What Makes Writing Easy?
Writing can be very easy. A lot of writers say that the process of writing and publishing is hard, but the process of writing is easy. They are correct. These writers have learned to understand what is easy for them and what is not. There are many ways to improve your process until you find most things are easy, and I believe they can be broken down into five distinct ideas:
1) Don’t just write every day, but read every day: This means grab a book and read it. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, an important thing to think about is reading and building influences for your writing this way. Often the success of a writer, whether it be measured by making money, or sales success, or fame and fortune, it all begins with looking at the details of good writing is already out there.
2) Editing is a simple idea, but it is a weighty process: Start with the basics when editing. first spelling and grammar, and then content. Often writers worry more about their content, and they forget that a part of “getting the words right” is getting the spelling and grammar right. Your writing needs to have a consistent flow, and basic language mistakes can interrupt that flow for your reader.
3) Think and take one step at a time: Write a first draft, then edit it, then write another draft, then edit that draft, then write another draft, then comes a query letter draft, then edit that query letter, then query agents and publishers, and then have a book published. Keep the goal in mind, but focus on the daily task.
4) Avoid making “logical excuses” to yourself. Whether your current work is made up of blogs or other writing or spending money on your book marketing, the idea is the same. For example, one day you feel you have writer’s block and have no inspiration to write a blog post, or even a short note on your blog, or a reply to someone’s comment, so you put your writing aside. And inspiration doesn’t hit you the next day either, so you put it off again. And other errands need to be run and maybe some work around your home…. And it snowballs. Because you haven’t made the time to sit down and write, you’ve slowly and logically convinced yourself that you have very little time to do something that you profess to love.
5) Setting a monetary goal, but it’s unrealistic: There are hundreds of ways to make money online, but a writer does not think of the joys of each penny, or dime that they made on a site, but wonder why they were not making more money with their writing business. Focus is important, but not to the point where your joy and passion for writing dries up. When this happens, writing becomes less easy than it once was.
