I love wine. I love dry reds, dry whites, a few semi-dries. No sweets. I know what I like when I taste it. I’m lost when someone tries to describe “what” I’m tasting.

Tiger Lily decided to help me out by showing me other people are as lost as I. She grabbed an article from HuffPost.com, and for a few newsletters, she is going to give us an example of overused phrases and ideas.

Here is #4.

The use of specific varieties of fruit, vegetables and brands to describe wine. You say, "The wine smells and tastes of lemons." I say, "No, no, no; you mean Meyer lemon." "He experiences notes of strawberry in the Californian Pinot Noir," then she says, perhaps; "But it's clearly wild strawberry I'm getting out of this." I say "This mystery red is marked by aromas of rubber." You counter by noting that "The rubber is distinctively bike tire and decidedly Bontrager rubber -- as opposed to merely rubber of some other unknown origin." This can go on until cobwebs form between bottles. The not-so-subtle type of one-upmanship carries into the next item of discussion.

What if you knew everything would work out? How much time would you devote to building your writing career if it was guaranteed?

A year, five, ten?

Building a writing career takes time. I read a post by blogging expert Jon Morrow that said you need to dedicate four to six years of your life to building a six-figure blog.

You have to wrap your head around the idea that it’s not going to happen right now, but it will happen eventually.

You don’t improve your writing skills at an equal rate. When you write consistently, your skills will grow exponentially. The key is to make it past the initial phase of sucking at it.