Perhaps you want to:

• Finally finish that novel that you started ten years ago
• Improve your spelling and grammar
• Make money from your writing
• Have a popular blog with lots of readers
• Publish a non-fiction book to support your business
• …or something else entirely.

Whatever your writing goal is, follow these four steps and you’ll find yourself making much faster progress.

#1: Write More Frequently

You don’t have to write every day, but you do need to write regularly. Be honest: how often do you write? If it’s less than twice a week, you’ll probably find yourself struggling to make any meaningful progress.

The great thing about writing frequently is that small steps really do add up. For instance:

• If you write 500 words three times a week, you’ll have 78,000 words after a year.
• That’s a whole novel.
• If you write two blog posts every week, you’ll have 104 blog posts after a year.
• If you write just 200 words every single day (about two paragraphs), you’ll have 73,000 words after a year. That’s enough for three non-fiction ebooks.

Do it: Decide on a time and place for your writing. Aim for at least two sessions per week, and a total of 1,500 words every week.

#2: Edit After You Write

There are two traps that writers fall into with editing, and both cause problems:

• Editing while writing
• Not editing at all

If you edit while you write, you’ll struggle to get anywhere. You’ll write a paragraph or two and immediately delete them because you think they aren’t good enough. It’s much more efficient to simply write until you’ve finished the article, chapter or scene that you’re working on. You can edit later.

If you don’t edit at all, your work won’t be as good as it could be. Nobody can write a perfect first draft. Your writing might need just a quick polish, or it might need a radical overhaul: either way, editing is essential – after you’ve written.

Do it: Next time you write, don’t stop to edit. Keep moving forwards. When you do finish, print your work out and read it through on paper: this makes it easier to spot mistakes and things that you want to change.

#3: Learn New Techniques

Whatever type of writing you do, there’ll always be something new to learn. Great writers aren’t born that way: they become great through conscious practice and through deliberately developing their craft.

There are all sorts of things you can learn, either from books or from taking a writing course. For instance:

• Freelancers: How to write great sales copy for clients
• Novelists: How to write dialogue
• Bloggers: How to write guest posts to bring in more readers
• Poets: How to use different formal structures

Do it: Pick ONE new writing skill that you want to gain, in order to take your writing further. Look for a book or course that could help you. You’ll need to set aside time to learn and time to put what you learn into practice.

#4: Get Help and Support

Writing can feel like a very lonely activity at times – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Help and support from other writers will make a huge difference to your chances of success: it’s much easier to write regularly when you’re part of a supportive community.

Your local area may well have a writers’ group that meets regularly: try looking for adverts in your library or in bookstores, or search on Meetup.com. If there isn’t a group nearby, how about starting one yourself?

If it’s not easy for you to meet up face-to-face with other writers, you can find hundreds of different writing communities online. As well as giving you the opportunity to ask advice and share tips with other members, these also often allow you to share your writing and get feedback.

Do it: Look for a writers’ group locally or online, and consider joining. If you’re not sure about joining a formal group, try searching for other writers on Twitter.

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, and has just launched a new community and teaching site, WritersHuddle.com. The doors are open until 31st January. Inside, you’ll find mini-courses to help you learn new skills, forums where you can interact with other members, and lots of other goodies too. Make sure to check it out.

How can this be? High school graduates spend part of virtually every day of school for thirteen years learning, and relearning, and then learning again, the fundamentals of the English language, from letter recognition to critical essays. Why, then, do many colleges and universities have remedial writing courses packed with students who earned exemplary grades in high school English?

Most people, at least in developed countries, spend at least a couple of years in college, which involves completion of many writing assignments. How is it that many employers bemoan the poor writing skills of their college-graduate workers and toss so many ineptly written resumes in the trash?

Here’s a radical response to those questions: You can teach writing, but you can’t teach good writing. As a former public school student, and as a former public school teacher, I know that much of what passes for instruction in writing is dull and bereft of context. But I also know that many teachers succeed in devising and/or employing imaginative ways of helping students develop their writing skills. As a student, I experienced much of the first approach and little of the second. As a teacher, I used both methods but tried to focus on the latter strategy. I’m not sure that my efforts were successful.

I also taught copyediting to adults for many years. Some students didn’t belong in the class, because they virtually matched me in skill. Others didn’t belong in the class, because they had no business working in the writing and editing business. Most were somewhere in between. Did I help them? In class evaluations, many claimed that I did, or at least that I opened their eyes to how complex and creative editing can be.

I believe that students young and old can be taught the basics of spelling, style, and syntax, and of grammar and usage. But how do they develop the skill to integrate all these components into a clear, concise, coherent whole? As with any other skill, it takes practice, practice, practice — that’s where year after year of language arts instruction comes in. But I also believe that much of writing skill is innate: You have it, or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it.

That doesn’t give anyone an excuse to give up. You can’t help but get better through repetition. Positive learning experiences and inspirational teachers are significant factors, but ultimately, becoming a better writer is a matter of learning what better writing is (reading well-wrought fiction and nonfiction) and of composing your own prose. My tip for today? It’s simple. Read a lot, and write a lot more.

And I’ve introduced some in my own writing: In one book review, I identified the author by the wrong first name. In another, I gave Canis domesticus as the scientific name for the dog. (It’s Canis familiaris, or Canis familiaris domesticus, or Canis lupus familiaris.) In a recent post, I relied on my very limited knowledge of French to address a comment to mon amis, rather than to mes amis. (My editor caught the two book-review errors, and a few of this site’s readers called me on the friendly faux pas, as some have done with other infelicities of mine.)

So it is as a sympathetic peer, not as a sneering superior, that I entreat you to practice due diligence in optimizing the accuracy of your writing.

