How to Become a Better Writer: The Uncomfortable Truths Nobody Tells You

I've been writing professionally for over fifteen years, and I'm still learning. That's the first thing you need to know. If someone tells you they've mastered writing, they're either lying or they've stopped growing. Writing is like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands – just when you think you've got it, it slips through your fingers and transforms into something else entirely.

The real question isn't whether you can become a better writer. You can. The question is whether you're willing to do what it actually takes, which is far messier and more personal than any writing workshop will admit.

The Myth of Natural Talent (And Why It's Holding You Back)

Let me tell you about Sarah. She was in my MFA program, one of those writers everyone whispered about – "Oh, she's just naturally gifted." Her prose sparkled. Her metaphors landed perfectly. And she hasn't published a single thing in the decade since we graduated.

Meanwhile, Tom – who couldn't string together a coherent paragraph when we started – just sold his third novel. The difference? Tom understood something Sarah didn't: writing isn't about talent. It's about showing up when you'd rather be doing literally anything else.

I spent years believing I wasn't a "real" writer because my first drafts looked like someone had thrown alphabet soup at a wall. Then I discovered that Joan Didion – JOAN DIDION – once said she didn't know what she thought until she wrote it down. Even she fumbled in the dark.

Reading Like a Thief

You want to know the dirty secret of every writer you admire? They're all thieves. Not plagiarists – thieves. There's a difference.

When I read now, I'm not just consuming stories. I'm performing autopsies. Why did that sentence make me gasp? How did the author make me care about a character in just three lines? I keep a notebook specifically for stolen techniques. Not words, not phrases – techniques.

Last week, I was reading a piece about grief, and the writer described silence as "thick as wool." I didn't steal those words. But I stole the idea of giving weight to absence, of making nothing into something tangible. That's the kind of theft that makes you better.

The problem is, most people read passively. They're tourists. You need to read like an apprentice watching a master craftsman – noting every deliberate choice, every tool selection, every seemingly effortless motion that actually took years to perfect.

The Physical Act of Writing (Yes, Physical)

Writing isn't just mental. It's visceral. I learned this the hard way when I developed chronic neck pain from hunching over my laptop like a gargoyle guarding a cathedral.

Your body affects your writing more than you think. When I switched to a standing desk, my sentences got shorter, punchier. When I write by hand, my thoughts meander like a river finding its course. When I type, I think in bursts and fragments.

Try this: write the same paragraph three ways. Once by hand. Once standing at your computer. Once lying on your back, talking into your phone. I guarantee you'll get three different paragraphs. Not just different words – different thoughts.

There's something about the physical resistance of pen on paper that slows your brain just enough to let better ideas surface. It's like the difference between sprinting and walking through a forest. When you sprint, you see the path. When you walk, you see the mushrooms growing on fallen logs, the way light filters through leaves, the spider web you almost walked through.

Finding Your Voice (Spoiler: You Already Have One)

Everyone talks about "finding your voice" like it's a treasure hunt. Like your voice is buried somewhere, waiting to be discovered. That's backwards.

Your voice isn't hidden. It's been talking to you your whole life – you've just been taught to ignore it. Remember how you wrote before anyone told you there were rules? Before you learned that sentences need subjects and verbs in proper order? That wild, unself-conscious expression – that's your voice.

The trick isn't finding it. The trick is letting it out despite everything you've learned about "good" writing.

I once spent six months trying to write like David Foster Wallace. Footnotes everywhere. Sentences that went on for days. It was exhausting, and more importantly, it was dishonest. My brain doesn't work in footnotes. It works in fragments and sudden connections, like a pinball machine where three different thoughts collide and produce a fourth I didn't see coming.

Your voice is the way you think when you're not trying to impress anyone. It's how you'd explain something to your best friend at 2 AM. It's the email you write when you're angry and don't send. That's the energy you need to capture.

The Revision Trap

Here's where I'm going to make some enemies: you're probably revising too much.

I know, I know. "Writing is rewriting." Every famous writer has some quote about how the real work happens in revision. And they're not wrong, exactly. But they're not telling you the whole truth either.

There's a point where revision becomes procrastination. Where you're not making the work better, you're just making it different. I've watched writers polish the life out of their prose, turning something raw and powerful into something technically perfect and utterly forgettable.

The best writing I've ever done has been the stuff I was slightly embarrassed to publish. The pieces where I left in the weird tangent about my grandmother's hands, or the angry paragraph about semicolons that didn't quite fit. Those rough edges are where your humanity shows through.

Yes, revise. Fix the grammar. Clarify the muddy parts. But know when to stop. Know when you're sanding away the very texture that makes your writing yours.

Writing Through the Mess

Life doesn't stop for your writing practice. Your kid gets sick. Your job demands overtime. Your brain decides to serve up a delightful cocktail of anxiety and self-doubt.

The writers who last aren't the ones who write when conditions are perfect. They're the ones who write through the mess.

