve your book.

If, firstly, you are interested in dealing with other types of writing, namely, academic writing, you will not be surprised to know that it already was covered. Like thousands of students worldwide, you can look for help from a professional writing company, such as SmartWritingService – essay writer service, and receive an original paper you have been looking for. Hired academic experts will research the topic in question and come up with creative ideas on how to cover it based on your instructions.

Yes, there are no motivational speeches in this article that say you can become a professional writer, and you will succeed like a real writer. We don’t know if you are a good writer, popular, or even get your book published, but we do know that these practical tips help real writers move forward. And we hope you too can use them to be productive and excel at whatever you want.

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