You might be a frustrated writer who just can't seem to finish that novel on the typewriter. Or you may have the skills of a writer but just don't know what to write about and how to start. The best practice for most writers these days is to write short articles. Believe it or not, this is how some great writers start on their journey to writing some of the best things this world has ever read. So, if you are going to start on your own journey, consider writing articles to be published in magazines.

• Subject – Depending on the magazine that you have the desire to write for, it is extremely important to know what subject to pick. For example, if you are going to write for a technology magazine, you have to think what kind of technology you are going to write about. It doesn't always have to be about computers. There are such things as food technologies, cleaning technologies, energy saving technologies, etc. Narrowing down your subject will help you choose a topic easily and this will make an article easier to write. Practice this way of topic picking, and you should get it right all the time in your following articles.

• Meat – The body of your article is basically the meat of the whole “dish” that you are about to serve or have published. So it is very important that you get to do your research right. It should not only be correct research, but your facts should be fun and they should be relevant as well. An article doesn't have to sound so bookish, boring and too technical. Have fun with the facts that you choose to bring to your audience and relax as if you are having a conversation with a friend as you type along. However, you should not overdo it because articles are usually restricted to a certain number of words. This means that you have to try and squeeze in vast amounts of information into single page articles or less, depending on what you are writing about.

• Audience – Think of who is going to read your article. Will those people be able to adapt to your writing style? Will they find what you wrote entertaining and helpful? Of course, you don't want to end up analyzing this too much or else your article will not have that free-flowing effect that it could have had when you were relaxed while typing it. Just be comfortable with the topic you choose and make sure that the way you write it will make sense to the readers as well.

• Technical writing – This does not mean that you should be too technical. It simply means that if you are writing about something complicated, you should have the skills to translate that complicated matter into something easy to read and easy to understand. Is the topic about rocket science? Then do your best to explain it so that it reads like cupcake baking. Now this the true test of your writing skills. Do this right and you can do almost anything.