Many people had uncomfortable experiences related to writing in school. Perhaps you were timed writing essays, even though you don’t do well under pressure of a ticking clock. Or maybe you were criticized when you read your essay in front of the class, and your classmates laughed at you.

So now it’s years later, and every time you need to write anything more extensive than a short email, you agonize. To get past the agonizing, rethink what happened. Were your classmates laughing at you or out of relief that they weren’t the ones in front of the class? Now that you’re in the work world, do you even need to write an essay, let alone one in a single class period?

Even if a teacher gave your writing poor bad grades way back when, it doesn’t mean you’re actually a poor writer. I once got a less than stellar grade on a writing assignment, yet here was only one critical remark on the paper. When I asked the teacher what else was wrong, he said something like : “I know the paper isn’t very good, but I can’t explain what the problem is.” Instead of constructive criticism and encouragement to improve, I got a confession of teacher ignorance.

If you weren’t taught how to be a good writer in school and didn’t receive much encouragement, it’s not your fault. You can leave all those old voices behind when you sit down to write.

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Many of us write only when we have to. The boss assigns us to write a report, or we need to send a personalized sympathy note. Writing can also help us figure out what we think and feel. Putting thoughts on paper forces us to organize and complete them. We see holes in our arguments and explanations. One thought on paper leads to another and then to another, many not even consciously thought of first.

These qualities are a perfect prescription for writing as a way to understand ourselves and the people we care about. This can be a powerful tool to assist in the crucial and difficult business of understanding emotions and relationships. Whether we use a cheap notebook or a leatherbound journal, writing carefully and precisely about life and relationships with others enriches our understanding of both immeasurably.

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The only way to become a better writer is to write and write and write again. You need to practice regularly, become comfortable writing, and try new ideas for improving your work.

If your life doesn’t provide frequent writing opportunities, you can create them. Here are a few to get you started:

• Volunteer to draft a report at work. (You’ll also rack up Brownie points with your boss and colleagues.)
• Make a long, chatty letter your gift to an elderly relative. (Far more desirable to the recipient than another object, and you only have to pay for the stamp.)
• Send a witty classnote to your college alumni magazine. (You’ve been meaning to stay in touch with your old friends.)

Write at least once a week. If you get to Sunday, and you haven’t written anything longer than a brief reply to an email all week, set aside time to write. Write a long letter to a friend or play around with an idea for a short story. What you write matters much less than the fact that you sit down and WRITE.

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It’s tempting to just start writing with the first thought you have. I’ve done it myself many times. But it’s not productive.

Plunging into writing without thinking first—and developing an outline—is a recipe for wasting time. Inevitably, you’ll end up throwing away much of what you write, because it won’t relate well to your project. It will be like driving around while you decide where you should be driving to. You’ll waste a lot of gas.

Even when you’re deep into a project, pause often to think. Professional writers think a lot. They get up from their desks and wander around the room. Or they stare at the ceiling while they figure out what to say next.

Don’t cut this process short. If you’re on a tight deadline, write down the first thing that comes into your head, because that text is better than no text. If you’re not on a tight deadline, begin composing in your head. Consider what you’re trying to say. Look at it from different angles.

Then sit down at the computer or pick up your pen and get something down. Your chances of having something usable and relevant to what you’re doing go up if you’ve put in some thinking time first. It’s like the old saw about elections in Chicago, “Vote early and often.” Adopt the writing axiom of “Think early and often.” Your writing will be the better for it.

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The more you read what other people write, the better your writing will become. Every author can teach something to do—or avoid—in your own writing.

If you’re like most American adults, you have little time to read for enjoyment. Chances are since you left college your reading choices have gotten narrower and narrower. Instead of classic novels, you’re reading the latest thriller. Instead of sociological studies, you’re reading newspaper headlines.

Yet if you want to improve your writing, you will need to read more varied material. Twitter postings can teach you how to be brief, while an opinion piece may give you a model for structuring a written argument. Reading novels along with your sixth grader could teach you how to describe characters and keep a plot moving.

A former editor of mine once advised me to read from the classics to Cosmopolitan magazine to improve my writing. I pass that advice on to you. Choose something you don’t ordinarily read at least once a week and discover what you can apply to your own writing.

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A well-told story can improve any piece of writing. Here are 5 reasons why:

Demonstrate results

We all want to feel that making a particular decision will make us thinner, richer, smarter, healthier, or happier. Telling the story of a person who did what we’re contemplating doing demonstrates the outcome.

Be more memorable

A story can make us laugh or cry, gasp or smile. The emotion the story elicits will make your information, advertisement, or argument more memorable.

Add weight

Nothing is more credible than real people saying real things.

Connect people to people

We crave connection with other people, even to those we don’t know personally. Stories link us to others.

Shape thinking

For many thousands of years, people have told stories to convey information and emotion. Stories used to be told orally around fires in caves. Today we read them on computer screens. The methods have changed, but the human preference for stories continues.

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Are you struggling to write highly effective content for your website? Go easy on blaming yourself. Writing for the web is very different than writing for print.

Web writing has to be different because we don’t read web pages in the same way we read a book or magazine. The light given off by a computer screen can be harsh on our eyes. We may struggle with glare and inaequate contrast between the letters and the background. We may also have trouble adjusting our screens and chairs for comfort.

Plus reading on a computer reminds us of looking at a TV, another box that emits light. And a mouse seems like a television remote, also a device for controlling a light-emitting box. So most of us treat web pages with the same short attention span we bring to TV programs. It’s click, click, click away.

The typical web reader will quickly click off your website if the page seems boring or complicated. She scans text, avoiding areas of densely written content and can easily miss information.

To slow down the clicking:

• Get to the point fast. Think like you’re writing an ad.
• Use short sentences and paragraphs.
• Include informative subheads.
• Put information in lists with bullets or numbers.
• Put key information in bold.

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