This is my life

Here from Metafandom.

Your music analogy works for me in ways I didn't think were possible. I haven't touched the flute for at least a decade, but comparing writing practice to music practice somehow made all of those lectures about just writing to perfect the craft make sense. It's one of those things I knew (you have to write to improve, and to improve, you just write write write!) but it never really sank in.

I majored in writing; one of the requirements was naturally a class on craft, and while we never had a full story assignment in that class - it was all snips, scenes, and revisions of those scenes - the structure worked out okay. The class met once a week, and it went something like this:

1. Read the assigned short story.

2. Answer four questions about the craft element assigned for that week (i.e. one week would be detailed description, another would be dialogue...), based on your reading. I don't recall the exact questions, but it involved four steps in which you had to analyze the text and pick out examples, then explain why it works - typical.

3. Write a snippet or scene of your own, focusing on the thing we're studying that week, with a strict one page word limit.

4. Post this on the class message board, read the entries from the rest of your group members.

5. Meet in group, discuss everyone's work. We were allowed to comment on how they used the craft concept correctly, but technically not allowed to criticize. Everyone learned how to get around this rule.

Rinse, repeat. It worked for me, but it's not for everyone - and it can be slow. But I also think it can be tweaked to fit a different model, maybe a daily one if you're ambitious. Personally, I think choosing a craft element to work on every day, with a prompt from Fifteen Minute ficlets maybe, would make a great warm-up. I'll have to try it.

So anyway, that's one suggestion. I wish I were better at this, but the same applies to writing, really.