If you have hung out on the writing part of the internet at all, you have almost certainly encountered the very true assertion that if you want to write, you have to read, often with additional parameters on what to read, what not to read, and how. So I've been thinking about the things you need to do in order to write, other than actually writing, and also things that are helpful or detrimental.
Things You Have to Do
1. Read good books/books you like
Good writing is contextual, and I should really do a whole post on that at some point. There really isn't anything that specifically makes something "good writing", even if you limit the definition of "writing" to prose craft. But I digress. You have to read if you want to write. There is literally no substitute for this. You need to read fiction if you write fiction, and poetry if you write poetry, although there's certainly benefit to crossing those lines as well. You should read things that you like, because chances are those are the kinds of voices you want in your head for your own writing, and also because otherwise you won't actually do it.
If you feel comfortable with your grasp of spelling and grammar in the language in which you're writing, audiobooks are fine for most people. (I say "in the language in which you're writing", but I've never done a significant amount of writing in any language other than English, so it's possible that if you don't write in English, this doesn't apply to you.) If you have auditory processing issues or something, they might not be fine for you.
I like to think of it like nutrition. You take in food, and your body uses it to make and repair stuff (and for energy). This becomes especially important if you are exercising (building muscle), or healing from an injury or illness. (The analogies here are when you're pushing yourself, or doing a part of writing that's a struggle for you, and when you're struggling with writers block or trying to get back into writing after stopping for a while). This process is not perfectly efficient, so if the amount of nutrients (words, ideas, structures) you're taking in is not somewhat more than what you're putting out, things will start to go wrong. (I was going to add "read in your genre", but if that's not covered by "read things you like", you have bigger problems).
Good writing is contextual, and I should really do a whole post on that at some point. There really isn't anything that specifically makes something "good writing", even if you limit the definition of "writing" to prose craft. But I digress. You have to read if you want to write. There is literally no substitute for this. You need to read fiction if you write fiction, and poetry if you write poetry, although there's certainly benefit to crossing those lines as well. You should read things that you like, because chances are those are the kinds of voices you want in your head for your own writing, and also because otherwise you won't actually do it.
If you feel comfortable with your grasp of spelling and grammar in the language in which you're writing, audiobooks are fine for most people. (I say "in the language in which you're writing", but I've never done a significant amount of writing in any language other than English, so it's possible that if you don't write in English, this doesn't apply to you.) If you have auditory processing issues or something, they might not be fine for you.
I like to think of it like nutrition. You take in food, and your body uses it to make and repair stuff (and for energy). This becomes especially important if you are exercising (building muscle), or healing from an injury or illness. (The analogies here are when you're pushing yourself, or doing a part of writing that's a struggle for you, and when you're struggling with writers block or trying to get back into writing after stopping for a while). This process is not perfectly efficient, so if the amount of nutrients (words, ideas, structures) you're taking in is not somewhat more than what you're putting out, things will start to go wrong. (I was going to add "read in your genre", but if that's not covered by "read things you like", you have bigger problems).
2. Take at least a minimal amount of care of yourself
Eat enough, and in a way that feels good to you. Get something resembling enough sleep as often as you can. Hydrate; it doesn't have to be water. (If you need to drink sweet things, I suggest tea because it has fluoride and other stuff that helps your teeth, and dental pain or stress about cavities is not conducive to writing). If you have daily meds that help you, take them. Take measures to manage short term physical discomfort (keep yourself a reasonable temperature, take otc pain meds as appropriate for random pain, that kind of thing). If your cat scratches you, at least wash out the cut and put some antibiotic ointment on there, because you want your energy available for writing, not fighting off infection. Get like, nonzero social interaction. Health permitting, move around a little bit. The bottom line is that it's harder to write well, or at all, if you're tired or uncomfortable.
There are rare circumstances where the disinhibition of sleep deprivation or a starvation high is what you need to get through a particular thing in your writing. That's fine, but it's not the best thing most of the time.
Eat enough, and in a way that feels good to you. Get something resembling enough sleep as often as you can. Hydrate; it doesn't have to be water. (If you need to drink sweet things, I suggest tea because it has fluoride and other stuff that helps your teeth, and dental pain or stress about cavities is not conducive to writing). If you have daily meds that help you, take them. Take measures to manage short term physical discomfort (keep yourself a reasonable temperature, take otc pain meds as appropriate for random pain, that kind of thing). If your cat scratches you, at least wash out the cut and put some antibiotic ointment on there, because you want your energy available for writing, not fighting off infection. Get like, nonzero social interaction. Health permitting, move around a little bit. The bottom line is that it's harder to write well, or at all, if you're tired or uncomfortable.
There are rare circumstances where the disinhibition of sleep deprivation or a starvation high is what you need to get through a particular thing in your writing. That's fine, but it's not the best thing most of the time.
