28 May

Writing vs Promoting - New Writer Ratio...

 

New Writer Activity Ratio: 95% Writing/5% Promoting... or, at least, it should be.
 
New writers get caught up in the social media Group Think/Peer Pressure cauldron, thinking the way to literary success is doing everything else BUT writing.
 
That's like a beginner pianist dusting the piano, sorting the sheet music, adjusting the bench, and not laying fingers on the keys, practicing playing the songs.
 
Are you chuckling now, rather red-faced, secretly relating to this go-nowhere-fast pattern? 
 
As in all things in life, don't put the cart before the horse. Evading hard work doesn't make that work disappear. It just prolongs the agony. Seriously. Rip the band-aid off quick.
 
You. Need. To. Write.
 
That is the ONLY WAY you will actually succeed as a writer, to graduate from new > to experienced > to skilled > to master.
 
There are a million words you haven't written down yet that you need to in order to gain the skill to write competent, lyrical passages that will deeply affect your reader. 
And no, social media blurbs do not count.
 
Social media promotion/exposure has its place, and is beneficial...AFTER you have something to promote and expose.
 
What do you think is the ratio between new writers who TALK about writing and those who actually WRITE? Refer back to the Writing ratio at the start of this post to give you a hint... ;-)
 
Yes, on your free time NOT designated to write, you can...
1) set up a FREE author website - do NOT pay out money where you haven't earned any yet, peeps.
2) register on your top 2-3 social media sites - an author page, NOT your personal page, and you can post pieces on your experience as a new writer, NOT personal junk.
3) attend writer conferences and take copious notes in seminars covering literary topics of which you need more knowledge.
 
But NONE of those three activities above should EVER steal one minute away from your writing sessions. Not. One. Minute.
 
HOMEWORK: if you haven't already done so, get serious today, and put together a weekly or monthly writing session schedule aligned with your ideal writing times you uncovered in your 2-week activity diary I told you to previously complete, to find those key times when you're awake, healthy, and free of job and domestic responsibilities, which might mean stealing some time away from your Goof Off hours, and there are many — TV, video games, naval-gazing, etc.
 
If you're only reading me and not actually setting up a proactive system to write, you're doing yourself and that unfinished book no earthly good.
 
Until that first book is finished,
95% write
5% everything else
 
As a new writer, there is NO other doable ratio to literary success.

No comments: