Publish! Yeah! Do it!

Oh, what’s that you say? You’ve got this friend, his name is Lil Kid? Lil Kid is grabbing you all over, holding you back?

KICK LIL KID IN THE LIL FACE!

Don’t let anything hold you back!

You like to write. Yeah, it’s your thing! But, you just pile up everything you write in the closet. You don’t share it with anyone. None of it is published.

It’s not good enough. It’s not long enough. It’s not publishable enough.

That’s Lil Kid talkin’ again. Lil Kid was talking to me for the longest time. You know what I did? I PULVERISED LIL KID IN THE LIL TORSO!

Aww yeah, publish your short stories, your guides, your cooking recipes, your whatever!

Self publishing is so easy, how could you not do it? “But everyone’s doing it,” Lil Kid will tell you. EXACTLY! WHY AREN’T YOU?

I published something last week and so far it’s been a super learning experience. I compiled twenty of my free writes, edited them up, added an intro and summary, took a picture of a stack of papers (my novel drafts), and tossed the whole salad into a cute little book.

I called it Twenty Days of Writing and wrote in a challenge for all readers to write for twenty days themselves. (CHECK OUT MY BOOK HERE ON AMAZON)

So far it’s been 5 days and already over 150 people have downloaded it (for free so far). Why’d I do this? Cuz I gotta learn.

I’m new to writing. I’m new to publishing. I’m new to promoting. And so far I suck at it! But you know what?

That’s right. In the words of Jake the Dog, “sucking at something is the first step at being good at something.” – probably the most motivational thing I’ve ever heard.

So yeah, I’m learning. I don’t wanna be a rookie when I publish my novel. I wanna know what I’m doing. I wanna be a master at promoting my work. I wanna have a name for myself already starting to build.

So how am I gonna do all that? By throwing myself in the fire of publishing!

While I don’t have any super proof of going full best seller yet, I’d encourage you to do the same as me. Start on the path to learning and publish something! But don’t stop there, promote the crap out of it any way you can.

Amazon has a great and easy tutorial on how to self publish for Kindle – check it out here. It’s what I used to publish my book (it took about an hour), so I know that you can do it too!

As always,

Happy writing!

Octotea

P.S. Here’s a link to my book, check it out!

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Here’s what happens to me. It probably happens to you.

I spend the day at work  anxious about getting home to write. What happens when I get home?

My mind is exhausted.

I crunched numbers all day. I made presentations. I sat in meetings.

My excitement to write dwindles as soon as I sit down at my home computer. I’m mentally exhausted.

It’s much harder to create your best work when your brain needs a break. Yes I still write after work, but it’s not the optimal time for me.

Unfortunately we’re creatures of habit (cute creatures fortunately!). I found myself writing only after work WHEN I’M ALWAYS MENTALLY EXHAUSTED. 

This is really, really bad. Writing while mentally exhausted takes MORE motivation, MORE effort, MORE focusing and it’s LESS fun! Most of all I wasn’t producing my best work.

Later I’d review my writing and notice PLENTY of mistakes and inconsistencies. I was spending a LOT OF TIME going no where. Worst of all, writing was becoming a chore.

So you know what I did?

I tested myself (that sounds unintentionally awkward).

I experimented writing during different times.

• When am I most motivated?
• When am I most alert?
• When is writing most fun?

Here’s what I discovered about when it’s best for me to write:

1. Early in the morning: my mind is fresh and ready and I feel a purpose to begin my day
2. Weekend evenings: after a day spent relaxing I’m super refreshed (superfreshed!)

Do I still write after work? Yes – BUT! I ensure that I set aside time to write when it’s best for me to write. I wake up before work to write. I stay up late on weekends and sit in the dark tapping my fingers.

What’s been the result? I’ve produced so much more GOOD WRITING CONTENT than I have otherwise. It’s SO MUCH EASIER to write when it feels right (right?)! The ideas flow, my mind races, and my fingers hardly take a break. I’ve written whole stories in hardly an hour during these times (some are published/getting published, hurrah!), when after work it might’ve take me the whole week

Before: wrote a lot and produced little After: write less and produce more

It’s that simple. SO HERE’S THE DEAL! You just have to discover when your mind is ready for writing! You’ll spend less effort producing much better work.

