There’s a lot of tips out there for aspiring writers. If you don’t believe me, just do a Google search for writing tips. So I figure, what the hell – I’ll add 5 more (which are probably covered in greater detail elsewhere, but I don’t care).

1. Be Passionate

The old axiom is “Write What You Know”, but I think the underlying argument is to write what you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about writing technical manuals for horse-drawn carriages, you might have a smaller audience – but they’ll have that same enthusiasm for the material you do. To be a productive writer, you have to care about what you’re writing: that’s how you find the time to keep doing it. Write what you think about, write what matters to you. Even if you don’t have your niche identified yet, the more you write the more it will develop naturally.

2. Say What You Mean

This reminds me of my Great Uncle John who grew up on the rolling hills of a rustic old farm, tucked back into the pine-studded woods of the old country. As a mischievous boy, he often found himself … Sometimes backstory, description and character-development is important. Other times, however, you need to just skip it and get to the point. Decide what’s best for your particular piece of writing at any given time and just say what you mean.

3. Keep Writing

Practice makes perfect, they say. I don’t know who “they” are, but most of them seem to get published. As with anything, the more you do it, the easier it comes and the better it gets. There’s no reason not to write during whatever available free time you have. And with the power of the internet (and blogs just like this one), you can put that work out to the public with the click of a button to see what others think (if you so desire).

4. Spice It Up

Find some new words to add to your vocabulary. Identify those words and phrases you use frequently and look for alternatives. Inject some humor, if applicable. Re-read your work after some time to get a fresh look at how you write and see where you can make improvements. Then, try to adopt those improvements during the writing process on later work.

5. Quit Looking for Tips

Your experiences are different from just about everyone else (unless you’re a conjoined twin). Most importantly, you need to quit making excuses and just start writing. So the occasional surf through a tip list is okay, but if you find yourself going from one list to another and never getting any writing done – STOP. You need to write and write often.

Master these 5 tips and you’ll be a writing fool before you know it.

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Jeremy Kerns is not a published author, nor does he have any experiences or qualifications to justify writing such a list of tips. He’s barely qualified to dress himself in the morning. If writing fever continues for more than 48 consecutive hours, please consult a doctor.