Be a Voracious Consumer of Stories
Being an author takes a lot of time and commitment. Depending on how fast an author can craft clean copy determines how much time they must dedicate to the various steps of finishing a manuscript. Perhaps an author is a fast writer, which might require them to spend more time editing. On the flip side, maybe an author agonizes over each word as they write, which might take longer to get through a draft but requires less time editing. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of writing and editing, there is one activity you should also dedicate some of your time to. What's nice about this activity is that it can often be relaxing. I refer, of course, to consuming stories.
Read universal stories with wide appeal.
While we encourage writers to pursue the stories they want to tell, if these stories only focus on wish fulfillment or other narcissistic tales, their audiences are likely to be limited to themselves. Reading other...