Five things all successful writers do

I have read many articles, blogs, books and magazines about writing. I have read numerous books on writing and attended conferences, seminars and workshops.

Some principles stand out and are common to many lists of things writers (and bloggers) can do to improve their writing. In this short post I want to highlight just five things that will improve your writing. These are things most successful writers do.

1. Successful Writers are students of the craft of writing. There is no excuse these days; the resources are readily available. There are literally thousands of books and magazines that can help you to hone your craft. There are tens of thousands of blog articles that can help. Every year there are numerous conferences, workshops, writer’s groups and seminars designed to help inexperienced and emerging writers.
2. Successful writers are readers: this is an inescapable fact. In order to learn how to be a good writer, you need to read the works of great writers. Sure – read for the story or the content first, then analyse why that writer is great, or successful or popular. Do not just confine yourself to the works of great writers though – read voraciously. Have you ever read a story and said, “I can write better than that!” Or perhaps you have said, “I could have written an article about that – but even better than that hack writer!” Prove it. Go ahead and write a better article or story.
3. Successful writers do their research: they know what they want to write about. They study the magazines they want to see their writing published in and write accordingly. They research carefully. They study the requirements of publishers before they submit their query letters. They study other books or blogs in their genre or niche and strive to write better that their competitors. Successful writers also check their facts.
4. Successful writers rewrite and edit their writing: they refuse to submit rubbish and they invest time and effort to ensure that their writing is of the highest possible standard, the best they can possibly do. Bloggers please take note: it is not cute nor is it cool to have sloppy, careless writing on your blog. It is a sure way to lose readers fast. Learn to spell and learn to check your writing. If you can’t or won’t do that – get off the internet and stop wasting bandwidth.
5. Successful writers are persistent: They never give up. Never. Ever. Successful writers are people who never let rejection stop them from writing. They just kept on writing and submitting until they found someone who liked their work enough to publish it. Successful bloggers are those who have continued to write for many months and even years before they had any significant numbers of readers.

Related articles:

• Improve your writing
• Top 5 writing hints
• Aiming for the stars – to boldly go where no blogger has gone before