hm!!! u know what, i was thinking abt it the other day how the one thing that actually pushed me to improve was mania. like i'm not even kidding.

to be clear i don't mean medical mania i mean that to be good at creating you gotta be a little insane about it. like u really have to find something to be obsessed abt and then write abt it As Much As You Can. the thing abt improving is that you have to Care abt other things Besides improving. focusing too hard on just getting better makes u short-sighted and miserable imo. and besides, "better" is so subjective and the goal-posts are so movable.

when you Like something so much that it brings u to the point of creation, ur focus shifts to making the piece Good as opposed to making yourself Better. does that make sense? improvement not as an end-goal but as a by-product. like in my experience this has been the one way i've been able to hone my skills in a meaningful way without losing my mind and burning out so bad i stop writing entirely.

and even then, i think what's instrumental to any writer is to love the Process of the craft. you have to be enamored with the craft. you have to Care about the craft. like one thing i will push back against until the end of time is this idea that to take creation seriously is pretentious. or even if it is, fuck it and be unafraid to be pretentious anyway. creating is painful. it's so many ego deaths and cycles upon cycles of self-doubt and self-assurance. you have to love it So Much to keep doing it enough to get better.

but that aside, on the more practical side: read, Widely, Voraciously, And With Intention. if you find something abt an author's style that you like, try and figure out Why you like it. what about it works? how can you apply that to your own writing?

expand your vocabulary as much as possible. as is oft-said, words are the tools of your trade. the more tools you have, the more you can do.

and lastly, it's really truly all boils down to practice. writing is a skill, and like every other skill it's built up with time. there's no instant way to be better at it so you just have to keep going until you've found that you've made progress.

hopefully there was Something helpful for u in all this, anonnie!! i wish you all the luck in your writing journey 🫶🏻