I. A degree in PROCRASTINATION.

II. Mastered the craft of losing...just a lot of stuff that shouldn't be lost. (Pens, Notes, etc.)

III. Ideas when I don't have notebooks, pens, or paper at hand.

IV. A burst of creativity on one particular day; the day that I have to complete other work.

V. A folder of writing memes that trump the amount of writing ideas that I have jotted down during the course of my life.

A writer has many skills... some are helpful, while others are not...

Here are my writing “Skills”:

1. Trying to do schoolwork, then suddenly I get a writing idea... and get distracted by it for the next hour or two.

2. Re-reading my work and getting SHOCKED that I wrote such a fabulous thing; then looking further back at older writings and becoming absolutely horrified I wrote that.

3. Saying “Oh yeah, I’ll add a chapter on that tonight” *two months later*... “WHY CAN’T I WRITE ANYTHING ON THIS CHAPTER I STARTED TWO MONTHS AGO!” (aka every writer’s worst nightmare... writer’s block XD)

4. Coming up with so many fabulous writing ideas, starting at least 100 words into them, and then leaving them for the next two years... so starting and never finishing XD

5. Becoming envious of almost every character I create... and the wonderful life or adventures I create for them.

And last but not least my sixth skill (though I’m sure I have more writing skills, but listing them all would take forever, LOL).

6. Getting sad when I finish a book... because I, the writer and creater of the story, does not want it to end. Oh, and let’s not forget those times when I’m feeling... “evil” and kill off characters as I’m writing *maniacal laughter*

.....

Yes, I believe these are just a few of my “skills”in writing.

To pinpoint one, yet alone five is a lightly daunting task but to answer this, I would have to start by saying as a child, I had imagination, an immense amount.

When I made it to the fifth grade, my teacher had us read books and then follow that up with our reason for liking or not liking the book. And that is where one could say the interest in writing came about. Then, however, I had no skill with nouns, verbs, adjectives, commas and the like. I just wrote words onto paper (no computers then and thank god for erasers!).

From then to now, I would say is where my skills honed. The following is in no order/preference.

1) Continued my education in English, my number one focus for a degree.

2) I would write (in the beginning) on subjects I felt people had a common interest in.

3) To better my writing, I read dozens of other author's. I focus on one or two areas in writing, but it never hurt to branch out, try something outside the box.

4) Maintaining a daily ritual of how many hours I write a day and keep within those hours. I'll do research if necessary/needed.

5) Take chances. Branching out, doing something never before tried.

Would these be considered skills? To me, not really. These seem more like life-learning experience to master a craft that in truth can never be mastered as writing is an ongoing, ever changing, alway evolving experience.

1. My best writing happens just before I wake in the morning...Rushing to write it down before ...Well, now I forgot.

2. Reading living Stories I wish I could have written...Just remember things that happened to me 40 or 50 years ago great material...but just ... I forgot.

3. To put into words what a wonderful...interesting life I have had...doing well, I forgot...I know I will put a pad and pencil by my bed so I can write it down in the morning great stuff.

4. Got up this morning saw the pad and pencil...Nothing. So I take a nice hot shower and it comes to me. I rush to the paper and write it down. The Paper is wet and the pencil is hard to write with...But I got it.

5. Go dry off and come back to the pad and pencil... go to the keyboard and stretch my eyes around the soaked notes and begin to run with it ...Thank you Spellcheck, fingers don’t fail me now!

1) Read voraciously

2) Do the work (grammar, function, voice, technical shit, etc.)

3) Drop your passion like a hot brick and go work a series of soul crushing jobs, struggling to make ends meet and relationships work while wondering what the fuck is wrong with you and worrying you'll die an unknown voice in the horde

4) Write because you're bored one day, and keep at it until addicted

5) Suddenly realize step three was probably the most important step of all

1. Jumping on an idea late.... I could have a story idea floating in my head for weeks, and not put it into fruition until a deadline is breathing down my neck. Case in point, I once wrote a short story for a weekly contest, and did not finish it until a minute after it was due. Needless to say, it didn't make it onto the site in time and got lost upon submission. The good news is, I had it saved on a writing app, and was still able to post it on Prose.

2. Fatigue is a big one. I am often exhausted by the end of the day, and wind up not working on anything. I set alarms to try writing in the morning, but am hit or miss with this.

3. Making notes of challenges and contests I would like to enter, but becoming more of a collector of the links rather than entering them.

4. Atrocious handwriting. Although I am working on this by collecting journals with some of my favorite anime characters on them, along with cool pens (like the All Might, Bengals and Persona 5 pens in my cover image). I am using these collectibles to handwrite some of my material as a keepsake in the off chance of my kids wanting a physical copy to read and pass down in the future when I'm no longer around.

5. Second guessing myself. Case in point, wondering if I even did this challenge correctly....

1. I'm a master procrantinator. Want to research that true crime case to base a short story off of? How about watch five hours of completely unrelated creepy reddit posts. Did you know that geckos peel the dead skin off of themselves with their mouths. I didn't know that. I'm going to watch this playlist of weird gecko videos now.

2. I exel at spacing off. Any intruding thought that deviates from my main area of focus is guaranteed to dominate my head space for hours. If my brain was a rocket, it would be one of those rogue ones the shoots off to a ninety degree angle a few seconds after it launched. Whoa! Rocket explosions look cool. Look at that mushroom cloud. Sick!

3. Not paying attention is my greatest area of expertise... What was I talking about again?

4. Honestly, I just sat down a few hours after writing those first three points and don't remember where I was going with this. I went for a walk and made some muffins. I have nothing for skill number four so here's a picture of my muffins instead. https://edelsit.medium.com/muffin-time-18f167964db0

5. I didn't think I'd get far enough to list a fifth skill, but here I am. I can't believe I made it this far. Look at me, on the home stretch and almost done with this entry. It feels so great to finally finish. I've almost have filled out my entire limit of two hundred and fifty words.... Whoops!

1) Make it concise

Ernest Hemingway, one of my writing idols, used as few words as possible to arrive at what he was trying to say. I’m not often concise, but I try to be - summarizing feelings, thoughts, emotions into just a few sentences.

My mother has a saying, she says: “That was like a shotgun blast to the face.”

I want my writing to be quick, effective, simple: a shotgun blast to the face.

Make it powerful, make it count, in so few words.

2) Enter with a feeling

When I enter contests on Prose, I access how it makes me feel. Then I pick a memory. Then I keep writing.

3) Write out the feeling

While writing for contests on Prose, I start with the feeling, but then I tie in a plot to that feeling.

Like therapists say, “How does that make you feel?”

It feels like hell, but in the best way possible.

4) Edit feeling

I go through my pieces and cut a lot of stuff. If it doesn’t follow through with the overall point of my piece, then it gets cut. I want it to make sense, to be easy to follow.

5) Make it flow

I don’t want to be a choppy writer. I want my ideas to run together seemlessly. I try to make the reader want to follow my story, what I’m trying to say.

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but these five writing tactics help.