The most important thing
the most important tool for any writer to possess
is going to be the writer herself.
You are your own most important instrument
and so you will have to tune that instrument
if you want to be a successful
or a satisfying writer.
If you wish to develop as a writer
you will also have to develop as a person.
I would suggest that you will need
to develop a moral standpoint
which will probably also entail a political standpoint.
I am not saying that that should be a left-wing opinion
a right-wing opinion
or even my own personal preference
an anarchist opinion.
The important thing is the understanding
that you should have a platform, a moral or political platform
from which you can look at the world
and hopefully to understand it
which will need a certain amount of compassion
and empathy
whereby you can look at someone who has ideas
that are completely foreign to your own
and yet perhaps understand why they have them.
What the factors were in their background
that caused them to have those ideas
perhaps to understand that you yourself
brought up in slightly different circumstances
may have had exactly those ideas.
So that is the basis from which you can look at the world
without necessarily being judgemental
but simply trying to understand it.
I would also suggest
that you will probably need these things to be
slightly flexible
because the ground will change under you
in terms of politics and morality
and things that may have seemed perfectly acceptable
in say, the heady days of the 1960s
by the time you reach the early-21st century
you might have had some time
to reconsider some of those things.
So don't become locked into a rigid behaviour pattern.
But you simply need to develop
the moral standpoint and the political standpoint
which will enable you to have a position to come from.
When you are writing about the world
you will need to have a way of seeing these things.
You will also need to develop an aesthetic point of view.
What is it that you personally enjoy
about, say, somebody's writing?
You will need to analyse that
and also to analyse your own writing
to see whether you've done the job
that you wanted to do, or whether you've fallen short
and it needs improving.
So essentially, what you really need
above anything
whatever kind of artist you wish to be
you need to develop a way of seeing the world
that is unique to you
that can only come from your experience
and your perceptions
and that is the basis that you can then
turn into an energy
that will fuel the rest of your writing career.
But the first thing is to develop that self
the writer as a person.
The writer that is you yourself.
Once you've developed that
then everything else will fall into place.