I’ve been a writer for almost five years now, maybe I’ve been one even before but I didn’t realize. All these years of writing I learned a lot about it. My first lesson being, writing is not simply moving your pen, it is shaping your intangible figments of imagination. You can’t even imagine how challenging it is unless you’re a writer yourself. And this is not my only lesson, it was just the beginning. The more I learned writing, the harder I fell in love with it. Now, without any hesitation, I encourage everyone I know to write.

Since I learned a bit, I thought of giving back a little to my writers’ community. I have been actively helping them in whatever teensy way I can and I couldn’t be happier doing it. I recently gave a free guide on how to start a writing career from scratch in 5 steps, and I got quite a few thumbs-ups for it.

And today, I’m in the mood to share some more of my experience. So I came up with a writer’s checklist. I tried to add everything I could think of, if I missed anything comment below and I’ll include it as well.

Let’s dive in.

Writers Checklist for perfection

1. Read more.
2. Write even more. Try these writing tools to track your writing activity.
3. Improve creative writing.
4. Research other writers’ experiences and pieces of work.
5. Keep your writing days & editing days separate.
6. Build your vocabulary and expression inventory.
7. If you feel stuck, try group writing sessions.
8. Use active voice more than passive.
9. Do a creative writing prompt every day.
10. Maintain an idea board & jot down all your ideas in one place. Even the silly, weird ones – you never know what they’ll lead to.
11. Read your piece aloud. You can evaluate it better when you listen to it more than running it in your head.
12. The right order is this: Idea >> Writing >> Grammar check >> Editing. Avoid overlapping one with another for better clarity and better output.

We have many misconceptions going around about writing – one being that writing is an inborn talent. I believe it may be partly true but the bigger truth is this: Writing is a practice more than a trait that you acquire by birth.

Take me, for example. I hadn’t written much until I graduated. I tried keeping a diary a few times but failed to write much in it. It was inconsistent. I wasn’t aware of how to make diary-writing fun. But now you see me, writing has become a major part of my professional and personal lives. I can never get enough of writing or even talking about it.

If you have seen my initial writing style, you’d find a lot of difference between that and this. Since I’ve been doing this for years now, I improved a lot. That is why I’d like to consider writing a practice, a skill one can acquire at any point in time.

So more than anything, what’s important is to have the zeal to learn. Would you agree? Let me know in the comments.  I’ll see you soon again.

PS:

I’m building a community for creative people, especially writers. Join and see if you like it there. If not, you can exit anytime.

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Lots of LOVE,

Nikki.

Thanks for stopping by!