10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer

Compliments of Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger

I had to share this.  It is so true!  I bang out stuff that never sees the light of day.   I vent on a new post that I never publish.  I keep post-it note pads everywhere in the house so that if I get an idea (some good, some not so much) I can jot it down.  My most valuable post-it note pad is by my bedside because frequently I write in my head in a dream-like state and if I (and I have) say to myself, ‘oh, I’ll remember this when I wake up’ I never do and IT IS GONE FOREVER!

In the middle of the night I ‘dreamed’ a single line for a poem I was working on…..“an overachiever bee dips into the nectar….” and yes, I turned on the light and wrote it down.  When I awoke in the morning the only thing I remembered was that I had a terrific line for my poetry but had no idea what it was.  Fortunately there it was on my little post-it.

Oh yes.  NEVER, NEVER throw anything you write away!  My first book of poetry was a collection of stuff I had written for the past thirty years.  Just thoughts, musings, and free form poetry that ended up (with much editing) in a book.  Back in 2005 I wrote a piece about a famous murder case in the headlines and now here in 2012 it ended up in my book, “Monologues 4 Women”.  You just never know what can be dusted off and used.

I hope you are enjoying reading my novel in serial form here on my blog.

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