4 Steps To Becoming A Professional Writer

4 Steps To Becoming A Professional Writer

ByNeal Martin

Writing and publishing is a long game. If you want to succeed at it, you have to be prepared to put in years of practice.

Many people who want to write for a living don’t like to hear that. It can be off-putting to know that you may have to slave away day after day for years, writing without any outward signs of success.

When I was a full-time martial artist, I came across people all the time who wanted to be like Bruce Lee or their favorite UFC fighter. I often watched in amusement as their faces dropped when I told them how many years of training it would take to get to that high standard.

Too many people want the glory and success without doing any of the hard work to get it. It’s the same across all of society, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. It’s like people want a magical solution that will whisk them straight from beginner to professional without having to bother with any of the steps in between.

Well, things don’t work like that. If you want to be even half-way competent in something, you still need to work your ass off. To be awesome, you have to work even harder.

It’s no different with writing.

Story Structure: A Fiction Writer’s Best Friend

Story Structure: A Fiction Writer’s Best Friend

ByNeal Martin

Back when I started to write fiction, one of the things I struggled with was plotting my stories. I wasn’t alone there either. How to structure a novel is the single biggest challenge that I see most beginner and novice writers complain about, and with good reason.

The plot structure of a novel, more than anything else, will determine the success or failure of that novel.

You can have a cast of great characters, interesting settings and all the rest, but without a logical narrative structure to hang those elements on, your story will go nowhere, leaving anyone who reads it unsatisfied, if they even finish the whole book and don’t put it down after a few chapters.

3 Ways People Fail At Writing (And How To Make Sure YOU Succeed)

3 Ways People Fail At Writing (And How To Make Sure YOU Succeed)

ByNeal Martin

The single biggest lesson that I have learned on my self-publishing journey (and this includes blogging as well) is that as a writer you have to get out of your own way and go with the creative process.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that when it comes to writing and publishing (either through blogging or indie platforms like Kindle) many beginning writers never even get out of the gate because they don’t know how the creative process works.

Lots of writers when they start off will take an idea and try to develop it into a book or an article or a short story or whatever. They begin strong, full of enthusiasm, but inevitably they falter for various reasons and whatever progress they made comes to a stop.

Pen Names In Self-Publishing: Good Idea Or Not?

Pen Names In Self-Publishing: Good Idea Or Not?

ByNeal Martin

The decision as to whether or not to use a pen name is one that many self-publishers have had to make at some point.

It is something I debated for a long while when I first decided to move from writing non-fiction to fiction.

So in this first article for the blog, I would like to go over some of the pro’s and con’s of using a pen name. If you are at the stage where you are considering using a pen name, this article may help you with your decision.