Always approach your writing with purpose and audience in mind:
Thinking about what  to say (your purpose)  to your audience  ( your readers ).  If you’re writing a letter to your grandmother ,  you likely wouldn’t write in  a slang style , ‘Hey Grannie ‘, but you would likely write in a respectful style, ‘Dear Grandma‘. Your audience and purpose will dictate how and what you say.

Be passionate about what you are saying:
If you are  uninterested in your content then the possibility your reader will be bored is very high.

Omit Unnecessary Words:
Every word counts! Ask yourself why is this word here and what purpose does it serve?  Is it sawdust, an empty filler? Good writing is concise, to the point and clear.  Remember the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Bad writing is full of zigzagging, going here and there, like an aimless wanderer.  Don’t fall in love with a particular word or phrase because you think its clever or interesting. Whatever brilliance or cleverness you may have usually comes when you are not trying to be brilliant and clever you’re just being real and honest and hopefully tactfully so!

Remember writing is observation and description
BE AN OBSERVER!  DESCRIBE DESCRIBE DESCRIBE  ‘Show don’t tell’ and you’ve likely  heard this said many times in writing 101 classes. That’s because good writers have learned to  SEE well. Pay attention to what’s going on around you.  Practice seeing, feeling, tasting, and touching and describe it with detail. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about  from my second book Harriet Tubman. “Willie was so excited that his hair stood straight on end, as if he had been shocked with a large volt of electricity.”

Nothing is new under the sun:
As a writer you’re taking the elements rearranging them and telling a story in a fresh and interesting way. What always  sets a writer apart from another is the ability to tell a story in an extremely compelling way.

Read Read Read Read Read Read:
Read anything and everything (that is in good taste  ) and read  the top one percent of writers who are the  masters of the English language. You’ll learn to write well by reading well, because more is usually caught than taught!  Commit to reading the best writers and ‘the  Book’.  ‘The Book ‘ is the BIBLE,  full of unbelievable drama, action and incredible characters. I also enjoy reading these authors;  Joan Didion, E.B. White, A.A. Milne, Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton,  George MacDonald, Dr. Seuss, Madeline Engle, J.R. Tolkien.  By reading and learning from the best and paying attention to what they do and how they do it, you’ll be inspired!  Never think excellent writing is easy, it is not! Be prepared to work hard and that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun doing it.  Never forget that writing well is rewriting and rewriting.  (I’ve rewritten this short bit a few times already!)  Don’t allow discouragement to get you down, as you develop your writing skills.   My first research paper took five months to finish and it was only five pages long.  I didn’t give up and if I had I wouldn’t be writing children’s books and a few other things too!

Write Write Write Write Write Write:
It’s true the most talented and best writers, write every day! Don’t be afraid of expressing yourself.  Try coming up with an amazing story.  Such stories always have interesting characters with unusual and  sometimes not so unusual  problems  to overcome.   Do write every day, and keep at it!  When you faithfully write, then  you can honestly say you’re a writer, whether you’re published or not. Remember the old axiom, ‘practice almost always makes one perfect’!