Happy writing!

Octotea

PS) IT’S FRIGGEN TOUGH TO GET UP EARLY AND WEEKENDS ARE PARTYING PRIVY – but this is for another post

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Shy about your writing projects? Don’t be.

BOAST ABOUT IT AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE!

I wrote for years and kept it a secret. I thought to myself, My work isn’t good enough to share. I have to perfect every detail before I reveal anything.

You may feel this way too. People might think your writing is lame, they might not like it. As soon as you tell people you write they’ll think, Oh gosh, another delusional writer, I bet they can’t see how terrible their work is (kinda like those really really bad singers on American Idol that think they’re great).

Alternatively, people might start hounding you to produce stories and get them published and you don’t want to create any false expectations.

If you just agreed with any of that, SLAP YOURSELF IN THE FACE!

Shame on you! Shame on me! I used to think all those things and where did that get me? It got me stuck in a cycle of perfecting one thing for a year and a half (my novel, which I admit I’m still working on). You know what else I wrote in that year and a half?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

It wasn’t until I started telling people that I was working on a novel that I started writing more. You know why?

Because suddenly I felt accountable not to my friends or co-workers, but I felt accountable to MYSELF! I thought, Now that I’m telling people I’m writing, I better write! 

And you know what else I discovered?

All those fears I had were completely false. When I told someone I wrote, they encouraged me. They were excited to see my work. They didn’t have any unrealistic expectations.

I WAS THE ONE WITH UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.

So what’s happened since then? It’s been another year and a half since I told anyone I was working on a novel and guess what?

• I’ve joined a writing meet-up.
• I’ve written 3 dozen short stories and flash fiction pieces.
  • Note: While not all of these are stellar pieces, they’ve helped me improve my writing tenfold!
• I’ve been published 3 times
• I’m 1,000,000 times more confident in my writing now

DON’T BE SHY!

Think about the reasons why you’re shy about your writing. Now look to one of your writing heroes and ask yourself, “Are they shy about their work?” Probably not and they likely started in the same boat as you.

If you boast about your writing, you’ll feel much better about. I guarantee it!

Yes, I still feel a little awkward telling everyone I’m working on a novel, or posting my publications to my friends on Facebook. But since I’ve started doing so, I’ve gained a lot more confidence and passion for writing and I encourage you to do the same.

As always, happy writing!

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DON’T TOUCH IT!

So you like to write?

“La la la la,” you skip along and go about your daily business. Hmmm, you think. I have an idea for a great story! So you sit down and start typing.

    “Once upon a time there lived a green little frog that was in love with an orange little goldfish…”

You get a page or two in, but get distracted. You wonder what’s on TV. You go out and meet some friends. Your stomach growls. It’s bedtime.

Your cute little story about a cute little froggie and cute little fishy gets forgotten.

You think about your amfishbian (amphibian +fish?) romance from time to time, but it just sits on your computer in a lost folder and nothing ever happens to it.

Okay, maybe you don’t write about fish and frogs. Maybe you write about boots and socks? Clouds and caves? Peanuts and pickles? Regardless, you have that writing project that hasn’t been touched in months.

You probably have a dozen of these such untouched stories. I have DOZENS! But here’s the deal…

IT’S OKAY!

Think of it like this. If you’re really passionate about the story you started, you’d finish it. You’d think about it all the time. You’d find the time to sit down and flush it out.

Your unfinished story is probably still pretty decent. You started writing about an interesting character or an interesting situation, but leave it be.

“So,” you ask,  “what do I do with all these unfinished stories?”

REREAD THEM!

If you’re like me, you write all the time. Nearly every day. And if you don’t find time to write, you think about writing. But, leave your unfinished stories be. If you’re not passionate about the plot, it’ll be a hassle to drag it out. Work on something you’re excited about instead.

So why did I shout at you to reread them?

PROGRESS and IDEAS!

You’ll see how far you’ve come in your writing. You’ll see what didn’t work and why you weren’t passionate about it. You’ll also see what did work! You might be able to use something for a story you are working on.

And what if rereading an old story really reignites your passion for it?

GO FOR IT!

