“Omit needless words.”

Everyone has their own unique way of writing and to be honest, if someone has the motivation to write anything and get creative, then a big thumbs up from me. Some people shy away from it, some people believe that they’re not very good at it and some people may simply not have the time, no matter how much they want to get into it.

However, if you’re going to write, and you’re going to write often enough, the first thing you should do is get up to scratch on those things that really get on the nerves of writers across the globe.

Grammar.

The bad kind. There’s nothing worse than reading a serious piece of content and seeing the wrong ‘there’ or ‘your’ amongst the sprinkling of words on a page. I get the fact that there may be a reason for this, such as dyslexia or in youngsters who haven’t quite grasped the concept of it, and that’s all well and good. But if not, come on. If you want people to read what you produce, get the basics nailed first.

Direction.

You need an aim, no matter what type of writing it is that you’re doing. Don’t just write for the sake of it, with no real explanation as to why you’re doing it or what the main goal of it is. The same goes for taking too many directions. If you’re story writing for example, we don’t want to know everything at once, and we don’t want all the questions answering. At least leave a little bit to our imagination!

Lies.

You should always write from the heart. Never pretend to be someone or something that you’re not – it’ll show! Your writing style is unique to you, so why would you want to be the same as anyone else? Writing is all about expressing yourself and being you, so don’t spoil that by giving views that aren’t yours, or by trying to write like someone else. Embrace the fact that you are different to anyone else!

Neglecting your readers.

What do people want to read about? What are people interested in? The best way to keep their interest is to make your writing interesting. It seems simple, but some people often don’t know what makes their readers tick, or what they may find useful. You need to find the right balance of what you enjoy and what your readers enjoy. Reading other people’s blogs or reading different creative writing pieces will give you ideas as to what is popular. If you don’t, your writing may never get seen by the right people!

Punctuation.

I admit, I am guilty of using the odd exclamation mark, but don’t over do it. Please. You don’t want people to think you’re shouting at them when they’re reading something you’ve written. Using the right punctuation and the right amount of punctuation makes everything easier to read, and is possibly the most simple thing to do.

Overusing adjectives.

I find it really difficult to get into a piece of writing when people over describe things. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and yes it does make you sound extremely intelligent, but there is really no need. We know you can write, and you can probably write very well, but don’t force out the description or your writing will turn into some alien that even you don’t recognise anymore.

Of course, the points above are merely my own opinion, but I think to really get the most out of what you create, you should take these into account. However, there is one big one that needs addressing and I hope that through reading this, you’ll be able to banish this bad habit entirely.

Giving up.

You’ve written a long piece and you re-read it through. You don’t like what you’ve written, so what do you do? (Unintentional poetry there.) You give up. You stop. You do something else, because you’re that annoyed that what you have created isn’t up to the standard you wanted it to be. Am I right?

It depends. For people who are like I once was, who never thought what they did was good enough, this is probably you. You get some inspiration to write from somewhere, and when you take it and create something new, you think, “no one is going to want to read this.” Actually, I guarantee you that there is someone looking for your writing who will benefit from it!

I forced myself to get my writing out there, purely to overcome the little gremlin that is low self-confidence. At first, I let some of my close friends read what I’d done, and after a little bit of prompting, I started A Quintillion Words. I even pushed the boat out that little bit further and set up a Twitter account where I can connect with some brand new bloggers to take inspiration from. The blogging community are amazing. If you ever want to feel good about writing, blogging is the way to go, purely from all the positive feedback you receive. ( Thanks guys 🙂 )

The trick is to just go for it. Honestly. When you do, you’ll feel on top of the world. The more you do it and the better you get at it, the more feedback you’ll receive, which will spur you on to continue. It’s like one big circle. Writing doesn’t have to be a chore – it isn’t if you’re doing it right. It should be something you do to escape the reality of day to day life. A hobby you should enjoy and look forward to doing regularly. I love writing content for my blog and it’s something I look forward to every week. My story writing is also swimming around in my head constantly, especially when new ideas pop up from nowhere. Why do they always do that when you’re not near a computer?!

Have you got any bad writing habits? What do you do to make sure you keep away from them? 🙂