In my own case I started an Esperanto blog, and forced myself to post at least three paragraphs at least three times a week. Early on I allowed paragraphs to consist of only one sentence; later I made sure they always had at least two.

My intention was not to limit myself to "simple" stuff. My thought was always "If I can say it in English, I should be able to convey the same meaning in Esperanto".

Content didn't matter. While it was being posted to the general public, it wasn't really *for* the general public; it was for me. I wrote about anything. My house. My cat. My job. Whatever. The early posts were truly not interesting. Didn't matter. "Interesting" wasn't the point.

I improved immeasurably by doing this.

Do a little Esperanto every day, whatever it is. Find someone online to correspond with and try to keep up your end of the correspondence.

And for reading - I would avoid works aimed at beginners. The gap between beginner and "normal" Esperanto is minor and mainly involves a more complex vocabulary. I would read short works written in normal Esperanto (short stories are great) versus reading longer texts in easy Esperanto. The text is harder to get through but the payoff is quicker since you have only a few pages of text to read. I liked the stories by Sten Johansson, many of which are available for free online in ebook form. If you are looking to buy a book, Tibor Sekelj wrote books about his adventures around the world that hold the attention and are divided into chapters, each of which usually describes a relatively short anecdote. I enjoyed "Mondo de travivaĵoj". Bonus - he is talking about things outside of ordinary experience, so it's a great vocabulary building exercise. Jungle animals or weapons used by indigenous tribes - these are vocabulary words you are unlikely to learn in your everyday correspondence with a friend.

Dankon, everyone! I've been going through your suggestions and they are proving rich and helpful.