Be neat when you type your pieces. Type. I repeat a third time, type them. Then print them double spaced. Its easier to edit them this way. Keeps you organized too. And if you are not having to reprint your manuscript because there’s not enough marks, then you are not being self critical enough. Being lazy, shame on you. Don’t try saying you got it right the first time. Bull. No one’s that good. Nice try.

I read all of this in an essay Stephan King wrote. Everything you need to know about writing successfully in ten minutes. Quite interesting actually. Truly inspired by the man’s insight on how to get published. BUT, if you are a young writer, beginning writer, you shouldn’t even be thinking of publishing. That’s right. Any goals you have of being a ‘Published author,’ banish them right now. That’s a bad mental state to write in.

There are certain things you can’t concentrate on when trying to be a good writer. Mr. King does have a point that if you have talent, you will get published and make money, but you have to crawl before you can walk. What you need to do is remember that you are writing because you like it. Because you have a talent, a gift, of spinning a story and manipulating the minds of your readers into thinking that they are there and this is real. Before you can get there though, you must practice, practice, practice. Don’t try to be famous and get publish right away. Don’t expect yourself to either. That’s one quick way to get writer’s block. Frustration and harsh criticism is not good for the creative mind, doncha know.

Secondly, or whatever number, don’t typed junk. I mean, don’t overwhelm with so many words of emotion and nonsense that its hard to find the point. When writing something, use as few words as possible without ruining the enchantment, but don’t cheapen everything with adjectives describing the adverbs describing the verbs that describe what the noun is doing… Its all nonsense. Cut to the chase. Stop that constipated thinking. Spit it out, darn it! Edit your piece and cut out everything you don’t need. If you cut out everything, then you aren’t making any point of any kind. Throw it away and start over or try something different.

And one terrible, terrible, terrible thing to do while writing is to… stop… and… look… a… word… up… in… the… dictionary…. UGH! If you don’t know how to spell it, who cares! You can go back and fix it, but later. If you can’t think of the word you want to use off the top of your head, write down the definition and go back to it later. You’re on a roll, don’t stop to look something up! You’ll loose you’re train of thought. Imagine, one day you sit down to work on the story that has that Newberry potential and you start writing and writing and writing and everything is coming to you at once, but you don’t know the capital of Delaware. You’re main character is going there. What do you do. You stop to look up the capital of Delaware is… Where was I? You’ve lost it. All because you couldn’t wait. No dictionary, no thesaurus, no atlas, no internet or book reference of any kind. Forget it. Just write.

When you write, you do write for yourself. Not completely though. You should be writing to capture the readers imagination. Its true that you make it your story. You should decide what happens. Don’t let someone else tell you what to do with you characters. The only exception is if no one likes it. If you ask ten people if they like something and more than four say its horrible, then lose it. Doesn’t matter if you love the idea. No one likes it. Its bad, kill it. Kick that horse, kick it dead!

And don’t worry about PUBLISHING! That will come in time. You don’t need agents, you don’t need to worry about making money or doing anything else. Just write. And when the time for you to publish does come around, make sure you know what your doing. If you don’t, get a book. Get a reference. Get something to tell you how do it without getting screwed over. Make sure you send it to the right places too. If your writing teen fiction, send it to someone who publishes fiction for teens… Only a nincompoop would send it anywhere else. If you don’t know what you’re doing, find out how to do it. Then make sure you do it right. Self addressed stamped envelope, sample chapter, manuscript, neatly typed in a three ring folder. Make it professional. Make an impression.

I hope I helped you some. I know Stephan King helped me a whole lot! So go write! Be free!