>>24795391 (OP)
I started working on my prose alongside watching the Brandon Sanderson lectures a while ago. So far, I've seen an improvement in pacing, less repetition, and enough positive change overall that I'm able to keep at it without getting disheartened at the inhuman gobbledygook that is a lot of the dialogue I've written. As a kid I was never in any advanced writing courses but I was in music, and it seems to me that learning to write is much like learning an instrument: it's countless hours of making slight improvements on trash while pushing aside the feeling that you'll never be able to hold a candle to the people that make the art that inspires you.
I started writing smut for myself to bang out my practice in a way that keeps me motivated. I'm able to write and proofread 3-4k words a day consistently in one sitting. It's been easier to get into the heads of each of my characters, hunt down the right-feeling descriptions, and stay in the writing mood for a couple hours straight while I'm rock hard.