READ. Reading is how writers are born, it's where you learn how to write and where you learn why it's worth doing well. Read eclectically across periods, cultures, and genre. Some writers like to stay away from anything too close to what they're working on, so read 19th century novels or space operas while you're writing your contemporary satire or nature books while penning your mystery. Read poetry to hone your language and non-fiction to mine the world of fact. Read books that make you feel jealous that you didn't write them and then instead …
River Road
READ like a writer. Begin to look at the books you're reading for the lessons they can teach you. How does your favorite author introduce new characters, handle time jumps, slip in exposition? Let what you read inspire you to begin writing and then …
WRITE! Jump in! It doesn't have to be perfect or even very good. Keep a notebook and write down images, snatches of dialogue, story ideas, angry rants. Try to get into a habit of writing, if not daily, at least often. Like any skill, you get better with practice. Don't worry yet about whether what you're putting down is good, but when you're ready …
LEARN to take criticism. Take a class or give what you're writing to a friend. Listen to what others have to say about what you've written. The journey from your head to the written page is a twisted one-what the reader hears may not be what you intended at all. Until you can listen to criticism and learn to make changes to your work so that it becomes what you intended in the first place, your writing will remain a monologue and not a dialogue with the world. Good criticism should make you (after the initial shock) want to write more. But if what you're told makes you want to give up …
LEARN when to discard criticism. Everyone will receive bad criticism at some point, whether from that friend (who is mad at you about something else), or a teacher (who just doesn't like the genre you've chosen), or an Amazon reviewer who's angry they paid too much for the Kindle edition. Listen with an open mind, but if (after a day or two's reflection) the criticism makes you want to stop writing, then it wasn't good criticism. Ignore it. Move on. And while you're at it …
LOOK around you. It's easy when you've embarked on the writing life to become a little isolated and pre-occupied (perhaps even self-absorbed). Get out of your own head, look at the world-notice what color the sky is on a winter morning, what a man does with his hands when he's trying not to look embarrassed, what a woman's face looks like when she looks at her child, then …
LISTEN to other people to learn how to write dialogue. Cell phones, annoying as they are, afford the writer a glimpse into the lives of those around you. Write down phrases you overhear, get a feel for the rhythm of speech for teenagers, people from different places, then …
BEGIN. Get something down on the page even if it's not good or comes in the middle. I write my first drafts by hand in a notebook where I can be sloppy and provisional, then when I type it up I edit and clean and then when I've gotten a full draft, I …
TAKE a break. Take small breaks when you're stuck, get up and take a walk, do the dishes. It's best if you can do things that don't entirely take you away from the mood. Take a longer break when you're done something so you can come back and read it with a fresh eye, and then …
REWRITE. Every novel I've published has gone through 2,3, 3 and sometimes 5 drafts, often with an editor prompting changes, sometimes by myself as I've learned to become my own editor. Use the skills you've honed reading-as-a-writer to look at your own work with a cool eye. Don't be afraid to discard and begin again, try to remember what you intended in the first place and most of all …
HAVE FAITH. Writing requires a huge leap of faith into the unknown. Do it because you love it, because you have something to say, because you can't NOT do it. Then leap-it's good practice for the rest of life.