How do I improve my writing skills?

[Muldoon]

Monchevy, I do not find that comforting AT ALL! My hope was that at some point I'd enjoy it!

At one point, I wanted to get a degree in English and have a career in writing. I thought I liked writing. I'm finding that I very much dislike academic writing at least. I'm very tired of all these essays. And it's not even that many essays. I wish I could get paid to just learn things but skip the essay writing.

You just summed up my exact feelings as well. I love reading and I often think about getting a degree in English, but I hate academic writing so, so much.

As for the question about writing, I find that having a structure in place really helps with writer's block. What I did for the capstone was to look online and find sample papers (taking care first to make sure they weren't the same assignments I had been given, so there wouldn't be inadvertent plagiarism) and then I read them to get a feel for how they were structured. For the case studies, I found several examples that just used a basic Q & A format. So I used that for my own, taking my professor's comments into account. Once I felt like I could visualize how the paper should appear, it was easier to come up with the content, and then each week the work was quite doable.