3 Big Things Writers Overlook When Building Their Social Media Platform

We’ve all heard the advice that building your social media platform as a writer is super important, and we all know that we’re supposed to have a strong presence on social media if we ever want to catch the eye of new readers. This holds true whether we’ve decided on independent publishing, traditional publishing, or we’re still researching publishing options. The moment you start looking around online at what you’re supposed to be doing as a writer who is serious about launching their books into the world, pretty much the first thing you see is: Start building your social media platform now.

This is good advice, but it also falls short of what most writers need. Outside of cultivating a “strong” presence on social media, what else do writers need to consider when building that presence? Here are 3 things that I’d wish I had known when I was just starting out, and that I also believe most writers overlook when building their social media platform. Continue Reading

Do You Have to Make Money from Your Writing to be a “Real Writer”?

“So, what do you do?” is a common question in society that makes most creative people cringe. Whether you’re socializing at a dinner party with friends or you’re meeting your significant other’s parents for the first time, the “what do you do?” question is one that we’ve all come to know and expect, and that fills us with dread every time.

For most people, answering this question is easy. They give the person their job title and maybe the company they work at and then the conversation moves on. But for creative people, it’s very likely that their official job title does not match what they are most passionate about in life, and their job title is not the work they truly identify with on a deeper level. So, the job title they have at the moment feels irrelevant, and mostly impersonal. It doesn’t say anything about who they really are. Continue Reading

Stressed About Your Writing? What’s Really Going On (and How to Get Over It)

We all have good writing days and bad writing days. If you’re a writer who writes even somewhat regularly, you know that’s just the way it goes. But sometimes, it seems we imperceptibly move into a place with our writing when it’s not just a bad writing day that’s getting us down, it’s more like a persistent, low-key feeling of unease and anxiety about writing overall. When this undercurrent of unhappiness becomes the status quo in our writing life, then we feel like every writing day is a bad day.

This can easily occur when we place way too much pressure and expectation on our writing. For some writers, this happens constantly whether or not they’re sharing their writing with anyone else. However, for most writers, this most often happens when we’re making our writing public online, or we’re hoping to get accepted by a publication or an agent. Suddenly, we’re in a position of having our writing judged, and possibly found wanting, and it feels awful.

The fear of judgment is an obvious (and very real) thing for a lot of writers and so, of course, some writers get triggered when they put themselves out there on the internet or submit their work to outside parties, but there’s something else that is ALSO usually going on in tandem with the fear of judgement, and that’s attachment to outcome. Continue Reading

5 Signs You’re an Intuitive Writer

While I most often get clients and students who are well aware that they have problems writing, they don’t often know that the reason for this is because they are an intuitive writer. Intuitive writers work in a way that deviates from the norm, and it’s this deviation that can cause a lot of misunderstanding and pain to the writer who is struggling, because intuitive writers tend to get blocked and shut down when they try to use mainstream writing methods.

I put together a basic list of 5 clear signs that indicate you are most likely an intuitive writer. If you hit every one of the items on this list, then chances are high that you’re going to have writing problems if you try to use mainstream methods. Continue Reading

Help for INFP Writers Who Have Trouble Choosing Between Too Many Ideas

There is one common problem almost all INFP writers struggle with, and that’s choosing just one creative project to work on. Most INFP writers have a million ideas, and many have started multiple writing projects in an effort to bring every one of those million ideas to life. Then the INFP writer becomes completely overwhelmed because they have too many projects going on—most of them in various unfinished states—and they don’t know how to focus themselves on finishing any one thing.

If you are an INFP writer, you have probably been through this cycle many times. And you have probably also beaten yourself up for being “scattered,” “unfocused,” or “not dedicated enough” to follow through on finishing things. Rest assured, you are none of the above. What’s actually going on is that you are a highly creative person, and because of your INFP personality type, you work in a different way than most other people when it comes to creative projects. Continue Reading