So What Has this Reader Learned?

(via: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xzdPem)

Some of the very basic things I've learned about writing. Even if some of this is dead horse territory.

Style:

• Keep Writing, you will develop a style over time. Keep writing. You will see how things fall together through doing. (IMHO.)
• Rough Draft everything. Even if you end up not using it. Its practice, practice, practice.
• Whatever formula you have, it will develop over time, so just keep writing. Even if its character concepts, world building, chapter headers, 2-3 sentence chapt summaries, ect. 
• Time will make you better. Like mastering cooking. The more you do it, the better you get, the more you can integrate ingredients. (cause I love cooking too)

Process:

• I use excel spread sheets to keep the various timelines of my books and/or anthologies in check. 
• Character/Casts: I have written notes and on the excel. IE: Book 1 Cast, Book 2 Cast. Ect. 
• A mix of "off the seat of my pants" writing vs world building. I find when I am writing the story and get stumped somewhere its cause I don't have a part of the world building set up for a particular blanket area. So I got back to my 3 notebooks and tabs, then write some more background fun.
• So I guess I'm a mix of planner and free for all. 
• Read for fun but also start looking at it from a, "What?, why did they just do this?" mindset. It might not fit your style but it will give you ideas. :D Then you can add it into your style of doing things.

World Building:

• I read within the genre's I am targeting. Space Operas and Capes. I did get some books that help guide my world building. Because it asks questions I didn't even consider so even if I don't use everything in here, its helped expand what I wanted to do.  
• Way With Worlds , I pretty much got books 1 and 2, along with the superhero subsection pick. Might get the Characters and World Building one also.
• Table Top has also helped to a point. Esp. if it was Superhero based. 
• Write while you research things. Keep a notepad handy while at work. Some of my best ideas have happened while stuck at work. 

Tropes:

• What's expected in your genre. 
• Keywords 
• Your very own reading habits: What drags you into a book? What catches your eye? How do you spend your own funds on books in general.
• Ideas that genre readers look for. For supers and space opera, for me: Its all about the heroics, technical gizmos, planet hopping adventures, space, starships, super powered space doggos. DC comics should have had Hope Corgi. It never did so I made my knock offs of the Lantern Corps into the Defender Corps with Belts instead of rings. I have multiple packs of Defender Doggos now.  Plus the Defender Corps are also based on concepts rather then the emotional spectrum. 

Example:

• Red: Powered by Blood that runs hot in their veins.
• Yellow: Powered by the Intellect that is inherent in the user.
• Green: Powered by the Faith of the user.
• Blue: Powered by the Loyalty of the user.
• Orange: Powered by the Desire for Knowledge of the user.
• Ω: The Elite within the Defenders. When a cosmic ending event happens, they are the ones summoned to protect the Life Source of the Known Universe/Multiverse, a massive barrier older then the cosmos itself, the Ouroboros Chain.

Mindset:

The biggest thing in my opinion. You are not an aspiring writer, that implies you don't feel good enough to accomplish the task at hand. You are a writer. Write. Keep Writing. Like Rocky in a boxing match. Or like so:

Its all in the mind, even if you only get one reader for your book. Keep going, don't give up. Then you get another reader, then another, then another....pretty soon you will have an audience.