Once you begin to write, you're doomed. Hooked. You will stare mesmerized at the computer screen until the right words form up in your brain and make their way to your fingertips, or until drops of blood form on your forehead.

There are definite strategies you can use to shorten the screen-staring time and minimize blood loss, things you can do that make writing easier. Some of them occur while you're writing.

First, and primary: write. Just write. There seems to be a magical number of words which, once processed, raises the level at which you write. Suddenly, without effort, you're a better writer. In the words of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, you have to show up on the page - sit down to write and push the keys down. Practice really does make better. Best of all, once you have improved in this way, you write at the higher level for the rest of your life.

Second, read good writing. Reading is input and writing is output: your writing will be shaped by what you read. Read the most critically-acclaimed writers you enjoy - don't read work you don't like, but don't confine your reading to best-selling writers whose use of words is ordinary, either. Find someone whose language, not whose sales figures, you envy.

Third, once you have found a writer you admire, find out who they admire or feel shaped their writing, and read that person's work. These books will very likely be passe, and old-fashioned to boot. The language will be stilted by modern standards, and the plots a little tough to figure out. You may not enjoy them, but you're reading at least one to better your own writing. Consider it time spent to placate the Muse. Reading a poet who wrote before the last half of the twentieth century will do just as well if you prefer.

Fourth, consider your reader. If you accept less-than-optimal solutions to writing problems, you are making it difficult for your reader to gobble up your prose and want a whole lot more. You are also blowing an opportunity to pack on some writing muscle. As writers, it's our job to make our stuff read easily, and in this competitive day and age we had better or we will lose our audience. Read your work with a very critical eye for user-friendliness. This is where the advice about final read-throughs, spell check, and previewing your work comes in.

Fifth, when you believe you have finished your work, put it away for twenty-four hours before you even think about posting it. After that period, during which you will either write something else or not write at all, read it again. You will be able to catch left-out words, typos which are not misspelled words but the wrong words (in all they're/there/their beastly glory), two occurrences of the same word or phrase too close together (which makes your reader stop and go back to re-read the first occurrence), and all the things we cannot catch in the immersion of creating a piece. Time away from your work is your friend.

Sixth and last, and having nothing to do with the writing itself: nourish your mind and body in whatever ways you find rewarding. As surely as your reading, this feeds your Muse. Living a life you like is the very best food you can give her. Don't sit in front of the computer all the livelong day; balance your life to optimize your writing time instead.

Now that you are doing all that and have produced a piece of writing, post it. You have done a good job, and now it's ready to share with others.

That's what being a writer is all about.

Learn more about this author, Lin Barrett.
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