There are many careers related to writing, such as writers, editors and people related to publishing in general. Here we will focus only on the writers. These are the top 5 career advice for writers. You should pay attention to these before choosing a career in writing.
- Choosing a Career in Writing
Writing as a full time career can be very frustrating, especially if you do not like writing for its own sake. Once you have some experience and if you are a good writer there are good career prospects in the field of writing but writing is an acquired skill and it takes time to develop your writing skills. Unless you have some earlier side experience or are getting a full time writing job, the chances of developing your own writing skills are less. So, think carefully before choosing a career in writing.
- Improve Your Knowledge Base
Before you begin writing you must have something to write about. To become a good writer you must develop your knowledge base. All the writing skills and knowledge of language would do you little good if you do not have enough knowledge to write about a particular topic. It's a good idea to select a particular field or domain and develop your knowledge and understanding of that field; but do not limit yourself to only one or two specialized fields. Take advantage of all the opportunities of improving your knowledge base. How do you go about it, and how wide or narrow your focus should be, would depend on what kind of writer you want to be.
There are several writing courses that you can attend at college but they are of limited value in your writing career. In order to take full advantage of these you should have some experience in writing as well as a good knowledge base to draw on for writing.
- Practice Writing
As I mentioned earlier, writing is an acquired skill and the best and perhaps the only real way to develop it to write. Make a habit of writing everyday. What you write is less important than the fact that you do. Read what you have written after some time or days and see the mistakes you have made or the ways your writing could be improved. Watch for patterns in your mistakes, if any, and use this feedback for improving your writing skills. If you are writing a larger article or a book, it is a very good idea to spend some time on building a format and gathering relevant material.
It would be a good idea to write on the subjects you know about or enjoy writing about but the most important thing is that you do write.
- Read
In order to succeed in your writing career and to develop your writing skills you should read a lot. Read both your own writing as well as writing by other writers. See what you like as well as what you do not like in their as well as your own writing. If you do like some phrase, word or way of writing try to incorporate them in your own writing as well. You can find people who are writing similar things on the internet. It can be a good idea to find such people and discuss your problems and interests with them. You can also start some joint writing projects.
Reading will serve two major purposes. First it'll improve your knowledge base and second it'll provide some feedback about how to improve your own writing. As for what to read, it would be better if you select the material that are related to your field or the topics you are writing on but reading something is almost always better than not reading at all. Just remember that what you read always affects your writing in subtle ways, whether you want it to or not.
- Keep Writing
Writing, like all acquired skills, improves with practice. If you want to make a career as writer, you must keep writing. Make a habit of writing something each day. There are several web sites where you can post your blogs, reviews, comments etc; take advantage of them. The key is to keep writing and never lose hope. Also, remember that most of the published writers did not start their career as full time writers. If you are not certain or going through a tough time in your writing career, it is perfectly ok to take some other job and keep writing as a hobby or for a supplementary income. This will help you maintain and even improve your writing skills as well as can make your identity known in online community. Having a significant online presence can be very helpful in your writing career.
A career in writing is not the easiest one around and you may face many obstacles in the beginning but if you are persistent, like to writing and do not wish give up; this can be a very rewarding as well as economically viable career.