You Are a Writer (3 page)

When you think about it like that, you don’t feel so alone anymore, do you? Which raises the question: If there are thousands of people out there waiting to hear from you, how do you find them? Is it hard to believe that it starts with you?

It Begins with Passion

For five years, I wrote a blog nobody read. I measured my traffic and did everything I could to maximize my reach. All the while, my heart slowly died, and I grew bitter.

I watched other writers succeed in ways I hadn’t, and I envied them. Eventually, I grew to resent them. Why? Because I wasn’t doing what I wanted. I was writing, but I wasn’t enjoying the process. I was only chasing results.

So what did I do? I went back to the basics: writing for the love of it. Not profit or prestige. Not analytics or metrics. Just for writing for the sake of
writing
.

As a result, something amazing happened: I started to have fun. And the quality of my work dramatically increased. I finally felt free to do what I loved.

You can do this, too. But this kind of change comes with a cost. As with all good things, there will be sacrifice — a price to pay.

De-clutter

In order to create your best work, you’ll have to make room for it. You’ll have to cut out the excess noise and focus on what really matters: the writing.

In our world today, distractions abound. Thousands of advertising messages inundate us every single day. As a result, we live hurried, frantic lives full of interruption.

The average attention span is short — less than three minutes (I’ve heard as short as nineteen seconds). The demand for writers with the ability to capture and maintain interest is high.

Go ahead and try to watch a five-minute video on YouTube. I dare you. If you get through it without checking email, changing browser tabs, or picking up your phone (or wanting to), I applaud you. You have a rare ability that most now struggle with.

For me, the worst of all these distractions is social media.

Facebook. Twitter. Posterous. Friendfeed. Blogger. Ning. Plaxo. LinkedIn. Google Plus. Wordpress. Instagram. AIM. Jabber. Tumblr. Flickr. Foursquare. LinkedIn. Myspace. Digg. Delicious. Stumbleupon. Yelp. Path. Gowalla. And
more
.

I’ve been on them all. And I have little to show for it.

Online, there is this expectation (usually self-imposed) for writers and communicators. It’s a fallacy, but it doesn’t stop well-meaning people from saying it all the time. The myth goes like this: “You have to be everywhere.”

That’s ridiculous.

You know who says that? People who are always responding to the latest trend. I know this, because I was one of them.

When I started writing every day, I realized a painful truth: I can’t react and create at the same time. Neither can you.

Our brains don’t work well when we try doing too many things. Though we may have eclectic interests, we can only do one thing at a time and do it well.

Multitasking is a myth.
You can either create or react.
But you can’t do both. Choose wisely.

It’s hard to say no, but it’s even harder to spin your wheels. To waste your creative energy on frivolous things like an endless series of check-ins.

You know what most of this crazy, social media platform maintenance is? Stalling. Procrastinating the real work you need to do, which is writing.

I don’t play that game anymore. I pick a few networks that work for me and I say “good riddance” to the rest. If you’re going to be a real writer, you’ll have to make similar sacrifices.

I don’t know your distractions, but you do. Fess up to them, do a little purging, and get to work.

Cancel Contingencies

There’s a trend amongst writers. Most have more ideas than they know what to do with. They have hundreds of half-written articles and a few books started.

How many of these projects have they finished? None. I was the same way.

Once a month on a Saturday, when the wind was blowing just right and I felt inspired, I would write. I’d write for hours at a time — long, drawn-out essays about who-knows-what. It felt beautiful and precious, but really it was a waste of energy.

I would come up with imaginative ideas and potential projects —websites and communities and other brilliant creations. Some of them I’d actually start, even followed through with a few. But I finished exactly none.

I wasn’t creating. I was only dreaming.

This is dangerous territory, when your creativity hijacks your productivity. Do you know what’s at work here, when we thrash around with countless projects?

FEAR.

Fear of finishing. Fear of picking one thing and sticking with it. We think,
what if it’s the wrong thing? What if I mess it up?

Here’s the truth: There is no wrong thing. Just begin. Once you learn how to finish, you’ll be able to start again.

Cancel all backup plans, pick a project (it may be a book, blog or whatever) and move forward. Start writing. If you don’t, all you’re doing is waiting.

Fail Forward

As you cancel contingencies and find something to stick with, you’ll need to learn how to ship. You’ll have to move through fear. You’ll have to learn the lesson every writer hates learning.

In fact, nobody wants to learn this lesson: how to fail.

Steve Jobs once said, “Real artists ship.” I love that. However, someone recently reminded me it’s the
shipping
part that’s emphasized when it should be the artist part.

In other words, just because it’s shipped doesn’t make it art. But if it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t matter
what
it is. Art is creation. It needs to exist on paper or screen to fulfill its purpose. Which is to change something.

Real artists risk failure every time they release their work into the world. If your words are going to matter, you will have to do the same. You will have to let go.

Until you do, you’re not creating art. You’re just screwing around.

Remember: The fear of something is always scarier than the thing itself. Yes, there is pain and rejection. But the greatest failure is to never risk at all.

When you fail, you don’t really fail. You
learn
. You draw a lesson from it. You find new ways to move forward, ways to work around future problems. As Thomas Edison said, you find 999 ways to
not
succeed. If you persevere, you hit that 1000
^th
try — the moment of breakthrough.

But this happens only
if
you ship.

