Sometimes a bad book is a good thing

There's some really great advice out there on how to better your writing. A few of them are:

- Read. Read a lot and read a lot of different genres, particularly current titles. It's good to have an idea of the current trends and standards of today's publishing industry.

- Write. It's okay if it sucks. Most of what you write won't make the final cut anyways. Even if you write a whole book and end up trunking it, you'll probably come out of it learning a few things along the way and possibly understanding what you really want your story to be about.

- Join a community. There are some really awesome online groups out there. One site that first comes to mind is Absolute Write. There you'll find some really awesome, helpful people. At least since I've been a member in 2007, I've learned SO much.

- Don't be afraid to not write. Sometimes I find that taking a step back from a story, letting it collect dust for a few months (more or less) helps me to have a new perspective of how my manuscript reads.

And here's something that probably not a lot of people would tell you. Read bad books. Now I realize how subjective that is, but obviously if a book is bad to you then it's probably not something you want to emulate or have other people compare you to. I hate to point out a particular book, but this is one that comes to mind:

 

I really wanted to like Evermore. Really, I did. But I couldn't get over the fact that Ever Bloom had a lot of different powers (which I hate because I enjoy characters with significant weaknesses), the author's depiction of what a best friend is (::coughHavensabitchcough::), and the insta-love between Damen and Ever despite the fact that he treats her like his own personal roll of toilet paper to wipe his ass with. I noticed, also, that many of the sentences started off the exact same way. Ever's lip pursing and shrugging was incredibly repetitive. It annoyed me to no end. I found that others felt the same way as I did! So, whenever I re-read parts of my manuscript, I'd always try to be aware of how it was coming across. I realize this might not be the greatest advice, but similar to life, I feel the negatives can help us learn the positives.