The usual advice to beginning artists is to draw, draw, draw, because they've got 10,000 bad pictures inside them and they have to get them out before they start getting good. I think the same principle applies with beginning writers, because really, you can't get good at something if you don't practice doing it! Writing bad stories, comparing them to good stories and seeing why they're bad, learning how to make them better, is just something you gotta do. Most authors get dozens of rejection letters before publishing a single story, or write dozens of stories they don't even bother sending to editors before sending one they think is good.
I ran across an interesting quote recently in the Wikipedia article on
Louis L'Amour, a writer of Western novels who was very popular from the Sixties through the Eighties:
When interviewed not long before his death, he was asked which among his books he liked best. His reply:
I like them all. There's bits and pieces of books that I think are good. I never rework a book. I'd rather use what I've learned on the next one, and make it a little bit better. The worst of it is that I'm no longer a kid and I'm just now getting to be a good writer. Just now.
This from a man who
published "89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction" and was considered "one of the world's most popular writers"! Geez, Louis, not long before your death is a helluva time to finally start getting good. Maybe work on your timing in your next life?