10 Ways To Improve Your Writing Skills And Make Money Through Writing

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING SKILLS AND MAKE MONEY THROUGH WRITING

Writing is a wonderful thing. It is to some people a hubby while for others, it could be a career.
I don't know what it is to you......but truth be told, some writers are just so DUMB!

Okay, I'm not trying to be mean, but honestly, we all have written dumb articles once or twice in our lives, not because we are stupid, but because we do not really know what it takes to bring out the best in us as far quality writing is concerned.

You dream of being a writer, you dream of publishing content that would entice your target audience, you want to be admired for your writing prowess, but yet when you sit down to scribble down your thoughts and ideas, something seem to be wrong.

Oh Ma gosh! you just can't put the pieces together, it seems to show up, and then it disappears. The last resort becomes to drop your pen and shove the piece of paper down the writing table. You are depressed!
You actually started writing but never finished it off.

Has this ever happened to you before?

Well, it happens to the best of us. It has even happened to me several times and the reason is crystal clear... You haven't done the right things.


Here are the top 10 tips that you need in order to improve your writing skills

1. You Need The Power Of Focus

It is often said that lack of focus is the killer of creativity and innovation, and as a writer those are the two things that you would be needing.
Learn to focus your mind on something and avoid distractions which could come from watching irrelevant motion pictures all the time, playing video games etc.
Focus on a particular topic and make sure you get it over and done with.

2. Improve Your Vocabulary Skills

Your vocabulary skills really matter if you must publish what people would find interesting and educative. Publishing on the internet isn't just about churning out series of words that hardly connect with each other, but is about producing articles that your target audience would learn a great deal from. And how are your audience supposed to learn from your posts if the contents hardly make complete sense?....

Now the question is, what do you do to improve your vocabulary?

• Read novels and textbooks written in Queen's English.
• Study the dictionary: This might sound wierd, but you would learn a lot of amazing things faster, by applying this strategy.
• Watch Documentaries and TV Reality Shows.
• If you must watch movies, then it should be movies scripted in Queen's English (I always emphasize on this). Honestly, there are tons of things that you would discover by watching these movies.
• Speak English to your friends, family, colleagues etc as often as you can. You don't know what harm you are doing to your vocabulary skills  by avoiding this. Practice they say makes good improvement, if not perfect.
• Pay attention to certain movies, documentaries and other TV programs and grab words which you aren't familiar with so you can look it up in the dictionary later (This is something that people fail to do, which is really important for building their vocabularies).

3.  Learn To Make Most Events In Your Life Something To Write About

A good writer always thinks out-of-the-box to build content. Your ability to make every event in your life "Poetry", makes you a wonderful writer.

Depending on your niche, making an article out of your "Secretary's dressing style", or "The best ways to make potato chips that you just discovered", or even "The fight that occured yesterday at the airport", is something every writer should learn to do.

Most things that writers post, are things that happened in their lives which in one way or the other their target audience would learn a thing or two from.

In other words, when you see things happen around you, try to sit back and think of what good writing you could make of it.

4. Make Your Dictionary A Companion

Every "good" writer should keep a "good" dictionary by his/her side at all times for reference purposes. Some words can be really confusing, so in order not to post annoying contents, which have poorly spelt words or wrong grammar in them and which would tame the respect that your readers have for you with , Use The Dictionary.

5. Proofread Your Articles Before You Post Them

It has been discovered overtime that most writers just type away at the keyboard while posting, without even looking at the screen to see what balderdash it is that they have typed, simply because they think they have some basic skill in "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" or they think they have typed for years.
This is real bad practice, because you would be prone to making avoidable mistakes and may hit the "P button'' when you should have hit the "O", which gives an error!, and irritates your reader.

Whether you write articles to post online, or you are an offline publisher, or you do freelance writing, posting without doing a thorough preview of your articles could have grave consequences on your reputation and readership.

It could be very disgusting when readers go through your post and see errors like "waht" instead of  "what" or "pupose" instead of "purpose" etc, because it distorts the intended meaning of the write up and could drive readers away from your website even as soon as they got there.

So to avoid this kind of mistake, no matter the length of your posts, be sure to proofread them at least 2 to 3 times before hitting the "Publish" button, or better still have your friends do their own part of the proofreading for you before or after you have published your post.

Best Practice: It is better to proofread after you have written up to 10 lines of words, that way, it doesn't get so cumbersome to spot errors.

6. Rest Your Brain

Whenever you feel you need to sleep or rest, do not deny yourself the urge, because the brain needs rest in order to recover from stress.
You should try as much as you can to have a good amount of rest each day to help your brain fluids flow once again for the uphill task ahead.

Don't take this for granted.

7. Keep Writing, Don't Be Discouraged, Don't Stop

As a writer, there would be times when you pick up a pen and paper to write down something, but somewhere along the line you feel like stopping, perhaps because you suddenly lost the zeal or inspiration that drove you to start writing in the first place.

Don't stop, keep writing, even when you are discouraged and have no idea what to write next.
But If the drive to quit pushes harder, just rest your head or involve in any activity that interests you the most, and then afterwards get back on the table and do your thing. This time, the inspiration would have been fully restored.

Food For Thought: Never give-in to your fears and do not despair, because things only get harder when it is starting up, but keep working for there is always light somewhere at the end of the tunnel.
                                                                                                        
8. Put Your Audience First

To be a good writer, you have to put your audience at the forefront....afterall the content was meant for them to digest in the first place, so they deserve to get information from your article and use it for their own good.
So write something that your readers would benefit a great deal from.

9. Do A Thorough Research On Your Topic

This is yet another way to post rich content for your readers. Doing a thorough research and study about the topic that you wish to write about, gives you an edge over others who just post stuff without doing good research.

Read books & other rich posts by others on the topic which you want to write about and then pick up salient points which you would be needing to launch to your own rocket.......Metaphorically speaking..

Remember, no one is an encyclopedia of all knowledge. Even the greatest writers in the world do research before writing their posts or offline articles/books.

You cannot walk it alone and before you ever thought of writing about it, so many others have written about it already.

10. Use Your Biro and Paper

No good house is built without an architectural plan for defining the aesthetical arrangement of the building elements, and a structural plan for defining the stability of the house.

Same goes with writing...
Every good article has to be written down on a book first using a pencil or pen, because that defines a rough layout of the post content.

Writing down things that you want to post on a piece of paper, helps guide you better when you start typing it on the computer, and it helps speed up time of publication.

So it is good practice to to scribble down your thoughts on a piece of paper before going to type it on your computer.....

It pays dividends..

Thanks for reading, and if you have any more suggestions and tips on this topic, feel free to share.

Okafor Obinna (Infopreneurking)