I was talking to randomchub15 in an Ask, and they replied with a question that Tumblr wouldn’t let me publish so I’m posting it here:

Your stories are so well written and amazingly sexy. I wish I could write like you, do you have any tips for a young writer such as myself?

First of all, thank you. I strive to be sexy although I don’t know in what capacity I’m turning on my readers. I’ve given at least one person a boner, so that’s good. Secondly, technically my stories aren’t well written. When I submitted the Orion story to Dreamspinner Press for their Mended anthology, it was initially rejected because there were too many errors. I only got on because someone dropped out (woot!).

Writing takes a lot of technical skill. I tend to switch tenses a lot and I often find glaring typos when reading old posts. The other day I confused a character in a story. So, I guess my primary advice for a young writer is be aware of your spelling and grammar. I used the word “taunt” for months before a reader kindly pointed out that “taut” is the correct word. Oops.

Another thing I’d suggest is to read – a lot. Read a ton of different authors. Read fiction, non-fiction, articles, opinion pieces, magazines, etc. You’ll find things you like and things you hate, and it’ll help shape your voice when you write. Also, learning about new things will constantly provide you with inspiration for characters, plots, and settings. I think it was Stephan King that said when he needs names for characters, he gets them from the phone book.

Lastly, there is a huge difference between writing for yourself and writing for an audience – basically, between free-writing and creating a product. If you’re creating a product, you need to consider the reaction of your potential or current audience. And for gods sake, listen to your readers. They know more about your writing than you.
In the way beginning, I did a lot of sort of aggressive stuff because I thought that’s what readers on other Tumblrs wanted. I didn’t get a good response. Once in a while, I’d do something softer and sweeter for fun and I started getting messages like “I love that you write about the sensitive side of bdsm relationships”. I’d go, “what? I did what?”. Turns out there was a whole pool of readers that wanted that, and so now I write what I want to write – not what I thought others want – and my readers are happy.

I’m not gonna write you a novel here, but to summarize: grammar, spelling, read a lot, listen to your fans. And don’t stop writing. <3

(Oh, and it’s ok to hate your writing. All writers do at some point. This is why we have editors.)