Goals can help you do a lot of things. They keep you focused, they help you strive to be better, and they challenge you.
There are several different kinds of goals you should set for yourself. I’m thinking of three specifically. And trust me when I say they’ll help you immensely.
It’s with a bittersweet tone that I write this post, because it will be the last one I write for The Write Practice for a long time as I get ready for my first year of college. I’ll call this a “soft goodbye” since this is technically my last post, but it definitely will not be the last time I “hang around” The Write Practice. I’ve learned so much in the seven years I’ve contributed to this fabulous website and I still have so much to learn. I thought I’d share seven of those writing lessons with you now.
Have you ever come across a line of poetry that was so clear, you could taste the description as you read it? Or a paragraph in a novel that made your skin tingle from the tangibility of it? That kind of vivid description is powerful and hard to capture, but I’ve found that there is one key trick to help you get started.
We’ve all been in this situation: you write a first draft, or the beginning of one, and it seems like nothing is going well. All you want to do is give up and throw everything away. It can be extremely tempting, and while it’s okay to give up on projects sometimes, you should never throw anything away.
“Writer” is an extremely broad term; after all, there are dozens of genres in which you might write. Poetry, novels, memoir, historical fiction, picture books, cookbooks, instruction manuals, fan-fiction, all of these barely scratch the surface of what you can do with your talents. No matter what you write, though, there are significant benefits to writing short stories that will help you learn and grow within your craft.
