Five Tips to Becoming a Great Writer

So you wannabe a writer? Of course! Who doesn’t right? You can just picture you life right now, relaxing in bed with with all the comfort of the world at hands reach and just a PC on your lap all  you have to do is type of a few pages a day, easy right?Wrong! Writing is considered one of the hardest careers and only very few writers make a living off their books, but don’t let that get you down! Always believe that you can do something because if you believe you can’t then your right. Now before I start giving away my 5 most important tips to becoming a great writer I’m gonna tell you something of utter importance… I can’t teach you to become a great writer. Now your probably wondering than why the hell are you giving out advice when you really don’t know how to become a great writer? There’s a simple answer to this, no one I repeat NO ONE can teach you to become a great writer not even a professor at Harvard with a Doctoral degree in creative writing (if they even give doctoral for that subject) can teach to become a great writer. Why you ask? Simply because writing comes from the heart not the mind. Its like trying to teach an artist how to paint you can show him the basics of what he needs to know, but you can’t teach him to be creative and paint something beautiful like the Mona Lisa. Just like painting there are techniques you can learn, but just because you know them doesn’t guarantee you a spot on the New York Times best sellers list. Now that I have that settled lets learn Tip #1 of becoming a great writer. This is a really easy step because if your reading this then there’s a 99% chance that you want to be a writer and that’s

1. You have to WANT to be a great writer, you have to WANT to write. When I say want I really mean WANT like you have to desire it beyond anything else, but its one thing to want something and another thing to act on that desire and that’s what I want you to know. If you want to be the best then go out there and be the best don’t just sit there  daydreaming of how it could feel. Its a little like weight-loss there are many people out there in the world that talk about how they want to lose 50 to 100 pounds, but you know what their problem is? When there talking about how they want it they are sitting down relaxing with a big whopper in their hand…and a diet coke. Whats wrong with this picture? There are a few answers to do this, #1 he or she is sitting while talking about his dream. No I want to see this person doing jumping jacks and when someone walks into the room and asks what are you doing? He can then say I want to lose weight so here I am. Second thing wrong with the picture is many people out only put half the effort he got his whopper and the effort he put into his weight-loss dream was a simple diet coke…what happened to the salad?! Now the same thing applies to writing!!! Don’t put only half the effort and don’t sit there and talk about you dream. Go get your laptop so when someone asks whatcha doing? You can say I want to be a great writer so here I am! The next tip is the most obvious one.
2. You have to write! Now you may be asking why I would include that  and don’t worry I will explain. Many people, myself included, like to write, but don’t write everyday and if you do than that’s great, but keep reading because there’s more. First for those of you who don’t write everyday start now! Go get a pen, pencil, marker if you have to and write about something. Can’t think of anything? Write about your day exaggerate a little if you have to the idea is just to write. Get used to writing everyday and even if you write in a diary if you do it everyday than your one step closer to achieving your dream because that officially makes you a writer. No one ever said you need to have something published to be a writer. No after you have completed that step and for those who do indeed write everyday this is important: Push it up a level: Challenge yourself, give a goal like 6 pages a day of lets say a story or book or anything. Now this doesn’t mean that to give yourself an exaggerated goal that’s too much too fast for you. Go at your own pace if your used a paragraph a day try a page or two instead of something like a chapter. The point is like I have mentioned before writing isn’t the easiest career and sometimes there may be deadlines where you have to write 50 pages in a day and even if there weren’t a deadline, do you really want to spend 5 years writing a book that you know you can finish in 1 if you pushed yourself? Ok now on to the next tip that is one of the most important.
3. Be committed. How many times have you been “committed” to something, but another thing came up? Yeah, don’t worry its happened to me as well and although its understandable once in a while its definitely not something you want to get into a habit of doing. Now I want you to do something set an hour it could be from either 8 am or 4 pm whenever is good for you and during that hour I want you to write! And don’t  take it lightly like for example a friend asks you to play basketball at 4 pm, but thats your writing time that you have set for yourself, what do you do? Well I will tell you what not to do, don’t ditch the writing that is YOUR time. Take it like a part time job. If your serious about being a writer than be serious about writing. Be committed to it and if you don’t feel like writing at 4 even though thats the time you put yourself at DO NOT say oh I’ll do it later because that will never happen. Ok on to the next step:
4. Write when you don’t feel like writing. OK we all love to do something exciting for example writing, but there comes a time where the motivation isn’t full there, but you know what? Your going to sit down in front of your laptop and or notebook and your going to write, you know why? Because your a writer now and sometimes there will be times where the words won’t flow because you don’t want to or because you have temporary writers block, but you know what they say practice makes perfect. By writing when you don’t want to you are completing not only tip 4, but also tip 3 by showing commitment. Now this doesn’t mean I want you to sit in front the screen and sulk hoping for the words to come. No, I want you to fight it. Remind yourself why writing is so important for you and if you have writers block remember there are stories, poems and even books all around you, but you can’t see them with your eyes you have to see them with your heart, your writers heart. Writers observe, they do it a lot so get used to it. You have to observe to make your characters as real as possible and when you do a story will come up. Its a kill two birds with one stone deal. You be sitting in in class listening to the teacher preach another boring lesson and what can you write about? Perhaps one of your classmates is gossiping to another about a party after school. Well there you go. You can now write a story about a party. Nothing interesting in class? Well there you go again write a story about a boring teacher who perhaps hates her job. Be creative and feel in the blanks as to why she is so boring or why she hates it. Maybe she fell in love with another teacher and they could never be and so she begins to resent her job for that. Maybe she has no passion for the subject just maybe she wanted to be a famous singer, but her mother refused that she become so. JUST WRITE! There are stories all around you don’t complain about writers block, if you just don’t want to write than just quit now maybe writing isn’t your thing. Of course if you need a break by all means take one, but don’t make a habit of it. Now last, but not least…
5. Believe in yourself and don’t let anyone stop you from doing what you want to do. NO ONE! I’m gonna start this tip by telling a small story I once read in a very useful book.(its real short no worries) There was once this violinist who really wanted to become famous and make a career out of playing this wonderful instrument . Well, it so happened that a very, very well-known music professor was in town so he played for him and at the end of the song the teacher told him that he had no fire and therefore would never be a great musician. The violinist became very depressed and eventually gave up on being famous. He went on to getting married, had 2 kids and well paying career. Years later he meant with the professor again and he asked,”how did you know all those years ago that I would never make it?” the professor shrugged his shoulders and said,” I say that to all my students, you see, if you had fire my comment would have never stopped you.” OK, I don’t think I have to explain the moral of this story, but just in case I will repeat DON’T LET ANYONE STOP YOU FROM ACHIEVING YOUR DREAMS. IF YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN THAN YOU CAN! Simple,done, end of story. Now stop reading this and GO WRITE SOMETHING.