Another goal of mine is to improve my craft. Writing is a never ending learning process. There is always room for improvement.
So far,
I've been learning from friends and those who have generously offered to read my work. But I have books. I have Stephen King's book, On Writing. I have books on grammar and punctuation, books on how to develop characters and make your story better.I want to be the best that I can be. With that comes dedication, hard work, sacrifice, being open to criticism, surrounding yourself with people who inspire and motivate you, and understanding that you will never reach perfection.
Thanks for reading.
Kisses,
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Megan
EDITED TO SAY: My friend Jeff pointed this out. "Great writing takes a combination of talent and skill. Talent comes from practice; skill comes from knowledge. You can be a good writer with either/or, but you can't be a great writer without both."
He's so right, and I forgot to point out that while I want to learn more to perfect my craft, it also takes practice, which goes back to one of my other goals which is to write more. :)
I noticed in your critiques of books that your technical observations are intimidating. But, the technicals are a good foundation to start with. There are a lot of different styles that work.
ReplyDeleteI think the key is to come up with an interesting idea to write about, and just go for it. Something you have a passion about. After you write a few books, or just do a bunch of rewrites, you get better at it. Advice from the neighborhood hurts too much to be worth it.
I'm back and forth on my tense. No amount of study will help me. Thank goodness for editors. I don't argue much with mine much, she's scary. I just do the rewrite and see if I can slip stuff past her.
I totally agree with Jeff's assessment on needing BOTH, but I feel like different people have different learning styles. I am LOST trying to learn from a book about writing anymore. I like the blog advice (the dose is more my speed) but I feel like the BEST help on skill is actually the critiquing I do on OTHER people's writing (which I know you do a fair bit of)--I have a journalism degree and I read a lot, so I KNOW stuff, it just is hard to spot in your own writing until you've pointed it out to other people. (I've ALWAYS learned best by teaching... just a quirk of 'me')
ReplyDeleteThanks you guys. I just think it's so important to realize that our work is never done.
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