An Audience of Moi

I got back From the gym a few minutes ago and it was one those days. I’ve put on 12 pounds in less than a week and could barely run half a mile in ten minutes. Granted I worked out my legs for an hour before hand.

What does this have to do with writing or LGBTQ issues you may be asking right about now?

Everything.

See the pressure to be the best gets drilled in your head ad nauseum. Every time you to click on a m2m site you get bombarded with ads for porno sites and sex items, all reinforcing the notion that you aren’t good enough as is.

Well I’m here to tell you you’re fine the way you are. Sure exercise if you want to stay in shape or stave off diabetes or other obesity related diseases. But not so you can conform to some exaggerated notion of male beauty.

The same is true when it comes to writing. Everyday it seems some new guru appears with the promise that if you take his/her course you’ll become the next Rowling, King or E.L. James.

The truth is while some of these courses offer valuable information most are of fill of shit or worse: things you already know. This is also true when it comes to free information.

Most of the time the things being pitched on twitter and elsewhere are the same nuggets of information repackaged. Write what you know, kill your darlings, show don’t tell, etc.

While these are all good things to know when you’re starting out hearing them stated over and over again becomes puerile.

You can spend thousands on courses and conferences, and hundreds of hours on social media trying to build your brand and establish a platform, and still fail.

Why?

Because you forgot the most important thing. Write first for the joy of it, not because you’re chasing the latest trend or seeking your fortune. Readers are more clever than you give them credit for and will sniff out your bullshit in a heartbeat.

For this reason I limit my time on social media sites and concentrate on producing the best work I can. So when it comes time to ship I have a small core of readers who tell me where I went wrong and how to fix it before I ship to the general public.

One genuine reader is worth a thousand fakes who only look at your work once it becomes cool/hip. This is what building a tribe is all about and why you should be focused on that instead of trying to write like so and so.

Don’t conform to others’ notions of what it means to be a writer. Set your own standards and damn the critics and cynics because when you do something you love and find joy in doing it every day you’ve won.