Steps to Publishing Your Writing

Writing one day is not enough.  If you want to call yourself a writer, then you must do what writers do and write frequently, daily in fact.

Don’t feel the need to write an article every day. Instead, work everything you write, an email, a letter, a job application, a blog, your diary.  If you write every day, it will become easier to write, you will naturally learn many of the tools of a writer, and you will be building a portfolio.

As Yvonne Rust, QSM, said, and I have proven many times over, put your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and reach with your other foot for the next rung, and so step by step, you will arrive at your goal.  It’s the only way.  You cannot become a writer by putting your pen to paper once in the six months or so.

Once you have completed your article to the stage where you believe it is publishable, do a final check by reading it aloud to yourself so you can hear how the words follow one another, and if the punctuation works where you have placed it.  This is one of the most valuable polishing tools in your writing kit.

If the piece trips you up anywhere, then you need to look at altering it.  By tripping you up, I mean, if you stumble over the words for any reason, then adjust them so the stumbling block is removed.  Sometimes it’s as simple as shifting a comma.  Sometimes a whole sentence just won’t read properly.

If you find yourself with a sentence which just won’t quite work, no matter how many times you rearrange it, then invoke the writer’s golden rule; when in doubt, whip it out!  If it just won’t read properly, nine times out of ten, removing the sentence altogether solves the problem, and usually without any detriment whatsoever to your article.