Writing is an interesting, creative part of life.
Many are born with talents. Some of these talents could be hereditary. While others go to school to learn whatever they want to do in life. In this case, some people are born as writers while others are made.
As an African writer who grew up in a hard environment, where education was and is always a luxury, I don't think I would have made it to the university level to study journalism. It is very expensive to study at a university in any part of Africa.
At a very tender age in middle school, I detected my passion for writing. Mine was hereditary because my father was one of the best Ghanaian journalists during the Kwame Nkrumah era. Justin Kodzo Savage (JUSKOSAVE) was assigned as a reporter to travel with Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana.
Many newspapers reject articles. They look for special articles of interest. It seemed I hit my targets right. Every article I wrote was published. That encouraged me to read and write more articles. At secondary school, I had already made a name for myself as a writer.
I was paid for many of my articles, and within a short period, not that I became well known, but I made a lot of money from my writings. There are many books about how to be a successful writer, but I have my own ideas and rules I dwell on to be a successful writer.
1. Please, when one wants to write articles that can easily be accepted by the print media for publication, choose topics like teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, crime, or any other social problems affecting society to write about. The print media love them.
2. When writing, let readers know about the effect of the chosen subject on society. You could even suggest how the government should tackle the problem by reducing or permanently eradicating it.
3. Don't try to impress the publisher by writing long articles, or else the article may lose its significance. Let your article be short, with all the ingredients that make it interesting. You will be happy sitting by your dining table, reading your own written article.