If you’re ready to take on the challenge, here are 12 steps to get you started

1 Write. every day, Just even do if it’s it. only Try a and few write lines, thought. because stories require continuity of 2 Do what works for you. Do you you need at it? a If daily so, set word one. count, Be realistic, to keep even conservative — start with 500 words — then if you exceed it, you can feel very smug. 3 Read. Read everything, particularly within the genre you aim to write in. If you like something, admire something, ask yourself, how did the author do it? 4 Get feedback. Be careful who you get it from. Not everyone will get what you’re trying to do. Not everyone will want you to succeed. Pick your first readers very carefully. 5 Get a good chair/ cushion/ desk. Seriously. If you plan to do this long term, the wear and tear on your hands, wrists, shoulders etc is ferocious. 6 Not everything is procrastination. You don’t have to be physically at your desk in order to be thinking. Some of my best ideas have come while loading the dishwasher. But, keep the book in mind, even when you are not writing. 7 Say what you mean. This sounds easy. But in a way it’s the hardest thing of all. It’s very easy to get lost and forget what you were trying to say, or settle for an approximation. 8 Show, don’t tell. This appears in every writing guide ever written, for a reason. It’s the Alpha and Omega of fiction writing. What does it mean? Literally, what it says. If you’re finding this hard, try taking one scene and writing it and rewriting it until it reveals itself, rather than you the writer, revealing it. 9 Be ruthless. If you start to wander off, bring the story back on track. It is very easy to get lost in your own book. 10 Kill your darlings. All writing advice contains this bit — for a reason. Find the bits you are most in love with, and put them under rigorous scrutiny. Does that really belong? Is it self-indulgent? Out of place? Nicely written but secretly a bit boring? 11 Write as a writer, read back as a reader. This is connected to killing your darlings. As a reader, look back over what you have done. There is a good chance that those very bits that the writer-you was so proud of, are the bits that reader-you will have to admit don’t fit. 12 Be careful — just because it’s yours, doesn’t mean it isn’t someone else’s too. Indeed, lawsuits may be taken.