What's your inspiration? Join the community of the coolest, funnest, most inspiring and enterprising folks you could ever want to meet! Subscribe to the Muse News for updates, class info, and event invitations. Join the Tribe!

Writer and collector of fascinating information, Isaac Assimov said, “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”

That’s how many writers feel. There are all kinds of quotes from writers, available on the web, that illustrate how writing is at once a love, an art, and a skill.

Gloria Steinem said, “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”

There are things, you can do, however, to sharpen your skill, to better your writing business, and to become more professional, more in-demand and a higher-paid writer.

“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them,” wrote Flannery O’Connor.

Learn to Write

There are many ways you can learn to write more effectively, with more readability, and more gravity.

• Take a writing class.
• Join a writing group.
• Allow for critique of your work.

T. S. Elliot commented, “Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.”

Learn to Edit

Tools and helpers exist to improve the project you put out into the world.

• Use Spellcheck.
• Hire an editor.
• Write multiple drafts.

“Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary,” Thomas Jefferson.

Learn to Critique

• Read a piece from the POV of someone who doesn’t love you or your work.
• Read others with a critical eye and be honest about how you relate.
• Read a piece out loud - you catch phrases that need to be reworked to flow better.

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out,” Stephen King, "On Writing."

Learn to Accept Help

• Get a Writing Coach.
• Get an Intern.
• Outsource what you’re not good at.

James Thurber is quoted with, “Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task.”

There are a number of habits you can get into to raise your level of writing, your frequency of paid work and your place on the “Am-Pro” spectrum. Everybody can write. Only the dedicated professional will make a living at it.

Let me begin by stating this: “a writer writes.” There’s no other qualification needed. That being said, there are a plethora of ways one can write / be a writer.

In this article, let’s explore how to tell if you or other writers you know fall into the “Pro” category or the “Am” category. We’ll also, be looking at ways to move yourself into a more professional level, if that’s what you want to do.

There are a few different schools of thought on how to tell an amateur writer from a professional writer.

Money

Does one get paid to write? Professional.

Does one PAY to write, or write solely for pleasure, with no money coming in? Amateur.

Of course, one could be a hobbyist, and write professional quality works, and maybe make money. Do you pay taxes on the profits you make from writing? Do you make any profit at all?

There’s a lot of gray area here, but it’s a valid comparison.

Time

Does one write occasionally? Amateur.

Does one write from the time they open their eyes, until they fall asleep? Pro.

Skill

Skill is a great indicator and is often what tips the scale, in my opinion. If you have a great writing skill, whether a natural talent for stringing words together, or you absorb a lot in language and writing classes and you know how to apply it - you may qualify as a professional quality writer.

That being said, some less than proficient writers do make a living with this craft we love.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more about “Habits & Quotes of Professional Writers. (Will be a 404 until 10/31.)