This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
1. Read. Read widely, read hungrily. Read the kind of things you want to write and the kind of things you’d never attempt. Find something to admire, and something to learn, in everything you read.
2. Set a daily or weekly word target and make time to meet it. Write 1,000 words a week and in less than two years you have a first draft of a novel, while the people who are going to write a novel ‘one day’ or ‘when they have time’ have written nothing at all.
3. Write first, judge later. Embrace the lousy first draft. You need something to fix.
4. Find some people you can trust to read and give you feedback. They might be friends; they might be a writing group. It doesn’t matter, so long as they will be honest and constructive.
5. Remember that no-one is entitled to be published. There are plenty of books in the world. No-one is going to die without yours – or mine. Being published is a privilege, not a right, and it’s a privilege that’s earned with work and the application of your craft. Accept it with humility. Accept rejection with grace. And then keep writing.
The Other Half Of My Heart by Stephanie Butland is out now.