Write to your passion

What Are Your New Years Resolutions?

New-Years

 

Is your New Years resolution to become a professional writer, meaning to write at least four to six hours a day? Turning the phone to silent, unplug from the world for a couple of hours and just write? Not thinking about writing or talk about writing, but actually writing? Resolutions aren’t what makes a New Year new. You need to take on new habits, which is way more powerful!
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Yes, new authors will likely find it necessary to work harder than ever before. This isn’t the industry for people who expect a quick profit, or who think their single novel is going to make them rich or they can make a living from the first book on.
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Never Give Up!
Bestseller authors need years and years to build up their audience, so it is surprising, that authors dream of their first book as a potential bestseller. To make a full-time living as a writer, it takes at least five books and ten-thousand hours!
It takes a long time and hard work to get an audience, one reader at a time – especially if you don’t have a large network of potential readers and following at Social Media, in forums or in real-life before you start to publish. Don’t think about sales numbers and earnings from your first book, write more books instead!

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Lots of Competition
To compete with millions of other writers means to create more books, short stories, blogs and magazine articles and to market them professionally. If not trained in book marketing – and I am not talking about just having a presence on Facebook or Twitter – get professional help long BEFORE the book launch (even better before you write it) in order to have a smooth and successful publishing experience and to establish a great author platform.
Many authors have unrealistic expectations when it comes to the time required for effective book promotion and to make meaningful connections with readers. Don’t expect wonders from a single sales campaign.

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Author-Publishing is Like a Completely New Profession
Professions need to be learned! It takes years to become an excellent writer and it also takes years to become an excellent publisher. It involves lots of skills and knowledge business-wise, marketing skills, not to mention, learning constantly new internet techniques and get to know the latest changes in publishing. And for the writing part: there are hundreds of websites with writing tips, critique groups and even more writing teachers and classes out there. Even from editors one can learn a lot.
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Take Advantage of their Knowledge
A book marketing professional has to learn years and years. Why, as an author, not take advantage of their knowledge to keep your head free for writing and interacting with your readers? No one would start an accounting business without learning the ropes, and knowing how to create a revenue / expenses sheet or fill out income tax forms. Writing a book does not make for a publisher, no matter how clever businesses want you to imagine. Take the time to build your author platform and establish a brand, it will eventually give you an advantage in the publishing market.

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By setting a goal and committing to it, you start to prioritize the goal in your daily writing schedule and make it a habit.  Write a list of actions it needs to take to complete your goal, and applaud yourself as you get closer.  Don’t forget:  what are you writing now can be published and leveraged for decades to come!  Be confident that you will succeed.

Have a Very Happy New Year!

 

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

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The Most Dedicated Writer in the World

 

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When reading author Jacqueline Drugas‘ personal story how she became an author, I was really moved, and can not imagine that anyone wrote so many books and sent out so many queries to publishers.  In case you are a writer and haven’t read the monthly KDP newsletter in full length, missing her story – or if you are not into writing, but want to achieve other goals in life, here is a great role model who made it on her own – without publishing houses:

Jacqueline Druga, author of Last Woman, shares her experience with Kindle Direct Publishing 

“It’s hard to believe that a mere five years ago, I was standing in line at the food bank hoping to score a free can of baby formula and making the decision on what utility I could do without for the month. All that changed, thanks to KDP.

I always wanted to be a writer and tell stories. But books weren’t a part of my life; the closest thing I saw to ‘reading’ in my family was when my grandmother browsed the tabloids over her morning coffee. At the age of 10, my mother gave me her old typewriter. Fueled by my imagination and obsession over Charlton Heston, I wrote stories and never stopped.
“It started with short stories and progressed to disaster-based romance novels. My first rejection letter came at the age of 17.  Devastated, I stopped submitting. I kept writing though. Focusing on shorter works, I put the full-length books aside. Publishing was a pipe dream I wasn’t qualified to pursue. 
Then in 1997, all that changed. I started writing novels again, and with a renewed vigor, decided I wanted to be a published author.  I slept very little and wrote seven days a week, every night.
And believing getting published would be easy, I set an outlandish goal that I would quit writing if I reached enough rejection letters to place one on each step of the Empire State Building. It took 404 rejections to get my first ‘yes’ with a small house that went under two years later. That was it.” 
 
