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The Publishing Habit · The Daily Writer

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here on this podcast, we talk a lot about the habit of writing regularly.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's nothing new.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's built right into the podcast title, for goodness sake.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every good writing teacher talks about the importance of having a good writing habit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Another habit that's equally important, though, yet for some reason it's emphasized much less, is the habit of publishing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to impact other people with your words, you must not only write the words, you also have to publish them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't necessarily mean publishing every single thing that you write.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really realistic.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I don't publish anything for my personal journal, even though I've been journaling for almost 30 years.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if you write something that you intend for other people to read, you've got to edit it and then you have to publish it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this might seem like a silly thing to mention.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: After all, why would somebody write a blog post?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why would somebody write material for their podcast or even a whole book and yet never publish it?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that we get scared of what other people will think.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We think that our work isn't good enough, or we wonder if we have any talent to begin with.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I confess that I've done this before.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are at least two full-length books that I wrote a few years ago sitting on my hard drive that have never seen the light of day.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote both of those as a 40-day email sequence, and I would they were challenges of two different kinds.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I always intended to make them into books, but I just never did.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm working through that material now and trying to take my own advice of actually publishing it and seeing what happens when I actually put my work out there for other people to read and to experience.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is a lot more common than you might think.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: There are many people who have written screenplays, books, speeches, and other material that they simply didn't publish.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: They just ran out of steam and they gave up.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really easy to do.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've done this yourself, don't feel too bad.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're in good company.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my challenge here is to take what you have written and to publish it somewhere so that it can help other people.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the saying, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a related saying.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you write a book but never publish it, does it actually impact anybody's life?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is some value in going through the exercise of writing a book.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's always value in writing no matter what medium you're writing in or what you're actually writing.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: It has value in and of itself.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine how much more valuable your words could be if you publish them and if you give those words an opportunity to inspire, educate, or entertain other people.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.