Things Writers Do, Part 17: Proofread

Quality writers revise and edit their work; they also proofread, detecting overlooked errors in grammar, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, sizing, and spacing, among many other linguistic and graphical elements. They protect their REP:

• Revise — for ideas
• Edit — for expression
• Proofread — for correctness

Things That Writers Do, Part 16: Edit

The previous WORDS ON THE LINE post described revising, the process of reorganizing, adding, and deleting content. The next round of rewriting, editing, moves the writer's work from structure to style, ensuring the sentences achieve rhythm and the words suit the characters of the story or the point of the essay.

Indeed, good writing is rewriting; there are no short cuts. 

Things Writers Do, Part 15: Revise

Good writing is rewriting. Professional writers know they must reorganize paragraphs and even whole sections of their prose if it makes for better drama, add content to the thinner passages to make them more vivid, and delete content that does not move the narrative along. No matter how good the style of a sentence may be, it's useless if it doesn't help tell the story. This is the work that writers do.

Things Writers Do, Part 14: Learn

Writers are always learning about: 

• trends in grammar
• trends in rhetoric
• amazing moments in the lives of family, friends, and neighbors 
• different ways of writing the same idea
• historical events
• world events
• local news
• cultural changes
• their subject matter
• changes in various industries
• changes in approaches to writing 
• changes in the publishing industry
• differences between an amoeba and a paramecium
• differences between electrical, solar, and nuclear energy
• changes in the northern and southern ice caps 
• the work a sea captain does
• how a street got its name
• body language
• baby language
• why some trees grow only in certain places

You name it and they're learning about it. If you like learning, write.