Before you try to write a book, learn how to write effectively

By Dennis Mellersh

Unless you are a professional and/or experienced writer, you will need to develop your writing skills before you tackle the larger goal of learning how to write a book.

Although writing your book will involve considerable work, it can be enjoyable and rewarding, but only if you first gain a comfort level and confidence in your ability to write well.

In addition to studying education materials about how to improve your writing skills, one of the best methods is to practice writing whenever you can. In other words, write often.

I have written about this before, but it is worth re-emphasizing. Here are a few brief suggestions on how to do this.

Start a free blog. You can do this at blogger.com or wordpress.com. Just start a blog on a subject that interests you. For example, write about your efforts to improve your writing. Or write about a hobby. Try to write a post each day.

Write comments on blogs or websites that interest you on topics where you might have something useful to contribute with your comments.

Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper on stories they have published and give your opinion either on the subject of the article, or whether you feel the writer did a good job in writing their article.

Do a lot of reading of professionally written material such as novels, how-to books, biographies, history books, and magazine and web/blog articles and write out passages from these that you feel handle language well. The act of writing out such passages will help familiarize you with effective writing techniques.