How To Play the Writing Game

I grew up passionate about sports, basketball in particular. I'd like to know how many hours I spent on my home court practicing my jump shot, just so when game time came I would have at least a faint chance of burying one.

When I began to take my writing seriously, I unconsciously adopted the same strategies, and to some extent they have worked for me. These include:

Practice: I took a hard look at my writing and had to admit that my skills were very unpolished, so I set about writing with the intention of developing my abilities. I challenged myself to write a story entirely in dialog. I took a playwriting course, not because I had that ambition, but because I thought here too I could learn to write crisp dialog. I wrote a couple of stories in stream of consciousness, to see how that might fit into my repertoire. I wrote 50 word stories and 300 word stories to practice economy of prose. 

Warmups: Rather than charge straight into my work in progress each day, I began to start by warming up. I kept, and still do, a daily diary about what I am working on. And since I write in a coffee house, I take advantage of this by beginning each session by picking out a customer and describing him or her. In this way I compiled a list of hundreds of character descriptions that I now turn to when in need of a character for my WIP.

Teamwork: I sought out other writers, both for the feedback I needed so badly, and for the encouragement that can be found in writing groups. I tried several groups, good people all, but settled on those whose members' abilities were better than mine, but not dramatically, so that I could learn from them while providing my own feedback that might be useful.

.

For me, practicing my skills has made a great difference in my writing, and I can see gradual but consistent improvement over the years. In an ideal world, I would have been ready to write my magum opus without honing my skills first, but I don't live an ideal world. If I did, ice cream would have no calories.

On Eeny Meeny I'm Not So Keeny

I may have reached a point that I never anticipated. After reading fiction for 60 years, and writing it for 15, perhaps I've seen too many plots, because I'm having more and more trouble finding books which genuinely surprise me. Eeny Meeny by M. J. Arlidge, a crime novel, is the latest book whose plot line seemed easy to predict.
This isn't to criticize the writer, who did his/her best to follow the tried and true thriller progression (things get worse, over and over, until the climax) but there are only so many twists and turns one can imbue a story with when the setup is typical--In this case, a modern-day English policewoman detective pursuing a serial killer.
M.J. does one thing that I find irritating, and I blame James Patterson for this; he/she writes 3-page chapters, flitting from one point of view to another. I like to settle down with a scene, enjoy some rich details, and will even tolerate some business that doesn't exactly advance the plot.
The author does try very hard to distinguish this hero, Helen Grace, from other DC's such as Peter Robinson's with attributes that have shock value, but there is some more subtle character development lacking, in my opinion. Since this is the initial book in a series, perhaps Grace becomes more deep and rounded as the overall arc progresses. That happens sometimes.
Or perhaps I've simply read and written too much in the genre to wholeheartedly enjoy overly familiar tropes. I hope not, but evidence seems to trend that way.