How to Become a Better Writer

Like in the movies, Samantha believed that writers magically conjure paragraphs upon paragraphs from a nonexistent void. They dance like demons at night, playing on people's emotional vulnerabilities to make them fall for such a predictable movie script and believing that life is easy without consequence.

Films depict writers typing away like adrenalized freaks of nature, zombified by turning in books, so they manage to write 200 pages in one week. Book publishers, astonished by this turn of events, reward the authors for their craft, and everyone has an excellent time, swooshing around wine in glasses.

Samantha is glued to this notion as writers' poor, hopeless heartthrobs dance the night away as their book becomes a number one seller. Samantha understands that the trick to becoming a successful writer from the movie is luck and a bunch of Adderall.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Her swinging soul moved with the flow of life, bobbling in a calm, tranquil seafowl bay. A visceral display; her life's cards on the teapoy. A mind plunged into sunless seas; she called herself crazy and could not produce any magical writing from her mind's abyss. No church pastor offered any guerdon! Pressurized air infused with fragrant sound. Her mind rocked back and forth like a cold ship on plunging waves.

Her peaceful days transformed into rocky storms. Green seaweed flung towards its stellar bow as foamy water whirled with a midnight glow. Devils' kneels rang withith gold glee. As she hung on from a life's rope, demons caroused, gleaming in a storm's eye!

Destiny strangled any hope of escape! She washed and slipped in her marred sludge as harlequin rainbows rose from the torrential rain.

She longed to live to become a better writer; she returned to a bruised harbor. Chaparral leaves glisten, an escape of nurture, but even acetous boroughs cannot love. Thus, after pondering for some time, Samantha realized writing was not like the movies. Writing takes so much time that even the god of time wouldn't be able to handle it; he'd be suffocated. You must bleed your soul with your bloody ink!

To become a better writer, you must write until your hands fall off. This is until you taste the bitter enzymes in your drooping mouth. This is until your fingers peel away from the mechanical keyboard. You must smell the rotting away of your flesh, both physical and mental. You must write during breakfast. Oozy-yellow-encrusted eggs will jump with emotional fortitude, and the orange juice will glisten as the translucent glass burbles, pumping out motivation in droves. A coffee machine screams for attention, but you won't allow that to get in the way of polishing your craft.

You must write during lunch, with steaming smoked cheddar and glistening apples combined with a sweet glaze on a grizzled cheese; the air is starched with moisture and vague sensations hiss, the same sensations telling Samantha that writing takes time to perfect and that it does not fall down from the heavens.

You cannot frolic in the streams of a dampened conscience and expect excellent writing to fall like some throned emperors in a deadly war.

You must write during dinner as you eat a flank steak, doused with vegetable oil, rinsed with soy sauce, dappled by red wine vinegar, squeezed with lemon juice, perfected with Dijon mustard, minced with two cloves of garlic, and ground with black pepper. It will also be grilled to a superb medium-rare. Like cooking a steak, writing takes time, and there will be failures, but the only way you'll learn from your failures is through experience. When you wake up, the morning light, blue and suffused with clouds, will envelop you in a trance as you continue to perfect your craft. It will feel like hammered nails into your flesh; your flesh will remain bruised and want to fall off the bone, like a tenderloin, but you cannot give in or give up; others will catch up with you.

You must tend to your writing like you would tend to a garden. You want constant nutrition, burning sunlight, and endless endorphins rushing through you like a serene calm. But a thunderstorm will strike your garden, damaging everything in its wake. You will fall to your knees, clinging to your writing as the storm tears it apart. It roasts every plant and calls out to you, screaming at the top of its lungs that your garden needs better work. The storm will insult you at every turn; its shoulders will coil around every rock you use for protection, as your life is delicately tethered. The bitter aftertaste of nectar lingers on your tongue; your hands cannot stop shaking seeing your work destroyed for all to see, even the mighty publishers. The tattered garden will make them laugh.

Your eyes will be full of plaster colors, and your glassy tears will cascade downwards, gushing forth like a dampened waterfall. You will reach harmful procrastination levels and wonder where it all went wrong in your life ...

Samantha understood this truth and learned to garden from watching others work their craft. She read up on their gardening techniques to better prepare for the storm and gain much-needed expertise and experience. Writing is a process that needs time to grow and nurture. It will not come in one week, as you turn out hundreds of pages. It happens when enough love and care is put into it. Thus, writing is not at all like movies. With the right hope, you can handle the hurricane that will come your way. However, you need experience in dealing with hurricanes. Just do not expect the world to be so easy-going regarding writing. Do not bury an unwritten story inside you!

Millions of diligent workers are fighting for the same position as you, to get their dreams published, and for others to see them on a golden stage.

Your heart will hammer in your ear like an ironworker's mallet as you carve a bold destiny with glistening steel! Today, you have the power to craft new writing.