I've had some short stories published by reputable literary journals. My best advice:
I'm not sure if you've got the money to burn, but there are decent websites where you can take online courses taught be legit authors. Check out litreactor.com and catapult.co. Also online workshopping can be worthwhile. Hiring a professional editor can be worthwhile, and not as expensive as you'd think (sometimes around $30-50 for a short story or essay).
Short of spending money, I'd say first you should make your reading list more focused. What authors really resonate with you? Whose work inspires you? Makes you want to read more, write more? Pick around five-to-ten of your favorite books and keep them in a stack on your desk. Go through them and highlight your favorite passages. Then type out those passages, word for word. Hunter S. Thompson used to type out The Great Gatsby, line by line, over and over, so he could develop a feel for the writing. There is a music to it, and you need to practice the notes.
I've got a wallpaper app on my laptop that cycles through picture files you load in the wallpaper file. So, I type out my favorite passages of writing, then screenshot them into the wallpaper file. So, I've always got a nice paragraph to look at on my desktop. Looks like this:
![[Image: gXrpTMq.gif]](http://imgur.com/gXrpTMq.gif)
I'm not sure if you've got the money to burn, but there are decent websites where you can take online courses taught be legit authors. Check out litreactor.com and catapult.co. Also online workshopping can be worthwhile. Hiring a professional editor can be worthwhile, and not as expensive as you'd think (sometimes around $30-50 for a short story or essay).
Short of spending money, I'd say first you should make your reading list more focused. What authors really resonate with you? Whose work inspires you? Makes you want to read more, write more? Pick around five-to-ten of your favorite books and keep them in a stack on your desk. Go through them and highlight your favorite passages. Then type out those passages, word for word. Hunter S. Thompson used to type out The Great Gatsby, line by line, over and over, so he could develop a feel for the writing. There is a music to it, and you need to practice the notes.
I've got a wallpaper app on my laptop that cycles through picture files you load in the wallpaper file. So, I type out my favorite passages of writing, then screenshot them into the wallpaper file. So, I've always got a nice paragraph to look at on my desktop. Looks like this: