It was early 2010 when I wrote my first novel. And few months later that I finished editing. Then a few months more and I had the editing completed by another entity. Finally I was ready to be published.

I WAS WRONG!

My writing has improved considerably since 2010. I have read a lot on writing, editing, and then compared all this to novels I have read and to what I have written. I know my writing will never be perfect, but it is pretty good and the majority of people enjoy what I write.

What I learned was that it takes many years to become a competent writer that can also edit their work so that their writing is not riddled with mistakes. Not just spelling and grammar, but also over-writing, dialogue issues, cliches, over using adverbs, adding your own soap box into the story, repeating yourself in the next paragraph, plot spaghetti, and other things you will need to learn.

I have written since I was 10 years old or so. However, being creative isn't enough, you need to mould the story into something people actually want to read.

Have fun writing, but get serious when editing :)