ike to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a w

Discipline and practice are essential to develop writing skills. If you consider writing as an art, they will help your writing tremendously.

Some people are born with writing in their blood. They can sit down and start writing -- thousands upon thousand of words, delicately and precisely threaded together like beautiful pearls.

But some aspiring writers are arrested in their dream of effortless good writing by lack of discipline.

For them, the act of writing is painful. A keyboard -- or just a good old fountain pen -- at hand, they joust with a sheet of paper, intimidated and paralysed by the vast blankness, a mockery of our dumbstruck wordlessness.

But writers have two secret weapons -- practice and discipline -- that will ultimately help them achieve an easier, more fluent and fruitful writing style.

A very prolific writer once said: "Discipline and its practice are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. We cannot separate discipline from practice; they have to go together." [1]

He also said: "A disciplined life comes from constant practice. Nobody can be a world champion overnight. What does practice mean? Practice means patience, patience-light. Patience is not something weak. It is something dynamic; it is something illumining. We want it in order to have a disciplined life." [2]

Keeping in mind that each writer can have very different needs, here are ten tips that can help your writing.

1) Make writing part of your day-to-day life. Find a fixed time in your day when you can sit down and dedicate yourself to writing without any distraction.

2) Set yourself a goal based on words, not time. Time-based goals are not as fruitful, because allow for lots of excuses. When I started to practice writing as a discipline, I felt 500 words per hour were a good challenge for me, but your personal goal can be higher or lower. Chose a target that is not too easy to reach, but not too difficult either.

3) Before going to sleep, it helps to think for a minute or two about what you are going to write the next day. Hopefully your subconscious will do some work for you.

4) Even if you are busy, uninspired, or simply tired, sit down and write something. You really need to write daily if you want to form this habit.

5) Some people like to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a wi

, intimidated and paralysed by the vast blankness, a mockery of our dumbstruck wordlessness.

But writers have two secret weapons -- practice and discipline -- that will ultimately help them achieve an easier, more fluent and fruitful writing style.

A very prolific writer once said: "Discipline and its practice are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. We cannot separate discipline from practice; they have to go together." [1]

He also said: "A disciplined life comes from constant practice. Nobody can be a world champion overnight. What does practice mean? Practice means patience, patience-light. Patience is not something weak. It is something dynamic; it is something illumining. We want it in order to have a disciplined life." [2]

Keeping in mind that each writer can have very different needs, here are ten tips that can help your writing.

1) Make writing part of your day-to-day life. Find a fixed time in your day when you can sit down and dedicate yourself to writing without any distraction.

2) Set yourself a goal based on words, not time. Time-based goals are not as fruitful, because allow for lots of excuses. When I started to practice writing as a discipline, I felt 500 words per hour were a good challenge for me, but your personal goal can be higher or lower. Chose a target that is not too easy to reach, but not too difficult either.

3) Before going to sleep, it helps to think for a minute or two about what you are going to write the next day. Hopefully your subconscious will do some work for you.

4) Even if you are busy, uninspired, or simply tired, sit down and write something. You really need to write daily if you want to form this habit.

5) Some people like to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a w

an? Practice means patience, patience-light. Patience is not something weak. It is something dynamic; it is something illumining. We want it in order to have a disciplined life." [2]

Keeping in mind that each writer can have very different needs, here are ten tips that can help your writing.

1) Make writing part of your day-to-day life. Find a fixed time in your day when you can sit down and dedicate yourself to writing without any distraction.

2) Set yourself a goal based on words, not time. Time-based goals are not as fruitful, because allow for lots of excuses. When I started to practice writing as a discipline, I felt 500 words per hour were a good challenge for me, but your personal goal can be higher or lower. Chose a target that is not too easy to reach, but not too difficult either.

3) Before going to sleep, it helps to think for a minute or two about what you are going to write the next day. Hopefully your subconscious will do some work for you.

4) Even if you are busy, uninspired, or simply tired, sit down and write something. You really need to write daily if you want to form this habit.

5) Some people like to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a w

ses. When I started to practice writing as a discipline, I felt 500 words per hour were a good challenge for me, but your personal goal can be higher or lower. Chose a target that is not too easy to reach, but not too difficult either.

3) Before going to sleep, it helps to think for a minute or two about what you are going to write the next day. Hopefully your subconscious will do some work for you.

4) Even if you are busy, uninspired, or simply tired, sit down and write something. You really need to write daily if you want to form this habit.

5) Some people like to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a w

ike to write late at night, but if you are just starting and have problems with discipline, you may want to try writing first thing in the morning. Early morning hours can be very fruitful -- I wake up at 5 so I can dedicate at least an hour to my writing, before anything else comes up.

6) Before writing, try to meditate. Meditation is a very, very powerful tool in a writer's arsenal. If you are not doing it yet, give it a chance. It works for me.

7) The Internet is a major distraction. While you write, make sure you unplug yourself from the Internet. If you use a wireless connection, switch that off as well. If you need to check some on-line reference, jot down your questions and search for the answers later.

8) Part of discipline is to learn the tools of the trade. Learn to use a good text editor -- one that will allow you to focus on writing and not on froufrou. But don't let it take over your practice! EMACS is one of the best text editors out there -- and it is free. [3]

9) Don't worry if you do not know how to begin -- just start writing! Don't wait to form a clear outline of what you want to say. Get those fingers moving on the keyboard -- or the pen scratching the paper. After you get the juices running, you will find that some structure is important -- either as an outline or just in your mind.

10) Some aspiring writers try to write with music in the background, or other people in the room. Concentration really favours silence and solitude.

Footnotes:

[1] "Illumination-Fruits", by Sri Chinmoy [2] "Earth's Cry Meets Heaven's Smile - Part 2", by Sri Chinmoy [3] Neal Stephenson said about EMACS: "If you are a professional writer -- i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed -- EMACS outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish." - "In the Beginning Was The Command Line" - by Neal Stephenson