Build a Community

When I first started writing and sharing my work, it was on a blog. Blogs let you see how many readers you’re affecting every day, so it was easy for me to get off-track — to focus on results instead of process.

I chased numbers, not people. I thought like a pollster, not a conversationalist.

Not surprisingly, I failed. I had hundreds of daily visitors, but no friends or followers. No one who really cared about my work.

If you’re going to fall out of love with public approval, something interesting will happen: People will be deeply attracted to your work.

They won’t be able to help it. Passion is contagious. If you treat people like human beings and write from a place that is deep and true, you will find your audience.

But you won’t do it alone.

You will need others’ help. You will need a community. And that community begins with one person who truly believes in the work.

That person is you.

So what do you say? Time to start writing? Thought so.

The Truth About Writing

Writing is hard —
real
hard. It’s work. Somehow, you never talk about that in your college composition class.

Nobody wants to tell you the truth, because if you knew how hard it was, you’d never start in the first place. You’d quit before you began.

Let’s begin there — with the truth — shall we?

What Nobody Ever Tells You About Writing

• It’s harder than you think.
  
• It’s not enough to be good. You have to be great.
  
• Nobody cares about you. People care about themselves.
  
• It’s more about who you know than what you know.
  
• You’d better love it. (Otherwise, quit now.)
  

So what do you do — now that you’ve been acquainted with the real world? Do you give up or persevere?

Nobody ever tells you this. That writing takes more hours and energy than you’d ever be able to plan for. That no one cares about you as the writer until you’ve actually written something. That what you write isn’t as important as getting your work in front of the right people. That, above all, if you don’t love it, you’re kind of screwed.

At least, nobody ever told
me
those things. Maybe they did, and I just wasn’t listening.

Now that we’ve debunked some common beliefs about writing, what does it take to become a writer? Well, there are two camps.

The First Camp

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Writing is hell.
This is one camp of thinking.

The reasoning goes like this:
This is serious work, so if you want to do it right, it will have to cost you everything. Including your life. No two ways about it.

We read about men like Hemingway the drunk or Dickinson the recluse and romanticize their lives. We think,
This is just the way it goes.
And we set ourselves up for lives of dysfunction.

It’s a cheery thought, isn’t it? All it takes to succeed as a writer is the ability to deal with a considerable amount of blood loss?
Thanks a lot, Ernie.
No wonder so many creatives are given to suicide and substance abuse.

I have a friend who says this about writing: “Don’t be the sacrifice;
make
it.” I like that.

There are plenty of writers who choose the Hemingway route and suffer through their life’s work. They subject themselves to the violence of their art, instead of conquering it. They ruin marriages and type masterpieces while completely wasted. They wallow.

If you’re a wimp like me, though, you may not be too keen on suffering. In which case, rest assured. There is another way. You don’t have to suffer; you can
work
, instead.

The Second Camp

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.”
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Talent is not enough to succeed. We know this. We see it every day.

Hollywood is not just full of the world’s best actors, but those who also made the right connections and paid their dues.

Music Row has welcomed not only the world’s most remarkable musicians, but also those who knew the right people.

Of course, talent is important. But it is also a given. In order to succeed as a writer, you need something more, something vibrant.

In other words, there must be a life behind the writing.

Stephen King said in his memoir
On Writing
that for years he labored under the assumption that life was a support system for art. Only years later did he learn it was, in fact, the other way around.

If you are going to succeed as a writer, you are going to have to learn to be smart. To have thick skin. To be more than talented. You are going to have to be a marketer, an entrepreneur, a talented salesperson.

Because this is a
business
.

If your art is going to have the impact you want for it, you had better learn the tricks of the trade — not so you can become part of the system, but so you can start changing lives.

I wish someone would’ve told me this ten years ago. I would’ve gotten to work a lot sooner. And I would’ve succeeded, too.

I wish I’d have known there were simple tools to help writers do what they were made to do: Write, not deal with ridiculous bureaucracies.

I wish I’d have known how to network and make meaningful connections. And that it was all easier and less sleazy than I thought.

I wish I’d have gotten online and started blogging much sooner.

If I had done all those things when I was in college, I’d have authored dozens of books by now. I’m sure of it.

But I didn’t do those things. Instead I waited for permission. To be picked.

Maybe you are, too. If you are, consider this your official wake-up call:
It’s time to stop waiting to be asked and start creating.

The Most Important Lesson a Writer Must Learn

For years, I’ve been writing and publishing articles — both online and offline. I’ve experienced the pain of being ignored and the disappointment of being rejected.

In a matter of months, that all went away.

Everything I’ve learned about writing query letters and book proposals has been thrown out the window. I’m no longer pounding on publishers’ doors, pleading to be picked.

Instead, I’ve learned to choose myself.

Without trying to sound like an infomercial, you can do this, too. And it will make all the difference.

I’ve been writing my whole life, but in the past year I’ve learned the most important lesson about building a writing career, which means it doesn’t take long. Doesn’t have to, anyway.

I’ve learned secrets and tricks to publishing that used to baffle and frustrate me. And I’m going to tell you how I did it: how I focused on the craft and wrote for the love of it. How I got published without having to plead and grovel. How the gatekeepers started coming to me.

Are you ready to get started with this? To live the life every writer dreams of? To stop pitching and start writing? It begins with having the right tools.

Three Tools Every Writer Needs