Don’t Stop Learning

Photo credit: paloetic on Flickr

Occasionally, when I’m feeling nostalgic or mining for blog post ideas, I’ll browse through some old blog posts. And sometimes, I’ll come across something past-Ava said like “I don’t normally read sci-fi…” and “[the] alternating first person POV, which was a little difficult to adjust to…” and I just laugh and pat sweet, naïve past-Ava on the back. 

I have learned so ridiculously much since starting this blog back in 2011.

2011 Ava had barely touched the surface of this thing called YA. She found books with multiple POVs jarring, didn’t know what QueryTracker was, was a total Twitter n00b, had never participated in NaNoWriMo and all of her books fit on one bookshelf.

Since writing the review I quoted from above, I’ve written two Sci-Fi manuscripts and three dual-POV books. I no longer find multi-POV novels jarring, in fact, I kind of love them. A lot.

So I do have a point to this post, and it’s this: the biggest lesson I’ve learned thus far, is that we’re never done learning and growing as writers. 2011 Ava never would have imagined that she’d one day write and absolutely adore a dual-POV Sci-Fi novel with aliens, of all things. I mean, 2011 Ava barely liked alien movies, for crying out loud.

One of the many things I love about writing is there’s always more to learn and discover—both about yourself and the craft. You can always improve a certain skill or discover that you love something you didn’t think you would, or learn a better writing/plotting/whatever technique.

And if you ask me? That’ll never get old.

Now it’s your turn—what's the biggest lesson you've learned since you first started writing? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

"One of the many things I love about writing is there's always more to learn and discover..." (Click to tweet)  

What's the biggest lesson you've learned since you first started writing? Join the discussion at @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)