Homing your Skills

A writer writes. So if you're sitting down and writing stuff that matters to you, even if you're not published yet? You're a writer. Own it.

I think you hear the same advice to new writers—read everything, learn to revise, develop a discipline—over and over again because it WORKS. But I think the advice I wish I had learned is that there are agony days and hate days and days you just can't turn off that "writer" voice in your head. Sometimes, you really don't know why you're doing this—but you keep doing it. And I think if that's how you feel: The having to do it, that inner drive, then you ARE a writer, and then the rest is just the details of refining and homing your skills.

-Anna Davies, Advice to Writers