overview
If you want to continue honing your artistry and craft you should:
- know yourself – your strengths and weaknesses, your best working conditions, how to get the ideas flowing and how to prevent writer’s block.
- know your own musical and artistic lineage and research the great traditions that feed into it.
- study the writing process, preferably with a teacher, but books and other resources can be valuable.
- research the great writers’ craft, especially those writers who are most important in your lineage.
- learn to objectively evaluate your work – as discussed in the previous chapter, this is an important aspect of your critical thinking.
- write as much as possible – in developing your artistry and craft, there’s simply no substitute for the actual act of writing.
Finally, the essence of this book is to encourage you to develop a process of writing that is best suited to you and how you work. Learn both the art and craft of writing. Hone your craft so that you are fast and efficient, leaving as much time and energy as possible for the artistic components of the writing process.