When you're good, you're good. But you're not great, as you could be. Sometimes, once you're pretty sure that you can get paid to turn a phrase, the craftsmanship can fall away in lieu of speediness, timeliness, attitude. (The author says "The list also could be called, "10 COMMON PROBLEMS THAT DISMISS YOU AS AN AMATEUR," because these mistakes are obvious to literary agents and editors, who may start wording their decline letter by page 5. What a tragedy that would be," but I still think that sometimes the most experienced of us forget the fundamentals.) Don't worry, it happens to all of us. Here is a very good list of bland writing mistakes that good writers often make: print it out and put it on your bulletin board. The next time you're about to submit something, check the list and make sure you're not committing any of these crimes. One of the best ones:

LISTS "She was entranced by the roses, hyacinths, impatiens, mums, carnations, pansies, irises, peonies, hollyhocks, daylillies, morning glories, larkspur..." Well, she may be entranced, but our eyes are glazing over.

If you're going to describe a number of items, jack up the visuals. Lay out the the scene as the eye sees it, with emphasis and emotion in unlikely places. When you list the items as though we're checking them off with a clipboard, the internal eye will shut.

It doesn't matter what you list - nouns, adjectives, verbs - the result is always static. "He drove, he sighed, he swallowed, he yawned in impatience." So do we. Dunk the whole thing. Rethink and rewrite. If you've got many ingredients and we aren't transported, you've got a list.