There is no better way to learn to write well than to practice writing well.  Every time you put pen to paper or words to a screen is an opportunity to become a better writer. Nobody is born the writer they wish to be. You--the inimitable you--must be the force that powers your evolution as a writer. As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.” It is up to you then to go to the well and drink deeply.

Keeping a journal is the best way to start. A journal is your playground, sketch book, and testing ground. It is the place where you can be fully and totally yourself--the place where you can discover and nurture your narrative voice. It is the place to explore your passions, to explore your thoughts and to live the life of a true writer.

It is a place to learn and practice the rules of writing--and oftentimes to ignore the rules and carve out a new path in bent with the lines of your peculiar and genuine Genius. Anything I have written of any worth started as rambling scratches on a page--stops and starts that somehow evolved into something worth sharing. 

A true writer understands and accepts that nobody cares about him or her until the writers words create some indelible effect upon them and makes a reader care, makes them want to read on, and makes them remember how that writer inspired and cajoled them into caring about the rare gift they have received.

Make your journal be the novel of your life. Fill it with whatever the Sam Hill you want, and do so with reckless abandon and unmitigated passion. Become your own judge and jury and listen to what your heart and soul and mind and being wishes to say. 

It matters little “how” you keep a journal as much as it matters “why” you keep a journal. Your life is an infinite mine of endless treasure, but the gems have to be picked and pried, sifted and sieved, cut and polished, and marketed and sold by the labor of your own weathered and calloused hands.

There may well be no tomorrow.  Go now to the well. Sip the cool water and find the strength to begin.

Start today and keep starting.