I wrote my best essay in a hospital waiting room while my father was in surgery. Not because trauma makes for better writing – that's a romantic myth. But because I needed somewhere to put all that fear and love and rage, and the page was the only place that could hold it.

You don't need a cabin in the woods. You don't need uninterrupted hours. You need to be willing to write badly when you can't write well. To show up when showing up is the last thing you want to do.

Some days, I write one good sentence. Some days, I write three pages of garbage. Both count. Both are practice. Both are better than the perfect paragraph I didn't write because I was waiting for ideal conditions.

The Community Paradox

Writing is solitary. Except when it isn't.

You need other writers, but here's the catch – you need the right other writers. The wrong writing group can destroy your confidence faster than a rejection letter from your dream publication. I've seen it happen. Hell, it happened to me.

I spent two years in a writing group that made me question every instinct I had. They wanted literary fiction. I wrote weird stuff about robots falling in love. They wanted subtle epiphanies. I wanted explosions – emotional and literal. Every week, I'd leave feeling like I was doing everything wrong.

Then I found my people. Writers who got excited when I brought in something strange. Who pushed me to be weirder, not safer. Who understood that feedback isn't about making everyone write the same way – it's about helping each writer become more themselves.

But here's the paradox: you also need to protect your writing from too much community. There's a point where feedback becomes noise. Where you're writing for your workshop instead of your reader. Where you lose track of what you're trying to say because you're so focused on what everyone else thinks you should be saying.

The Money Question

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. The thing nobody wants to discuss because it feels crass or materialistic: money.

If you want to be a better writer, you need time to write. Time costs money. This is basic math that our culture likes to pretend doesn't exist.

I worked three jobs while trying to finish my first book. I wrote on my lunch breaks, on the bus, in the ten minutes between when one student left and another arrived for tutoring. Was it romantic? No. Did it make me a better writer? Absolutely.

Not because suffering creates art – another dangerous myth. But because it taught me to be ruthless with my time and clear about my priorities. When you only have thirty minutes to write, you don't waste twenty-five of them checking Twitter.

The money question isn't about getting rich from writing. It's about creating a life that gives you space to write. Maybe that means freelancing. Maybe it means a day job you can leave at the office. Maybe it means living somewhere cheaper so you need less money. There's no right answer, only the answer that works for you.

The Technology Problem

We need to talk about the internet. It's making us worse writers.

Not because technology is evil. Because it's training us to think in tweets and hot takes. To value immediate response over considered thought. To write for algorithms instead of humans.

I noticed my writing getting shallower a few years ago. Snappier, sure. More shareable, definitely. But it had lost something – depth, maybe, or patience. I was writing for people scrolling on their phones, not people sitting down to actually read.

So I started a practice I call "slow writing." Once a week, I turn off my wifi, close all my apps, and write like it's 1995. No quick Google searches. No checking if that quote is exactly right. Just me and the words and whatever's in my head.

The writing that comes out is different. Stranger. More associative. Sometimes wrong in interesting ways. It reminds me that writing isn't just about transmitting information efficiently. It's about creating an experience, a journey, a conversation between minds.

What Nobody Tells You About Getting Better

Here's the truth: getting better at writing will ruin your life in small, specific ways.

You'll become insufferable at parties when someone uses "literally" wrong. You'll notice every misplaced modifier on every menu. You'll lie awake at night thinking of the perfect word you couldn't find at 3 PM.

But you'll also start seeing the world differently. You'll notice the way light changes throughout the day, because you might need to describe it someday. You'll listen to conversations with a different ear, catching the rhythms and patterns of how people actually talk. You'll become a collector of moments, phrases, images – a magpie building a nest of words.

Getting better at writing isn't about learning rules or mastering techniques. It's about becoming more awake to the world and more honest about your place in it. It's about developing the courage to say what you really think, not what you think you should think.

The Only Advice That Matters

After all these words, here's the only advice that actually matters: write like you're running out of time. Because you are.

I don't mean frantically. I mean urgently. Like what you have to say matters. Like someone needs to hear it. Like you're the only person who can say it quite this way.

Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Stop waiting to feel ready. Nobody feels ready. Ever.

The writers who get better are the ones who write anyway. Who push through the discomfort and doubt and terrible first drafts. Who understand that becoming a better writer isn't a destination – it's a way of moving through the world.

You already have everything you need. A mind that thinks. A life that's been lived. Something to say.

The rest is just practice. And stubbornness. And the wild, irrational belief that words matter, that stories matter, that adding your voice to the endless human conversation is worth the effort.

So write. Write badly. Write boldly. Write like nobody's watching and like everyone is. Write the truth you're afraid to speak. Write the lie that tells a deeper truth.

Just write.

And keep writing.

Even when – especially when – you don't know what comes next.

Authoritative Sources:

Bird, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995.

Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Shambhala Publications, 1986.

King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2000.

Lamott, Anne. Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. Riverhead Books, 2018.

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. Mariner Books, 2015.

Prose, Francine. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. Harper Perennial, 2007.

Strunk, William, and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th ed., Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. Harper & Row, 1976.