So you want to be a writer but there’s more to it than churning out one book. Living a writer’s life is not easy but you can do it if you follow these tips:

A Professional Writer Writes – A Lot

You must have very disciplined habits, whether writing is your main job or a side job. If you want to be a successful author then you must see writing as a job. Written anything today? No? Been writing every day? No? Then you are not doing your job. Research, read, write, talk about it – these are all necessary parts of the job but your real job is writing.

A Professional Writer Moves Around – A Lot

And I don’t mean from city to city or state to state. I mean physically getting up and moving around. It has long been known, from a health point of view, that sitting still and not moving for long periods of time is not healthy. You need to move but going to the gym for an hour twice a week is not enough. You need to increase your activity every day so, set yourself a time limit on writing and then get up and move about – go for a walk, push the vacuum cleaner around, anything so long as you move on a regular basis.

Good Writers Won’t Take Any Notice of Critics or Trolls

And that means from any critic or reviewer. If it’s a bad review, set yourself a time limit on how long you are going to let it upset you and then push it aside. You’ve got plenty of work to be doing and letting bad reviews get you down for too long will push you off track – that means they win. If you are dealing with social media trolls or online haters, please keep in mind that they are not real critics, not legitimate ones anyway. These are people with one goal in mind – to stir up controversy because it results in more page views for them and that is all they are interested in. Deal with them by ignoring them; don’t give them any fuel or the satisfaction of knowing they are getting to you – sooner or later they will find another unsuspecting victim.

A Good Writer Reads – A Lot

Are you seeing a theme here yet? Surely reading is one of the things that made you want to write in the first place? If you stopped reading and started filling your free time with playing games, then stop it and get back to the books. Read books that come from the genre you are writing in and then broaden your horizons. Read to research, read for fun. The more you read, the better a writer you will become and it gives you something to talk about in company.

Find Your Own Path and Your Own Voice

It doesn’t matter how experienced the person giving you advice is, your path is yours to carve out and yours to walk – yours alone. Have respect for your own process, regardless of how different it is from other people’s. Everyone works in different ways and that is what makes us unique – the same applies to your writing voice. Have respect for your dreams, your hopes, and your experience, not to mention skill and talent. They also make you a unique writer.

Remember; you have one job – to show the world that you have what it didn’t know it needed.