Your description says you quit work to be a writer. That adds pressure to your mind. Why does it not work as fast as I hoped, asked almost every writer ever (the ones who didn’t, you know about since it was so unusual they had to write stories about it).
You are doing great, just not as great as your brain says you should. Tell your brain: shush, I’m working here.
That’s certainly true. The option we choose has a significant effect on what happens moving forward as well. Grateful for your reminders, and those that you explore in your living a principled life posts!
I think when reading everything you've accomplished recently it's very impressive, very productive and from my view very prolific in terms of volume of creative output. You're certainly building lots of forward momentum and also providing motivation in the personalized narrative tone in which you write to anyone else here trying to write and in early stages of growing their audience. That's an objective outside view looking at it.
Thank you!! I’m so grateful for your input. I really hope that I can help other writers build confidence and step boldly into ghostwriting or whatever writing arena they want to enter. At the same time, I want to create some stories and fun articles of my own. I try to balance these two goals in my publication. What I’m lacking here and would really love to grow would be lateral community, meaning that more of my subscribers can interact with each other through my chat feature and on posts. I want to grow a sense of community for writers on my page! 😄
The subscriber interaction would be great. I think you have the writing voice to bring in the type of writers who are seeking that, as your tone in discussing your own writing process is centric to your actual creative process and you are referencing real-world writing experiences. I’ll try to spread the word about your substack to some of the niche writers I have been interacting with lately that seem to enjoy engaging with other writers in and outside of their genres and have interest as well in the general processes and insights on writing itself.
You're doing a fanulous job but where do you want to be a month from now? A year? 5 years? You can only reach your destination if you know where you're going. Visualize. A path will emerge. Follow it. Never look back. Keep up the good work!
That’s a great way to look at it. I’d really love to be working on a new memoir for a client by next year. It’s the path to growing my client pipeline that gets murky sometimes - I’m not much of a marketer, but it’s vital to what I do! 🤣
I liked hearing your voice on this article. I see that the advice out there (to connect with readers with pictures & voice) is valid. Nice job. I have been experimenting with that as well--adding audio to my stories. 🎧 Some people like to sit back and listen. Give the eyes a little rest.
Oh yes, Emma. Do I ever get what you mean! I’ve been working on a very long range project for 18 years. Chipping away. Sometimes euphoric head rushes of gain, only to be followed by weeks of silence. I keep advancing, slowly. This year has seen the biggest of those gains yet I still have to insist on myself being ok with the quiet. I fight the universe over the relative benefits of patient growth. Let’s just have this NOW!
So yes, carry on. Give yourself a big shhh and keep on. All the best!
Thank you so much! Some of the best books were written over long periods (not to mention that some of the most world-changing theories and developments came over one or more lifetimes of work). I’m grateful to be reminded of this today. I hope to read your 18-year project soon…! 😄😂
Some years ago I spent a few hours with a Dutch poet who had been very successful but who also writes mini scripts for TV adverts. He said to me that being a really decent writer or poet wasn’t enough. That you had to put your stuff out there. I never had to worry about that as I worked for a publishing company and researched and wrote history for them, proof read and edited their books so really I was a hack writer. We also discussed poetry and his question to me was “ Do you
like the poetry you have written?”. Most of it I do, one of the ones that I like best, a lot of people don’t like at all. He said to me “ we write poetry for commercial reasons to keep publishers happy too but mostly we write poetry for ourselves. If you like it it has evidently said what you wanted it to say so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of it at all’ we have to forget about making money as such but rather writing things that we are happy with. Book publishing is in crisis at the moment due to reading electronically having taken over . So do persevere with your writing and don’t be discouraged . Practice really does make perfect.
Thank you so much for your insightful comment. It is true, much of what I write is entirely for my own enjoyment and I’m so grateful to have the time and opportunity to write about the things that I’m passionate about. In choosing to be a career writer, I agree with your point that sometimes we end up writing things that we aren’t necessarily super proud of or passionate about, but that our employers or clients want written.
Your description says you quit work to be a writer. That adds pressure to your mind. Why does it not work as fast as I hoped, asked almost every writer ever (the ones who didn’t, you know about since it was so unusual they had to write stories about it).
You are doing great, just not as great as your brain says you should. Tell your brain: shush, I’m working here.
