Grow in Writing

Man, we are not even through January and already I’m dropping the ball. Sorry about that. I will do my best to get back on track with my blogs. As I have mentioned, I want to do a lot to grow in writing. This includes blogging and writing stories. So, let me share the plans for this year and what I’m doing now.

Grow in Writing Stories

It will be a bit repetitive from what I’ve said before, but bare with me. So, obviously if I want to become an author I need to grow in my story writing abilities. And as I have shared, I’ve been doing this through writing fan fiction stories. In fact, I finished my first “book” if you will and apparently my fans loved it so much they asked for a part 2. Who am I to deny them? So, I’ve started on part 2 of that, as well as writing another story on the side. How is this helping me grow? There’s a great community in fan fiction. I get comments on basically every chapter. I’m learning what they like to read, and what they want to read. Then I try to incorporate that into the next chapter, or a future one. The best part of this experience – I found a beta reader for my novel when the draft is ready.

Beta Reading

One of my fans on the site shared a way to communicate with her outside of the site. We’ve been chatting on discord and we often share our fan fiction work with each other for feedback and editing before we post. How does this help me grow in writing? Well, when I read her stuff I find lots of grammar or punctuation mistakes. This helps me focus a lot more on picking them out in my writing as well. And she is really good at finding plot holes or areas that need more detail. She also will point out if the flow doesn’t feel right. I take these things into consideration for my future chapters.

Grow in Writing Blogs

I really want to grow as a blogger as well. And I know that in order to do that I need to start sticking to a schedule. I would also be interested in looking at other blogs and seeing how people are writing theirs and possibly learning something. I used to write blogs for the hotel, but dropped the ball hard with that. My boss has asked me to pick it back up again. So, I’ve got to figure out how to get back on track with that. I’ve got some people ready to help me out with ideas, so now I just need to actually do it.

Editing

As I’ve mentioned I want to take an editing course. I truly believe this will help me grow in writing because I’ll know what to look for in my own writing. I think I’m okay with catching things right now, if I reread things. However, I know it could be better as well. And beta readers won’t necessarily catch those things themselves if they’re not good at that sort of thing. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to take the course this year. I’ll have to see how finances go. But, I am very excited for when I take it because I know it will make me better.

Never Stop Learning

As much as I hated school, I think we should never stop learning. Maybe school wasn’t the right setting for me. Or maybe my young brain just didn’t appreciate the gift of learning. However, I want to encourage you all to learn something new this year. Whether it be in a class, or learning a new skill/hobby, or self improvement. Yeah, I’m learning a lot about myself this year too. But find something new to learn this year and have fun with it. It may not always be easy, and there may be moments when you want to give up, but keep going. I’m here to cheer you on. Hopefully you’re here for the same. Because we know that anything can happen if we try!