Osmosis (maybe) applies to writing skills…

The flip side of sharing my work was reading the work of others.

Connecting personally with writers (in my genre and outside of it) and positively critiquing their work gave me another leap forward in my writing journey. In addition to reading published works, I improved my writing skills by consuming and discussing the unpublished work of talented humans in my personal circle.

I also follow agents and authors online. Their email newsletters and blogs are full of writing tips that helped me know what I’m doing right and where I needed to improve my skills. Consuming these blogs, as well as books on writing and how to publish, helped pull the hazy veil away from this world of publishing that I knew next to nothing about. Now it doesn’t seem like an impossible dream to want to publish my book (someday, hopefully). I now have clear steps I can take to improve my writing and seek publication. I found many others that have been on this writing and publication journey before me that genuinely want to help others navigate it. So I read their tips and am trying to boldly follow.

Everything after that is the cards falling where they fall.

Anecdote time:

In my own home I’ve seen how writers can grow from simply engaging with and modeling the behavior of other writers. My almost eight-year-old spent many hours this past COVID-impacted summer writing his first novel. No joke. He and I sat side-by-side on rainy days with our laptops open and our fingers flying over the keys. His first book was very much “and then” this happened “and then” this happened – and then and then and then. But second grade started and he kept on writing at home too. This past January he decided he was done with that first book and was ready to start fresh. The first two paragraphs of his new manuscript beautifully detailed the main character’s weapons and physical features (including a kick-ass tattoo), then the next two pages set up the hierarchy of four different classes of people and creatures on this planet while showing some initial action and conflict.

Ummm…. My jaw dropped and not just because it’s my kid so of course I think his work is awesome. It was the mind-boggling leap in growth during only six months. He’s writing at a higher level than his peers all of a sudden because he just kept doing it.

So I’ll say it again: Sit down and write already. Then share your work, keep writing, and engage with other writers.