Thank you! You’re right, and I am super excited about the progress that’s already been made. I like that, a new motto: “shush, I’m working here!” 😂
Every milestone can be looked at by one of two ways:
1. Nice to see what I’ve gained.
2. Not as much as I hoped.
The former looks at life optimistically. The latter pessimistically.
Our brains are very good at whispering the latter, so we sometimes have to shout at ourselves the former.
That’s certainly true. The option we choose has a significant effect on what happens moving forward as well. Grateful for your reminders, and those that you explore in your living a principled life posts!
I think when reading everything you've accomplished recently it's very impressive, very productive and from my view very prolific in terms of volume of creative output. You're certainly building lots of forward momentum and also providing motivation in the personalized narrative tone in which you write to anyone else here trying to write and in early stages of growing their audience. That's an objective outside view looking at it.
Thank you!! I’m so grateful for your input. I really hope that I can help other writers build confidence and step boldly into ghostwriting or whatever writing arena they want to enter. At the same time, I want to create some stories and fun articles of my own. I try to balance these two goals in my publication. What I’m lacking here and would really love to grow would be lateral community, meaning that more of my subscribers can interact with each other through my chat feature and on posts. I want to grow a sense of community for writers on my page! 😄
The subscriber interaction would be great. I think you have the writing voice to bring in the type of writers who are seeking that, as your tone in discussing your own writing process is centric to your actual creative process and you are referencing real-world writing experiences. I’ll try to spread the word about your substack to some of the niche writers I have been interacting with lately that seem to enjoy engaging with other writers in and outside of their genres and have interest as well in the general processes and insights on writing itself.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate that a lot ☺️
You're doing a fanulous job but where do you want to be a month from now? A year? 5 years? You can only reach your destination if you know where you're going. Visualize. A path will emerge. Follow it. Never look back. Keep up the good work!
That’s a great way to look at it. I’d really love to be working on a new memoir for a client by next year. It’s the path to growing my client pipeline that gets murky sometimes - I’m not much of a marketer, but it’s vital to what I do! 🤣
Don't underestimate yourself. Look what you've already accomplished! Keep going with confidence. 😃
Thank you so much!! Your encouragement means a lot to me! 😊
I liked hearing your voice on this article. I see that the advice out there (to connect with readers with pictures & voice) is valid. Nice job. I have been experimenting with that as well--adding audio to my stories. 🎧 Some people like to sit back and listen. Give the eyes a little rest.
Thank you so much! I’m actually doing voice overs for the fantasy series @tranithargan by Nick Richards as well. I really enjoy doing audios! ☺️
Oh yes, Emma. Do I ever get what you mean! I’ve been working on a very long range project for 18 years. Chipping away. Sometimes euphoric head rushes of gain, only to be followed by weeks of silence. I keep advancing, slowly. This year has seen the biggest of those gains yet I still have to insist on myself being ok with the quiet. I fight the universe over the relative benefits of patient growth. Let’s just have this NOW!
So yes, carry on. Give yourself a big shhh and keep on. All the best!
Thank you so much! Some of the best books were written over long periods (not to mention that some of the most world-changing theories and developments came over one or more lifetimes of work). I’m grateful to be reminded of this today. I hope to read your 18-year project soon…! 😄😂
Darn right that means something. You're doing fantastic, Emma. Carry on. - Jim
Thanks Jim! I always appreciate your kind words of encouragement! 🥹
Some years ago I spent a few hours with a Dutch poet who had been very successful but who also writes mini scripts for TV adverts. He said to me that being a really decent writer or poet wasn’t enough. That you had to put your stuff out there. I never had to worry about that as I worked for a publishing company and researched and wrote history for them, proof read and edited their books so really I was a hack writer. We also discussed poetry and his question to me was “ Do you
like the poetry you have written?”. Most of it I do, one of the ones that I like best, a lot of people don’t like at all. He said to me “ we write poetry for commercial reasons to keep publishers happy too but mostly we write poetry for ourselves. If you like it it has evidently said what you wanted it to say so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of it at all’ we have to forget about making money as such but rather writing things that we are happy with. Book publishing is in crisis at the moment due to reading electronically having taken over . So do persevere with your writing and don’t be discouraged . Practice really does make perfect.
Thank you so much for your insightful comment. It is true, much of what I write is entirely for my own enjoyment and I’m so grateful to have the time and opportunity to write about the things that I’m passionate about. In choosing to be a career writer, I agree with your point that sometimes we end up writing things that we aren’t necessarily super proud of or passionate about, but that our employers or clients want written.