Experience

There are so many books, blogs, websites and social media dedicated to teaching aspiring writers how to become authors. There's even a million and one paid workshops that you can find anywhere, especially on the internet. But here's the only thing you need to know: experience.

There just isn't any substitute for direct life experience. You can read all the articles you can find, memorize each word, and it won't make a difference. At best, reading any kind of how-to guide will teach you how to get started, but that's it. At worse, it'll teach you what not to do. You need experience. It's the only way.

Not everyone can travel the world, earn a PhD in literature or become a Buddhist monk. So you do what you can, in the only way that you know is right for you, in order to gain experience.

Take a book out of the library that's on a subject matter that you would never read.

Go camping in your own backyard.

Try your hand at making clay sculptures, even though you don't have the talent and just know it will be a failure.

Check out that cafe you pass by each day on your way to school or work and you think to yourself, my friends would never want to be seen at a place like that. Go anyway! Gain experience, and live to tell the story.