The Three Rules To Being A Great Writer

Three Rules To Becoming A Great Writer

I know I was going to keep my private life on a different blog; but this idea came from my anime addiction.  I was watching Bakuman and it got me thinking, what are The Three Rules To Being A Great Writer.   Not that I'm there yet, so take this with the proper grains of salt as I am still an aspiring author, despite the fact I have self published a short story on the Nook.

THE THREE RULES OF A BEING A GREAT WRITER

1.   WRITE!!!

2.  HARD WORK AND PERSEVERANCE

3.  LUCK
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1. Write!

The first rule is obvious, you cannot be a writer unless you write something.   Some may wonder why I have no mention of the word edit.   But I lump that in under writing.   Write your work, write notes on your rough drafts on what needs improving and re-write it.   Write and rewrite your work as though you are a polishing a gem and refining it; because that is exactly what a writer does, he finds a rock and polishes and hopefully there is a gem within it.  Sometimes there is no gem and you have to pick up another rock and keep hoping and writing.  However you must take care not to fall into the trap that happens to many writers, they spend far to much time rewriting and rewriting over and over and never get anything published.   It's hard to know when you've revised your work enough, but at some point you must look at your manuscript and ask yourself are you just frightened of seeing rejection or is it truly not ready yet for public consumption?  

No matter what you must write.  Which goes into the second rule.

2.  Hard Work and Perseverance

If you're not gifted as a writer, then you must work hard on your writing and improving yourself.   Do research, read books on grammar,  find your weak points and hone them into strengths as much as you possible can.  You must work hard and never give up.   Even if you a thousand doors slam in your face you have to keep trudging onward and believe in your work and yourself, and sometimes you may have to open the door yourself and shout out loud for others to hear you.     Basically what I'm saying is that if you try to publish the traditional way, through publishers you'll face rejection and if you self publish you'll have much more hard work ahead of you to get others to read your works.  In the case of self publishing you'll have to save up money not only for your book (if you want a paperback/hardback one) but you'll have to save up money for your cover illustrator or inside art illustrator.   You must write in every spare moment you have when you're not at your day/night job.  Even if it's not your story you're working on, writing a blog entry or a letter or anything involving writing, but you must be writing a lot.  That's my problem, I get distracted easily and lose focus.  But to be a great writer you must not lose focus.   Your goal is to write and work hard on your writing.

3.  Luck

There are literally millions if not billions of books out there, and the likelihood of anyone picking up your pick is slim.   So luck is the third and final rule in my opinion.   And I'll end it here on this third rule.