Writing Blog

20230304 Advice (from me)

March 4, 2023, 1:30pm

After my last entry about sorting out my work, I looked at everything I had done and went through a lot of the earlier works. I was stunned at how well I had mastered punctuation by the age of 12 (which tells me those kids on WdC who use "but I'm just a teenager and don't know" are either lazy or the US education system is really lacking), and also not that amazed at how much the stories read like pastiches of other authors.

People ask how I have managed to get traditional publishing contracts, and I think that's the crux of my (limited) success: I have been writing for a long, long time. 40 years of kept stories are in my files, and that's forty years of constant writing practice.

So, I guess that would lead me to this - the advice I would give any writer.

1. Read and read and read some more and read again.
2. Write and write and write some more and write again.

And, not so much advice as a bit of something else: if you want to improve, don't be afraid to show your work and don't be afraid of criticism.

I have received so much over the years, and I like to think I am okay at this writering thing now. And yet I am still learning and still improving. If we want, then we never stop getting better.

In. My. Opinion.