How to be a Better Writer, and have Confidence

Get them to read your blog. Have hundreds read your writing! Tips to tantalizing titles.

Lots of great information out in the world - book stores, libraries, the world wide web. Just need a few million hours to read and utilize it all!

If I take time to read everything to make me a better writer/blogger/whatever, I will not have time to actually write. So I pick and choose, read snippets, cut out magazine articles for later, bookmark web sites for future findings.

Does any of this really make me a better writer? Or, do I just use research as an excuse to not write?

Maybe a little bit of both. However, I figure as a writer of poetry, I will just write my poems, publish them, and hope someone picks up one of my books. I will continue to read how-to articles and books, and continue to hopefully improve my craft.

Calling myself a writer is hard for me. When asked "What do you do?" I say I have a publishing company, or grow and sell Christmas trees; rarely do I say I am a writer. That is something else I need to work on. It's not that I'm ashamed to say I write, in some part I think I'm trying to defuse the awkward moment -
            "What do you do?"
           "I'm a writer."
            "What do you write?"
            "Mostly poetry."
           "Oh, how nice....."
That awkward moment.

No one is really sure what to say to that. A response of children's books, or science fiction is easy; What is your story about? Where does it take place? etc. But poetry? "What do you write about?" "Life." How boring. Not much of a conversation there. I will put that hang-up away in the I really shouldn't care file, and try to loudly and proudly say "I am a writer."

After I finish the article I started yesterday.