I am self employed, which means that I don’t work at a soul crushing job all day, or at least it means that I only crush my own soul? And that does help.

The point isn’t so much specific knowledge as a background of information that you can slowly add to, and the bright points that will stick out and lodge in your brain, like OH YEAH THAT SOUNDS GREAT, I SHOULD TRY THAT. Or OH NO THAT SOUNDS TERRIBLE, I WILL NEVER DO THAT. (Caution: one can often become the other over time.)

I have often found other people’s posts about their writing pet peeves useful. You know, the ones that start “omg I hate it when people do X,” where X is overuse of epithets, or excessive physical description of characters or improper comma usage or saying taught when it should be taut. Because then I end up thinking “oh shit am I doing X??”