3. Give feedback
Join a writing group, take a class, get involved in the fanfiction community as a beta reader. This is about as directly writing related as anything on this list will get, but it's really important. Read the works-in-progress of other writers, and give them feedback on how to improve their craft and more fully realize their artistic vision. For best results, you'll want to be doing this with the work of writers who are as close as possible to your own skill level, but anywhere past "no way to work on craft until they get a handle on basic grammar and spelling" and before "I have no idea how they write so well, where do they get it?" will do. Some writers get the most out of this process working with the same one or two other writers over the long haul, helping each other learn and grow. Other's learn more from giving feedback on a lot of different writers' work, because it gets them thinking about how they would approach different kinds of challenges. Remember that while it is usually best that this be a reciprocal process (you'll be better able to implement the feedback of other writers if you've seen their drafts, and vice versa), it's best to think of this as letting them use your work to learn on, and them letting you use theirs in return, rather than feedback in exchange for feedback. You can and will learn from what others suggest about your work, but not nearly as much as you'll learn from giving careful consideration to theirs. Please note that reading published works and thinking about what you would suggest, while also worthwhile, is not a substitute for this. You don't engage the same way when you don't have to actually express your criticisms in a way that another writer can understand and implement.
Things It's Good To Do
1. Read Other Things
Read nonfiction and learn a bunch of cool facts. Read the classics, not because they're necessarily any better than anything else but because they've been read by more other people than most things and it's good to know what they're talking about. Read at least a little bit in forms and genres you don't like, and think about why the people who do like them - people as intelligent, well-read, and skilled in critical thinking as yourself - read them. What is there to enjoy? What, even if you don't enjoy it, is consistently done well? Read random cultural ephemera, including and especially old cultural ephemera: archived newspapers, short stories published in 1960 that no one cared about even when they were current, out of date textbooks. Pay attention to the way language was used differently in different times, and is used differently in different contexts; does "allegedly" mean the same thing to a lawyer that it does to a reporter? When did "finalize" stop sounding made up and hyper-modern?
2. Have at least one activity you like other than writing
This can really be almost anything: cooking, knitting, playing the piano, ultimate Frisbee, community choir, model trains – as long as the following two criteria are met. First, it must be something you are "into", not just something you're doing because you think it's good for you or your partner asked you to do it with them. If you do yoga and practice regularly and enjoy learning the theory and talking to other yoga people about it, that probably counts. If you show up to a yoga class once a week because you're trying to get more flexible, that probably doesn't count. The other is that it ought not be secretly just more reading and/or writing. Physical activities, visual art, and music are all great because they're using and building skills that only apply to writing indirectly, so you're exercising other parts of yourself. Role playing games or theater are both kinda marginal because it's very easy to make those be about helping your writing rather than being a person. Only you can know for sure which thing is happening.
3. Consume Stories in Other Media
Play video games with narratives, read comics, go to the movies, watch TV. Compare adaptations of books to the books themselves, and think about why the things that are different between them are different. Pay attention to how the relatively constrained storytelling space of a film, or the potentially infinite space of a long-running TV show, affect what kind of stories get told and how. When something particularly cool or interesting happens, think about whether and how the same thing could be done in a book. Consider what it's easier to do on the page, and what it's easier to do on a screen. What you can get away with in a video games that you couldn't in a novel. This also serves the purpose of supplementing your narrative intake, and can make it easier to think about things that are the same between media, like characterization, without the particular context of the medium in which you usually work.
4. Be Part of a Writing Community
This is sort of similar to item 3 in the section above, but it has less to do with skill-building than it does with mindset, less to do with other people's writing as a resource than the people themselves. It's good to be connected with other writers; networking is a real thing, and it works a lot better if you're actually being a community member rather than trying to insinuate yourself with people you think can get you something. This is another thing where writers close to your own level are best, although of course levels are a fuzzy kind of thing in this context. But you want comparisons between where you're at and where they're at to encourage you to greater effort, not arrogance or despair. Those are the people who might help you if they have connections or resources you can use, assuming they know you and like you. It's also a way to remind yourself that you're a writer and you should really be writing.
3. Consume Stories in Other Media
Play video games with narratives, read comics, go to the movies, watch TV. Compare adaptations of books to the books themselves, and think about why the things that are different between them are different. Pay attention to how the relatively constrained storytelling space of a film, or the potentially infinite space of a long-running TV show, affect what kind of stories get told and how. When something particularly cool or interesting happens, think about whether and how the same thing could be done in a book. Consider what it's easier to do on the page, and what it's easier to do on a screen. What you can get away with in a video games that you couldn't in a novel. This also serves the purpose of supplementing your narrative intake, and can make it easier to think about things that are the same between media, like characterization, without the particular context of the medium in which you usually work.
4. Be Part of a Writing Community
This is sort of similar to item 3 in the section above, but it has less to do with skill-building than it does with mindset, less to do with other people's writing as a resource than the people themselves. It's good to be connected with other writers; networking is a real thing, and it works a lot better if you're actually being a community member rather than trying to insinuate yourself with people you think can get you something. This is another thing where writers close to your own level are best, although of course levels are a fuzzy kind of thing in this context. But you want comparisons between where you're at and where they're at to encourage you to greater effort, not arrogance or despair. Those are the people who might help you if they have connections or resources you can use, assuming they know you and like you. It's also a way to remind yourself that you're a writer and you should really be writing.
So, go to readings, go to conferences, take classes, friend people on Facebook. And if you can? Get involved in publishing.
There was gonna be a section on what you shouldn't do, but I honestly can't think of anything that isn't just the opposite of the above.