Why try to create new ideas when you’ve already started a whole bunch? Maybe you rediscover how lusciously romantic that frog and fish romance was. You’re rereading it, why not just keep writing it?

This happened to me. I reread an old story I had written last December. Nothing really came of it, but I realized that it had potential. I found refreshed passion to finish it, and guess what?

I JUST GOT IT PUBLISHED! (check it out here)

That’s right! Something I’d thrown away as scrap just turned into money.

But here’s the thing. I still have dozens of other unfinished stories sitting on my computer, and rereading them hasn’t given me any new-found passion. I have however seen how far I’ve come and a few ideas from them have sparked ideas for new stories too.

As always, I encourage you to WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! (yes, yell at yourself in your mind as you read that). But, don’t get hung up on finishing everything you start, but do make sure to reread your old stuff!

Happy writing,

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Yeah, you’re writing. Great! I write too. I write about unicorns, and airships, and snow ghosts, and moustache stealing aliens. So here’s the deal…

You started writing, but when will you stop?

I don’t mean stop as in stop forever, I mean stop as in finish. When is your short story due? Well, that may be easy to answer, because if you’re submitting it somewhere, there’s often a deadline.

So when is your novel due? You don’t have a submission deadline, you don’t have an agent constantly bugging you to get it done. You’re not accountable to anyone but yourself, and you haven’t set a deadline.

So why is it important to deadline yourself?

BECAUSE YOU’LL WRITE MORE AND BETTER!

Think of it. You keep putting your novel off. You keep dragging it through versions of editing. You keep writing more to avoid an ending. It never gets done and you never move on! The only way to improve writing is to write!

Do this right now: Set yourself a deadline. Make it next Monday. Make it the 31st. Make it appropriate and achievable.

Now that you have a deadline, what are the steps you need to put in place to get there? Try this: wake up an hour before work to write. That’s what I did to write this post.

With a clear goal in mind, make sure you stick to it! There’s no point in letting it slide. If you need to be accountable to a friend, do that.

All right, I’m going to stop rambling on about this. The point is to make a deadline.

DEADLINE YOURSELF RIGHT NOW!

Happy writing!

PS: Feel free to email me if you’d like me to get on your case about writing every once in a while! (terrystories@gmail.com)

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Why can’t you write? You sit at work all day thinking about finishing that short story, that novel, that essay. You finally get home and what happens?

You open the fridge. You turn on the TV. You play with your pet fish.

You do everything but write! Then you wake up the next day, go to work and think about how you can’t wait to get home to write, but the cycle seems never ending. You tell yourself, “I’ll write on Saturday, when my whole day is free!” But then you wake up on Monday and somehow the whole weekend crept by without writing a single word. Your writing project takes days… months… years… it’s never finished.

I know exactly how you feel. I was stuck in this rut myself for over a year trying to finish my novel. But I got out!

Here’s how you do it.

STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW!

Stop eating, stop watching TV, stop reading this article!

Why are you wasting time reading this when you could be writing instead? Because it’s too easy. It’s easy to say to yourself, “One more article. One more episode. One more level.”

You know what’s also easy? Clicking the “x” at the top of this window and opening a writing document (word, google docs, notepad, whatever). As soon as you do that, your brain suddenly goes into must write mode.

Where the thought of writing seems daunting, the simple act of forcing yourself to look at a blank document will put you in the mood. I guarantee it! If typing isn’t your thing, physically put a pen in your hand.

Before you know it, you’ve written a few words and those words turn into sentences and the whole thing snowballs into a few pages. Then when you wake up the next day, you won’t feel an ounce of guilt about not writing anything the night before.

So, my tip to you is this: STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING AND OPEN A WRITING DOCUMENT

Even if you spit out just a few sentences, that’s more than nothing at all. SO QUIT WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND START WRITING!

Okay, I’ll stop yelling at you now.

I’m sure this isn’t going to work for everyone, but I know it works for me. Do you have any sure-fire tips that help you write? Post them in the comments below.

Happy writing!

Octotea

PS: It’s okay if you don’t do this every day! I’m STILL working on my novel, and I still find it a struggle to abide by this, BUT this tip has helped me achieve light years more writing than I could have done otherwise.

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