Five Simple Habits That Will Transform Your Writing Forever

This blogs welcomes high quality guest posts. Today we publish an article by  Christina Battons. Christina Battons is an author and content strategist who helps people and students succeed at writing, self-education, professional development and more by sharing with them my knowledge. Nowadays writing blog posts at various sites, available on Twitter. 

The reason I was enthusiastic about this particular article: it fits so well with what we believe in. It speaks about integrity, hard work and good research as the fundamental requirements of good writing. I would add two habits of my own: (1) write every week, better twice a week and (2) listen to your readers and learn from them. Practice and listening are the habits that truly help me not just in writing, but also in other hard things I do. And now the article itself…

When we think about prominent writers working on their piece of work, we usually picture them typing something eagerly on their laptops (or typewriters if you picture some of the good old classics).

It feels like they only stop to take a deep breath, and always have at least a dozen of fantastic ideas to write about. Writing does not exhaust them. More precisely, we think so.

In reality, writing, even though closely related to passion and inspiration, can often be a tedious task. So once you get tired of it or run out of ideas, your style is the first thing that will suffer.

That is why, no matter for how long you are in this area, a couple of months or several years, sometimes we all need to reboot our writing and find the right ways to transform our writing forever.

Not all of you know that there are 5 simple ways every writer can take to change his writing. And you are about to hear them all. So, not to blow this chance to change your writing and give a new powerful boost, save these tips to come back to them later if now is not a good time for the changes:

Read and then read some more 

According to the Huffington Post, reading is beneficial to your writing in several ways which are as follows:

• Find inspiration
• Learn your genre better
• Improve your vocabulary
• Understand language better
• Learn from writing gurus
• Reveal secrets of practical writing
• Gain new knowledge

These are serious advantages to consider. So go grab your favorite book and for pleasure of reading.

Analyze the pieces you truly like

When you read, you need to do it critically. Look at the piece as a writer and see what exactly you want to take out of it and how the methods, techniques, and metaphors you want to borrow from the author.
Was there something particularly good in that chapter? Is there a good sense in some words? If so, do not hesitate to include certain features into your own writing.
Besides, when reading different literature watch out for things you did not like in that reading. You do not want to bore your readers to death with descriptions that are way too detailed, for instance. Take notes and bear such things in mind.

Edit and revise your own work

You should always go back to your early pieces to analyze. They might give you a hint of what you have grown in, and what you still have to change.
Such an exercise when done regularly and thoughtfully can help you become better at critical reading and thinking. But you need to make it your routine. For instance, make a decision to revise your work every month. Organize everything you wrote within the last 30 days and analyze those pieces. Take notes and ruthlessly revise everything you created.
By doing so, you will get a clear vision of what you are to make better and how exactly you can grow.

Stay true to your voice

Do not be afraid to say honestly what you believe in. That is what makes you unique and interesting to the reader.
You probably know at least a couple of examples of works that are not good. They have no personality behind them, they repeat some common beliefs and contain no major value. As a result, people never really read them but rather skim through them. Such texts won’t get quoted and definitely won’t make it on the list of most powerful art pieces. So, why even writing them?
When you compose your own piece, make sure that the writing has your voice, and it sounds distinctively. People need to hear that there is a person behind that text, with specific views of life, strong will power and a persuasive manner.

Always conduct a proper research

In order to write a proper article, you need to conduct a profound research to gain a clear understanding of the topic. This way, you gain enough expertise to speak your own words and not plagiarize thoughts and beliefs by some other writer.
Do not be like most writers who simply take the facts without drilling into details about them. Your task is to look at a problem from different perspectives and find the one that you support the most.
Avoid skimming a vast number of articles only to take some facts out of the context and insert them into your writing and realize that those facts make no sense. Research even for literature review should be taken more seriously.
And while still on this topic, remember that people will only trust you if you refer to reliable sources. So, when choosing a scope of information to read, consider sources that are actually trustworthy. As addressing problems by using facts of some second-rate magazines will do no good to your image as a writer.

 

A desire to improve your writing is a great desire you should definitely say “Yes”. There is always room to grow professionally. However, if you do not know how exactly you want to grow and what you have to pay attention to, consider taking our advice and moving down this road. It will bear its fruit, we guarantee