Become a professional writer

I’m starting to write more. I’m getting into the habit of writing a story instead of sitting down at my laptop when I’m bored. A couple of days ago I asked my boyfriend to list three random things (“haunted house” “sheep” and “ocarina” were his answers) and I wrote a story including them all. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t all great… how do you become good without practice?

I’m taking creative writing courses at uni in different genres- next year I’m doing scriptwriting and short fiction, and the following year novels- but I think the two most important things I need to do are a) read a lot of quality books and b) make time to sit down and write.