Summary: Young people graduate high school or college, apply for positions, and get stuck: no one will hire them because they have no experience, but they can’t get experience because no one will hire them. So they get a job at Starbucks to pay bills, gaining experience with cleaning espresso machines, still unable to land the job they really want and still unable to gain relevant experience because no one hired them in their preferred field.<br> <br> If only they could gain experience, they would be marketable, successful, confident...<br> <br> If only we could gain experience…<br> <br> People often want to write—to become writers—but they lack experience. Regardless of their age, they feel like that young graduate stepping out into the world eager to work but lacking what they need to do the work. As a result, those writers end up stuck, sometimes paralyzed.<br> <br> Without experience, can they even enter the ring? They hold back, doubting themselves or fearing the door’s going to shut in her face. "Is there room in the market for the newbie, the rookie?” they wonder. "Should inexperienced writers even bother trying when so many more experienced writers have established themselves online and in print?” Some writers even worry they’ve passed some invisible point in time and it’s too late. They’ll never be an experienced writer.<br> We Can Get Experience Now<br> Every minute we sit around wondering if there’s room for us at the table, wishing we were more experienced, is a minute we could have been doing something meaningful and productive that contributes to our growth as a writer. It is not too late. And don’t waste any more time thinking it’s too late.<br> <br> We writers have an advantage over the graduate on a job search—we can actually gain experience in our field every single day. We can write right now and grow in knowledge and skill. We may not be ready to write for top-tier publishers, but we can always be improving, moving closer to our goals.<br> <br> While writers with very little experience might go a bit slower in the pursuit of landing a book deal, let’s say, there’s no reason to delay for another moment your growth as a writing professional.<br> In What Ways Do You Feel Inexperienced?<br> <br> Writing Skills?<br> Technology?<br> Navigating the publishing industry?<br> How to approach marketing, publicity, social media?<br> <br> Figure out where you feel you lack and you can fill that gap.<br> <br> For example, you might feel inexperienced in everything, but in reality you’re a talented writer—maybe you studied creative writing! Now you’re feeling the draw (or the push) to write online, but your lack of confidence with technology causes you to suddenly question everything about your abilities.<br> <br> Or maybe you are technologically savvy and jumped into blogging with exuberance, but never received training in writing, so you lack writing skills and confidence with conventions like grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.<br> <br> Identify the areas where you are or you feel inexperienced, and make a plan to address each of those areas.<br> Develop a Personalized Course<br> If you feel lacking in writing skills, for example, you can create your own course of study based on the things you feel you don’t understand:<br> <br> Practice marginalia and copywork to introduce you to techniques.<br> Read books about the art and craft of writing.<br> Track down college writing handbooks and work through the lessons.<br> Sign up for courses online.<br> Hire an editor to review some of your work—ask him to mark the issues and explain why they’re a problem so you can literally learn from your own mistakes.<br> Address specific areas of weakness: if you write fiction but your dialogue seems stilted, study authors who handle it well; if you write poetry but resist form,
