Improve Your Skills As A Writer For A Better Blog

If you run a blog of your own, you are probably always keen to try and improve it more and more.

The truth is that there are plenty of ways in which you might hope to do this, and it is worth being aware of these if you want to ensure that you are doing so and always keeping your blog moving in the right direction. Of the many things which might lead to a more successful blog, one which is going to be particularly important is that of improving your skills as a writer.

The better you are able to write, the more likely it is that you will have a successful blog, so this really is important. In this article, we will discuss some of the best way to improve your writing skills today, which you might want to focus on.

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Asked about how to improve as a writer, Terry Pratchett once responded by talking entirely about boxing. If you are to be a boxer, he said, you need to show up at the ring as a spectator, and watch it closely. Watch why the boxer hits when they do and why they block, and note how they do it. Go back week after week until you have a good sense of what they are actually doing.

If you want to be a writer, you need to watch writers at work, which means reading their work, and plenty of it. The more that you read, the more that you are equipping yourself with the necessary tools required to write well.

You should aim to read a huge diversity of literature, including that which you love and that which you dislike, as both can teach you something important. Read critically and curiously, and try to see the writer at work on the page. You will learn all you need to know this way – but if you try to write in a vacuum, without watching other writers, you won’t develop your skills.

Engage In Wordplay

A big part of writing is having a good knowledge of words, a strong vocabulary, and the ability to play around with words as you need to. For this reason, you can expect to improve your ability to write by simply engaging in some basic wordplay from time to time.

If you don’t already, consider starting to take up a habit of doing a crossword, bearing in mind that this is its own skill in itself which requires plenty of practice. Over time, you can hope to improve your understanding of words this way, in particular where words come from and how they go together, which is hugely useful for any writers. Similarly, if you make a point of punning and you try to unscramble words to make anagrams, you will develop your ability to play around with language in a way that really helps.

Show Up

Probably the most important thing is that you need to make sure you are showing up to write, consistently and routinely, all of the time. There is no difference between a more successful writer than you and yourself except your willingness to show up might be less.

If you simply make a point of sitting at your desk day after day, there is no way that you won’t be able to improve. It is this which gets words on the page, and that is how anything gets written at all, including blog posts. The more you work, the better you will get.

This is one of those pieces of information and advice which is so obvious that it’s tempting to overlook it or brush it off, but you shouldn’t. You should make a point of writing as frequently as you can, so that you can develop your skills more effectively. If you wait for inspiration to strike, you will not be giving yourself the same kind of chance to succeed as if you write with diligence, even when you don’t feel like it.

Inspiration comes to those who invite it in by showing up.

Have Patience

Remember that writing is a challenge, and you need to be patient with yourself if you find that you struggle to make it work as early on as you would like. You will need to put in many hours of hard work in order to improve your skills as you would like, and that means that you need to adopt an approach which is going to allow you to do that.

In short, having patience gives you the ability to carry on when it gets tough, and to be kinder on yourself along the way, both of which are useful and important to consider.

What are some of your favorite ideas, tasks or daily habits that help you improve your skills as a writer?