With Practice

With Practice I once took the AWAI course for copywriters. You know the one. Its where they talk about six-figure income from copywriting and how to earn some serious bucks once you take their course. They asked me to be an affiliate, and I did it for a long while, but one condition was that I receive a copy of the first course to study. Yes, it was a legit course. The advice was sound. I endorsed it for a long while. One of the simplest lessons in the course, however, amazed me. They advised to simply copy down existing letters used in commercial campaigns, written I felt like I was copying my mothers cursive writing as a child. Id read a line, then write it. Read another line, then write it. The logic was that there is power in muscle memory. When we repeat something, we retain it in our minds. After all, we practice sports over and over to get it right. Sewing, running, painting, singing, whatever it is, the more werepeat the drills, the closer we get to doing the task well. Using that theory, you can copy great pages of writing Before you holler plagiarism, I assure you that the exercise does not mean that you copy the work into your own story. And it does not mean that youll accidentally spit out three paragraphs of JK Rowlings words into your story and not know it. Butyou will absorb some of her techniques. Greg Digneo wrote a post on Boost Blog Traffic last week called The Brain-Dead Simple but Astonishingly Effective Way to Become a   Better Writer. Imagine how my brows rose when I saw this blog post telling other bloggers to copy great blog posts to learn how to   master blogging. ( http://boostblogtraffic.com/better-writer/ ) What I found fascinating in Gregs post, however, was that Picasso learned how to paint so well You learn to write without so much passive voice.You learn to write more colorfully.You learn to write in a certain verb tense better.You learn to write a particular point of view better.You learn to diversify your sentence structure better.And the list goes on and on Dont want to copy the pages verbatim? Then read them over and over. Your mind is a phenomenal sponge. It absorbs. It learns when you dont think its learning. Make yourself read great works, repeatedly, and the skills sink in. Or you could practice writing them, pretending youre in the mind of a great author, hoping some of that magic sloughs off on you.