The Dirty Little Secret About Writing

Introduction
There a million programs out there promising to teach you the shortcut to success and fame overnight. Sure the

re are great programs out there that will teach you a lot about the craft, but the truth is there are no shortcuts when it comes to writing.

It’s just you and a pen or laptop pounding away at your work in progress day in and day out, only to realize an even better idea on page fifty. It takes a ton of commitment and hard work to produce a readable book or blog post and even then there’s no guarantee anyone will read your work.

Dedication
Some 80% of American say they want to write a book but not many of them follow through on it. The truth is writing a book is damn hard work. It takes years of honing your craft to produce a publishable manuscript. And even if you are the one in a million who writes a book, you still have to contend with thousands of other books both traditionally published and indie/self published.

In order to stand out you need to produce the best book you can and that takes time. If you try and half-ass it this will show to readers and taint their view of our work going forward.

If you want to make it in the writing world take Stephen Kin’s advice and read a lot, and write a lot. If you don’t have time to read you don’t have the time or tools to write.

Sure it’d be nice if you were the next J.K. Rowling, E.L. James, or Stephen King, but in order to get where they are it took a ton of work, perseverance and a bit of luck. Rejection is par for the course so you need to develop a thick skin if you want to make it.

What Does Success Look Like
Say you’re the exception to the rule and your book sells well. What does this mean? Most books only sell a few hundred copies and never make back their advances.

While making it on the best seller’s list is a lofty goal, is it realistic? In 2011 alone an estimated 340,000 books were published, with 80% of them being either self published or published by small presses.

Why Write
With so much market saturation it’s no wonder many writers need day jobs to pay the bills. The truth is most writer don’t make enough to live on alone, so why write? The answer is you write for the love of it, because if you’re dreaming of making it big you may be in for a huge disappointment.

Write because it’s all you can think about. Write because a story is inside you and you can’t keep it in any longer. Write because it’s what you were born to do and nothing else will make you as happy or be as fulfilling. If you can stop writing and not miss it, then odds are writing is not for you.

Conclusions
Sure there are tips and trick to hacking headlines and producing engaging content, but it still boils down to

you sitting at your computer and getting the words on the page as often as possible. If you can’t do that then maybe you should be doing something else with your time.