As corny as it sounds, I think the thing that has helped me more than anything is confidence. Lately, I have been feeling so much better about the tests. I have always practiced constantly, but I had convinced myself I could not do it, so therefore, I couldn't. Now, I feel like I have the skills and they're coming together and it's resulting in my writing.
Another thing I'm trying is "writing" books. I like to read novels and I always feel guilty about it because it takes time away from my practice. So, I've been setting up my Nook next to my computer and writing the novel while hooked up to realtime. It's a much slower read but I have added so many words to my dictionary that I never wrote before. Also, I feel like hard copy practice improves accuracy, which has never been my strong suit.
