The 10 Traits That Predict You’ll Be in the Top 1% of Writers
These are the things to know if you want to be at the top
There is no shortage of people on the internet wanting to write online.
Millions of people want to start a blog or write a book. They want to be a writer but they are stuck in the ideas phase. Some never get out.
Here are the 10 traits of the top 1% of writers.
1. Desire
“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”— Larry L. King
There is one thing, the first thing that all great writers have. It’s not more time, it’s not that they possess more natural talent or more guts. No, it’s that they have more desire.
They want it more.
They sit, for hours, tapping away in front of the computer, at a table, as the sun drops. They want it.
2. Volume
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” - Stephen King
Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day. Anne Rice? 3,000. William Faulkner? 3,000–10,000. The truth about writing is that to get good you need to practice.
It’s like anything in life, if you want to get good at it, you must try, fail and learn. It’s the basics of getting good at anything.
To write well you must write a lot.
3. Obsession
“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”— Roald Dahl
To be able to dedicate years to this craft you must love it. If you want to sit down every day and tap away when you feel sad, happy and everything in between you must fall in love with it.
You must fall in love and then become obsessed. The most successful writers, the top 1% of writers are obsessed.
- They go for walks and think about headlines.
- They eat dinner and get hit with an idea for a story.
- They meet a stranger and think about a character that can write about.
4. Time
“It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous. “- Robert Benchley
Stephen King wrote for years. Danielle Steel wrote for years and years before anything took off. But that’s the thing about the top 1% of writers, they know that this writing thing is the long game.
A really long game.
If you want to win the writing game you must play for a while. A long while.
5. Habit
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”- Louis L’Amour
The best writers, the top 1% of writers have built a writing habit so strong that they can’t stop. No matter how hard they try, they can’t. Even if they wanted to, like any habit, it takes over.
It gets so wild that they need to write.
It’s like writing becomes so ingrained in their daily life
6. Action
“I get a lot of letters from people. They say, “I want to be a writer. What should I do?” I tell them to stop writing to me and get on with it.”- Ruth Rendell
The honest truth, the real bones of it is that if you want to be a writer you must write. There are no two ways around it. I don’t know of a successful writer yet that doesn’t write. It’s totally impossible.
Write. Write. Write.
7. Commitment
“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”- Isaac Asimov
Out of all the great writers, how many of them do you know that do something else? How many great writers write their novels but then do Amazon FBA on the side?
How many have an eBay arbitrage business or a furniture flipping business?
I’d argue not many. It reminds me of a quote by David Allen:
“You can do anything, but not everything.”
Great writers commit to writing and nothing else.
8. Believe in writing
“Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” - J. K. Rowling
Most writers write because there is a desire within them that they can’t stop. It’s because they get something from writing that they can’t get from anything else in the world.
It’s like writing is this magic, this source of wizardry. Believing in writing and its magic is one of the traits that make a fantastic writer.
9. For themself
“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”- Anne Frank
I will always believe that the best way to form a writing habit is to concentrate on what writing gives you. Not what you can get from it, but what it willingly gives you as your payment for sitting down and tapping away.
If you look close enough you’ll realise it gives you more than money can buy. It gives you clarity, and structure of thought but more importantly than anything else, it gives you time with yourself to understand your own world.
10. Write and expect nothing
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.”- Maya Angelou
I’m starting to believe that the cheapest way to write is to expect to be rich by writing. It’s cheap because money is the least of the things writing gives you.
Writing and expecting to be great, to be someone because you wrote something, for people to love what you do because you write always will end in tears.
The best is to write and expect zero.
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