I’m looking into my crystal ball and I can see the future for all writers. As we all know, print media is fast losing ground to digital media. So what are we writers to do?

I just finished taking a 6-week multimedia workshop at San Francisco State University where I learned to combine photos, images, music and audio narrative with a short story I wrote called “The Magic Elixir.” It is now possible for writers to present their work on the Internet, not only in written form but in audio-visual form as well. The exploding Internet has opened up a whole new world for writers, what with blogs, wikis and social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, along with the writing website, AuthorConnect. It’s the dawning of a new age. The possibilities for writers are limitless.

Note: For a glimpse into the future, click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vTnhXPRPNU to view my short story “The Magic Elixir.” It’s only 2 1/2 minutes long.

I believe getting feedback for your writing is necessary. It’s a good idea to have someone else read your work before typing up a final draft and sending it out.

Who should you show your work to? You can show it to the person you’re living with or a friend. You can go to a weekly or monthly writer’s workshop. You can snail mail or e-mail it to someone whose opinion you trust. And finally, there are many editors in the world who are willing to read your work for a fee. As for me, I’ve done all the above.

The important thing is to have someone else read your work so you’ll know if you’re headed in the right direction or not. Another person can tell you if you left out any important information, if any words are misspelled, if you repeat a word or phrase too often, if you should delete or add something, and the list goes on, depending on who’s reading your work.

Be open to criticism, but not too open. Because a college professor criticized a poem of a woman I know, she never wrote another poem again. The flipside of that: a woman I once met wrote a story that a professor of hers complimented to no end. He told her she had great potential and couldn’t wait to read her next story. She said to me, “I felt like I couldn’t live up to his expectations and it crippled my writing.” The main thing is, don’t ever get down on yourself. If the criticism makes sense to you, take it. If it doesn’t make sense, forget it.

When I decided to become a writer at the age of 29, I automatically sat down and wrote every day. I figured that if I was a writer, I would take my job as seriously as a teacher, preacher and athletic trainer would their work. Therefore, I contend that a real writer doesn’t write when he feels like it, he writes five, six, seven days a week because writing is his occupation, not a hobby.

Here’s my advice to future writers: If you write at least five days a week, you will produce many books, stories, essays, articles and poems in your lifetime. If you stick to writing, someday you will be rewarded for your efforts. I’m sure of it.

Yesterday I watched two interviews on YouTube. The first was of Larry David, who writes and stars in the HBO TV comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm. The second interview was of John Updike.

Larry David, whose show makes me laugh out loud more than any other TV show, kept stressing this in his interview: “I want to write about ideas that nobody else can think of.” I’m certain that you, out there, have already written or will someday write ideas that nobody else has ever thought of or will ever think of. Why do I say this?  Because we’re all unique individuals—that is, if we don’t become copycats or formula writers. Over the years I’ve heard people say in one form or another, “Follow the formula and you are sure to succeed.” To hell with that kind of thinking. Why be a writer if you’re going to imitate another writer or follow a certain formula? Live life, be unique like you were meant to be, and write about ideas, as Larry David says, that nobody else can think of.

John Updike, the great American writer who died at the age of 76 in 2009, repeated the following sentence several times in his interview: “If you’re a writer, you have to have something worth saying.” The question arises: Do I have something worth saying in these entries that I’ve been writing for the past 42 weeks? You bet your bottom dollar I have something to say. I’m giving you, the reader, a picture of what it is to be a full-time writer in this world. But more importantly, whether you’re a professional writer or novice, I’m trying to get you to stop procrastinating and start writing that story, essay, poem or book that’s been on your mind for God knows how long. I believe whatever a writer writes is worth saying. So get to it, right now, this very minute. Stop what you’re doing and start writing.