Analyze Your Errors

Do you consistently make the same types of errors? Misspelling of people’s names? Erroneous wording of lengthy job titles or organizational names? Math mistakes? Record and tally your errors, and resolve to triple-check every instance in your problem area(s).

And don’t rely on the popular media for this information. Go to the source — an individual’s or organization’s website — or to a respected reference work. If you are math challenged, consult with a computationally adept ally.

Keep a Checklist

For every article or blog post or other piece of content you write, produce a checklist from a master template you keep on your computer or in your hard-copy files.

On this list, direct yourself to check names and titles of people, names and locations of places, URLs, numbers and math, and definitions and explanations. Verify quotes, and check for spelling and grammar errors (and for spell-checking errors).

When you interview or consult with someone, ask them to spell their personal information. (My surname is the least common of several variants, so I always spell it out over the phone without prompting. Many people with unusually spelled names do the same, but a surprising number don’t.) Confirm all other details and information with objective resources. Keep track of Web links and other access to information. And especially if you’re writing about recondite or controversial topics, ask people you interview to identify situations in which other writers introduced errors into their articles so that you can avoid passing fumbled facts along.

Delete Your Ego

How many of you have read an article about something you have inside knowledge about and noticed factual errors? I know I have. Understand that accuracy in reporting is a problem endemic to professional and amateur writing alike. But determine to be someone who does something about it.

Acknowledge and correct your errors. If your sources are unreliable (facts or findings contradict the prevailing understanding) or subjective (an expert spins facts to support their viewpoint), jettison them and obtain more reliable ones. Always verify. (Follow the time-honored warning to reporters: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) And cultivate your skepticism; don’t let impressive job titles or institutional names or other trappings of infallibility distract you from seeking the truth.

Headline

Writers accustomed to thinking of persuasive writing as an assignment in English class may be tempted to skip over this section, but whether you’re crafting an opinion piece for a publication or writing ad copy, the headline is the most important part of the composition. Therefore, marketing consultants advise writers to spend half the time it takes to craft a piece of persuasive writing on the headline. Most people, they say, will read a headline, but few will read what follows unless the headline encourages them to.

The tone of a headline depends on the argument or message, of course; the wording will differ widely depending on whether the text is authoritative or entertaining (though there is no reason to omit one of these qualities at the expense of the other). Do, however, keep it as short as possible — certainly, less than ten words long, unless you simply can’t get your message across without more. (But try to abbreviate it one more time.)

Above all, write the headline first. You can always change it later, but by beginning with a headline, you provide yourself with a statement of your premise to keep you on track.

Structure

The following guidelines may read like something out of Comp 101, but bear with me:

1. Introduce your point in a topic paragraph.
2. Present your arguments in separate paragraphs.
3. Provide facts or examples for each argument.
4. Offer alternative or opposing viewpoints and argue why they are not valid or feasible.
5. Summarize your point in a concluding paragraph.

So, where’s the part about a five-paragraph essay in which each paragraph consists of five sentences? That’s the traditional formula for persuasive writing, but there’s no reason to follow it. You should, however, know it, and know the five structural steps, because you must know the rules before you can effectively break them.

Even if you’re writing ad copy, you might try drafting your proposition according to these templates. Then, at that point, you can mold your message in whatever form works for you. But adhering to the rules, at least initially, can help you develop your argument without concerning yourself with the format.

Techniques

Apply these ideas to your argument:

Provocation: Explain a problem that must be resolved — and solve it.
Explanation: Clearly state your solution.
Repetition: Reiterate your premise.
Authority: Establish your credibility with rational, responsible statements (ethos, or appeal to character), facts and figures (logos, or appeal to logic), and consistency. (The third classic value, pathos, or appeal to emotion, is not out of place among the first two, and often the most effective arguments incorporate all three.)
Testimony: Quote or refer to experts or well-known figures to bolster your argument.
Prediction: Depict a positive outcome to your solution.
Anticipation: Preempt or respond to disagreement or skepticism by rebutting other options.
Comparison: Encourage agreement by pointing to examples of existing phenomena that reflect your viewpoint or proposition.
Personality: Inject warmth and vitality into your argument to appeal to your readers.
Inclusion: Encourage buy-in by inviting readers to be part of the movement or the party of adherents to your viewpoint, or to join the clientele or customer base.

Style and Strategy

Consider your audience when determining your tone, but keep the basics in mind: Write clearly, coherently, and concisely, and use the active voice. But also keep in mind persuasive strategies such as emphasizing benefits, not features; writing for the undecided; and concentrating on expressing, not impressing, the reader.

Finally, recite your composition, no matter what the intended medium or audience. If it doesn’t work as a speech, it’s unlikely to succeed in writing.

As we mentioned before the course is a 6-week program aimed at people who want to get started making money freelance writing online. You’ll get in-depth lessons on everything you need to know, plus an exclusive forum where you can get all your questions answered.

We’ve got a 60-day money back guarantee: you can take the whole course and, if you decide it wasn’t right for you, just let us know and we’ll give you a no-hassle refund. Ah, you can keep the bonuses, even if you ask for a refund!

Here’s what one of our past students said about it:

I find that your course gave complete value for money, which very seldom happens elsewhere. The technical tips were great, necessary and very helpful, of course. What I liked most however, is that although I had a lot of questions, very few I had to actually raise myself because other people (not the same ones each time) raised them first at the private forums. This caused me to realize that there were many other would-be writers in the same position that I was in: wanting to write, hoping to make a living from writing but not sure how to go about it. (Samuel Lewis, United States)

What are you waiting for? Click here to read all the details and join us!.