1,172 Publisher Rejections 
“By 2006, I had accumulated enough rejections to plaster the stairs of the Empire State Building: 1,172 rejections to be exact. (Yes, I have them all.) So I stopped trying to get published. I was convinced that no one wanted to read my work. I wrote primarily apocalyptic fiction. I ended the world any way I could. It was a genre that was deemed ‘unmarketable.’ 
Writing stayed my passion, relentlessly writing book after book, screenplays, and poems. In 10 years, I had written over 100 full-length novels. I was happy writing and accepted the fact that no one would really know my name or my stories.
Following a divorce that left me to raise two teenage daughters alone (one of whom was pregnant), I had to work two jobs and bury the writing dream. In 2010, a writer friend suggested I give KDP a try, maybe make a couple bucks. I laughed at that. No one wanted to read about the apocalypse. ‘Give it a try,’ he said. So I did. 
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My first royalty check was for $11. I danced a jig. It was the most money I had ever received for my writing. Little by little the checks increased, and more than that, people were reading my work.  I dropped the second job. By 2012, I only worked part-time, and by 2013, I was able to quit working outside the home and do what I love best: be with my family and write full-time. 
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I am the sole supporter of my family. Gone are the days of not having enough to eat or any electricity. For that I am beyond grateful. I take advantage of everything Amazon has to offer. Without KDP, my dream of being a published writer would have washed away.  All I ever wanted was for someone to give me a chance and I’d run with it. KDP gave me that chance, and I am sprinting at a good pace on their publishing track.”
–Jacqueline Druga
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For those authors with one single book under the belt, who complain that they are not in the NY Bestseller List, or that the income from their first book doesn’t allow to quit the day job: Learn what the word dedication, motivation and love for writing meant for this author.  Take her as a role model and write a hundred books like her… and then see what happens!

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Write to Your Passion – Like Tennessee Williams

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TennesseeW
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What is Passion?
A great example of a writer who was successful because he wrote with passion and authenticity is Tennessee Williams. It is said that his play, The Glass Menagerie, is somewhat autobiographical. For those familiar with this play, it’s obvious that the playwright had strong feelings about his characters and the society in which they lived. Successful writers will follow Tennessee Williams’ example of identifying what they care about and writing on those subjects. It’s also important to show heartfelt emotion without going into unnecessary detail.

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What is heartfelt emotion, or passion?
A Wikipedia article explains that passion is an intense emotion, such as; enthusiasm, desire, or a positive affinity or love towards a subject. Passion also has a dark side. It can be linked to intense negative emotion, such as hate.
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Why is it Important That Our Writing be Passionate?
We need to write about that which we have strong emotions, positive or negative. Simply put, we need to write about what we care about. Why is this important? Writing is like acting. People can tell if you’re emotionally connected. The most respected actors are the actors who are not “acting” a certain role; they are “being” a certain role. For example, if we see someone like Meryl Streep in a movie, we don’t think that she’s portraying the character in a skilled manner. Instead, we feel that she has actually become the character. She is not divisible from the character. In the same way, writers want their material to flow smoothly. Writers cannot write material that flows smoothly unless they care about the subject of their writing.

  • Suzanne Fetting, Confidence Coach, defines passion as energy in her blog. She says that passion fuels the fires of inspiration and that it motivates us. It’s hard to write about that which doesn’t engage us emotionally. How Do We Find Our Passion.
  • Mary DeMuth, guest blogger on Michael Hyatt’s blog, says that one of the best ways to find our passion is to find where need and joy collide. A good example of this would be a job that contributes to society in a positive manner while it utilizes our unique talents. Another way that she suggests that we find our passion is to ask our friends to identify what is our main personality characteristic. For instance, our friends may define us as “artsy”, “intelligent”, “athletic”, and so on.

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How Do We Balance Our Passion in Our Writing?
It’s important not to be too emotional in our writing. When I was using some of my own life experiences while writing my first book, I spent a lot of time editing them because I was too emotional about those experiences. I edited certain passages fifteen times, and I still found that too much strong emotion came out in my words. In the end, I believe that I made my point clear with less emotion and fewer words. Readers don’t need a lot of details to understand a particular emotion that is being portrayed. In fact, too many details may be distracting. So, we want to keep details to a minimum.
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Traci Lawrence writes about her passion: communication, relationships, the value of individuals and rising above verbal bullying, or trash talk. She lives in the Northern Virginia area of the United States and teaches English, among other subjects. Please find more on her blog, and read her book: Accept No Trash Talk.

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Tagged: Accept No Trash Talk, Author Traci Lawrence, Mary DeMuth, Michael Hyatt’, Suzanne Fetting, Tennessee Williams, Write to your passion