Improve Your Writing by Creating a Writing Habit

Creative writing is both an art and a craft, and as with other crafts, to improve you need to practice consistently. Just like a new piano student is drilled day after day by their teacher in the musical scale, a writer can exercise their writing "muscles" by doing writing exercises and by "free-writing." Writing exercises can take almost any form, as long as the writer is working with words and also with their imagination or memory.

But equally as important as taking writing practice seriously when you are doing it is to be consistent and to write nearly every day whether or not you are in the mood. A famous writer once said, "I only write when I feel inspired... and that is every day at nine in the morning when I sit down at my desk." Consistency in your writing practice develops the internal "habit" that you are at your desk (or favorite coffee shop) to write. The main thing is that by developing a consistent practice you will engage your imagination and your ability to write more readily. It is no coincidence that writers that have found success are consistent and determined writers. They have developed their skills as writers by consistently showing up at their writing table and working at their writing whether or not they were inspired or "in the mood" to write.

But how do you create a writing habit?

Creating a writing practice is a simple matter of making writing a priority in your life. Try the following five steps suggested by HG Nadel a self published writer:

1. Commit to trying a regular writing practice for a week.
   
2. Look at your schedule objectively and see if there is a consistent half-hour or hour a week that can be your writing time. This can be early morning, at lunch or at night before bed.
   
3. Decide on a medium that you will use, i.e. your laptop or your trusty notebook, but be flexible in your medium and make sure it is one that you will actually use.
   
4. Commit to spending a specified period of time with your writing implement of choice, regardless of whether you write ten pages or one word. The point is that to begin to develop a writing habit you need to establish a space for the writing. If you show up consistently something will come. Maybe not every day at first, but eventually your writing "mind" will become engaged by the act of sitting down to write.
   
5. Give yourself permission to write the worst prose or poetry ever penned by a human being. You of course won't actually write the worst poem ever, that was actually written by me in 1998 while in graduate school, so you are already off the hook. The point here is that if you place pressure on yourself to produce a "staggering work of heartbreaking genius" you are dead in the water from the start.
   

What you are making the effort to do here is to create a habit, and after the first week is done, celebrate and move on to week two and then week three. Each week try and expand what you are doing in a specific way. There are many writing prompts in books available at the library and on the internet. Do a simple search and use a few of the prompts to push yourself along in your development as a writer. Through conscious effort you can improve as a writer and develop your skills steadily.

For more reading, please visit here: http://hgnadel.blogspot.com