It’s easy to get lost. To lose your mind to the lure of stats and figures and sales. It’s even easier to lose your self-control to new and innovative marketing strategies with their shiny promises of big sales and bestseller lists.
And damn if it isn't easy to look at the dollar value of your Steemit posts. Over and over. And then to flick between your own feed and someone else's who's getting $1k+ for each post. And then to compare the two. Oh, and then to link the value of your soul to the value of your posts and consider just giving it all up and ceremoniously kicking your MacBook out the window and hurling abuse at the good-for-nothing-peesa-sheet!
... ahem ...
As I was saying. It's so, so easy to get lost in all that nonsense.
Sure it's nice when you get something right. It does well. It gives you a mini-blast of serotonin and an injection of buzz that keeps you going all the way to the next post, but it doesn't actually help you, your creative soul, or your daily practice.
Honestly.
Fuck that shit.
In the Indie Author community, there's a lot of buzz about writing-to-the-market. Apparently, they have new tactics and strategies which are going to propel them into mid-list sorta-stardom.
… great.
More shiny new toys to distract you from the main work.
Surely you can write to the market without pandering to it? What’s worse is that pandering is a stinky form of desperation that readers can smell a mile away. Sure, put a market-appropriate cover, blurb, even a character arc in your story, but dammit, make it special, put some of your special sauce on it.
I digress …
Can you feel it? We're being sucked into that black hole again. The one that pulls you from the real work.
So anyway, at some point you have to scratch, claw, and grind your way outta that black hole and back to your center, your practice - the place where the most important thing waits.
The single strategy that will point you north and true.
The writing.
The writing should be the focus.
Always.
Pressfield has warned us over and over of the dangers of resistance and I’m realizing more and more just how all-encompassing resistance can be. It doesn’t always show its face as procrastination or research or the dreaded writer’s block.
Turns out it’s a sneaky fucker and can lure us away from our writing with promises of online marketing and re-targeting and split-testing and whale catching.
I’m not telling you to overlook all that stuff but I promise you that if you look to that instead of the writing you’re going to be disappointed. Sure, you might make a few more sales, build a bigger email list, but you’ll be disappointed because you haven’t produced the work that you know you can do; the work that the audience deserves to read, the work that you deserve to make.
So maybe have a quick think about how you’re spending the majority of your time right now. Are you doing the work? Or are you doing the other stuff that’s supposed to supplement the work?
As always, this post is aimed at me.
Luke Kondor is a filmmaker and writer. He started writing on his computer in his early teens and never looked back, and now he’s got really sore eyes.
He’s part of the digital story studio — Hawk & Cleaver where he helps to create the best new stories for you to watch, read, sniff, and absorb. Go grab a free book here
Originally posted (in a form) here: https://byrslf.co/35-focusing-on-the-writing-2015dc0975c#.ti4tq1oqq
HOLY COW,. I was just about to say: this is all Resistance, mate. Read the War on Art , which is maybe, the MOST important book ever written for writers.
Dude, i'm impressed x we need to be bffs now
that's on my list too. thanks for the reminder!
lol yeah I love War Of Art. I read it at least twice a year :).
LOL
Oh gosh I don't ever compare. No way. And I'm experimenting. I'm writing non-stop until Thanksgiving then I'm going on vacation :)
That's such a good habit! Keep going!
Thank you.
You're welcome :)
Good piece. I have reflected on some of these issues in a similar way - though perhaps in a less lucid way. Look forward to reading more of your work.
Cheers.
Thanks @tad-auker! :)