Making Ourselves Better Writers

Charity over at My Writing Journey had a fantastic post on Wednesday on tops to improve your writing in a post-NaNo life. She recommended using short story writing as a way to hone one's skills to become better a novelist.

It got me to thinking about my own writing and my inability to pack a story into fewer than 50K. Short stories have never come easily to me. I think it terms of macro plots with never ending twists and turns. Nothing in my brain is ever compact enough to fit into the short story model. Just ask my fiction instructor from last semester. My second story came back with a note to the effect of: "This is great. Too bad it's a novel in a short story's body."

Well, if nothing else, I have another novel idea on deck if I need it.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try my hand at short fiction again. We'll see how it goes.

What do you do to try and make yourself a better writer?

Then again, Charity's post got me thinking about a few other things, too. But you'll have to wait to find out what that's all about.

Tune in Monday for a Special Announcement :)