Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The new writer: Five responsibilities

By Dennis Mellersh

You are interested in the process of becoming a writer; you want to learn the craft of writing; and you may want to learn how to write a book.

These are admirable goals yet they carry with them certain responsibilities if they are to be achieved.
Primary among these responsibilities is that you will need to make a commitment to do a lot of work over an extended period of time in order to achieve your objectives.

If you have no experience in writing at an expert level, learning to write well enough to produce a successful book can be a long haul. But it is a do-able objective and certainly a worthwhile one.
Following are five of the main responsibilities you will need to assume and make a commitment to in order to become a writer and realize your ambition of writing a book:
  1. Spending time each day (or most days) practising your writing skills. It is the constant effort of working on your writing that will develop it more than any other activity
  2. Reading many books (and making notes on them) by authors specializing in the genre that interests you whether it is fiction or non-fiction, mystery novels or how-to books
  3. Studying and learning something every day related to the techniques and best practices involved in mastering the craft of writing
  4. Doing background research for your book whenever you have the opportunity to push your project forward. Leaving all or most of your research until the last minute will make it a tough job, and an easy one to procrastinate.
  5. Making an effort to self-publish your writing work, on a free-platform blog for example, to give you a feel for actually putting your ideas in front of the world and taking responsibility for them
Research shows that the majority of people in North American say they want to write a book. However, most do not take the necessary steps to actually make an effort to do accomplish this desire.
 
One of the reasons is the discovery that learning to write well and then writing a book is hard work and does not happen overnight.
 
However, if you make the commitment and assume the necessary responsibilities, there is a good chance that you will be one of the relatively few who actually does realize their dream of writing a book.

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