I’ve lost count of how many people have told me they’d like to be a writer, just like me. Or just like other writers here at Forbes.com. Or elsewhere. Or that they wish they had done that before retirement. Or whatever.
Good catch. This is really a lot of fun, once you get past understanding the weighty responsibility you have to your readers, to your craft as a wordsmith, to your style and your brand, to excellence, (that’s the aspiration, anyway), to the legacy of your language as the cultural expression of history, to the veracity and honesty and originality of what you write, and to journalism as its own sacrosanct universe.
That’s plenty to carry around but I consciously give it its due every time I sit down at the keyboard. Like I said: a weighty responsibility.
But that’s not what most people see. They see the output, not the input. But let’s say they understood all this. Once they do, the advice couldn’t be simpler or clearer. If you want to be a writer, start writing. Without delay. And then don’t stop. Like anything else, the more you do something, the more you have a chance at getting good at it. Notice the ‘have a chance’ phrase in there. There are no guarantees. You have to commit to getting better, and that means knowing and accepting your current level, generally not easy to do. The work and the hope never end.
Interesting story about that. On his 90th birthday, legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he still practices every day. “Because I think I’m making progress,” he said. See?
I taught a graduate-level leadership and communication class for 15 years at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey in which students were required to write five papers. So, I read and graded nearly 4,000 papers, and not one of the nearly 800 students who passed through my class handed in a first paper that could be considered a final publishable document. Fifteen weeks later it was different, I wasn’t reading Pulitzer Prize material (geez, I still aspire to that), but I had in my hands vastly improved works. Now imagine what kind of development you could show if you write every day instead of five times a semester.
Once you’ve committed, find a place to publish: an established blog (if they’ll have you), your own blog, freelancing, part-time work for a local paper or journal, etc. Work for peanuts if you have to, volunteer if you can, but work. Write, write, write. And then put it in front of enough people for as much constructive criticism as you can get. This is what paying your dues looks like: you just know you can do better but you have to get there first. Prove yourself. No way around it.
This is a good place to make sure to cover this. You’ve got to genuinely love writing. It won’t do if you’re just OK with it and are putting up with something you’re pretty good at. Ya’ gotta love it. Period.
In 2003, the opportunity arose for me to write a weekly career column for a major newspaper. I had been writing professional material for different jobs but never focused like this. I secured the assignment as a trial for three months and here it is 22 years later writing for the past 4½ years for Forbes.com in what has proven to be a wonderful gig.
In total, I’ve done a few things to make a living – adjunct professor, sales executive, coach, entrepreneur, and writer/columnist/author – all of which contribute to this advice: If you want to be a writer, start writing.