Latest / The Daily Writer / Ten Commandments for Writers

Transcript

Ten Commandments for Writers · The Daily Writer

0:11
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us supply what we're learning.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was thinking to myself just the other day and kind of laughing about this, I was thinking about all the things that my dad told me about how his life was different as a kid than how I grew up as a kid.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And of course, now I have a 17-year-old.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: My son Ben just started his senior year of high school this past week.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: So even though it seems like that's a long time, when my dad was a kid growing up in the 1950s, that was only a few decades ago.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: That that wasn't really so long ago in the course of American history or even, especially even human history.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting is how fast technology changes and how different life was for our parents or grandparents than it is for us, or especially for our kids today.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And many of the things that our parents or grandparents had to deal with as sort of normal things in their everyday life would be considered outrageous or crazy for our kids or grandkids today.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: For example, I remember when I was a kid, my dad talked a lot about how they had an outhouse whenever he was growing up.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, I grew up in southern Missouri.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: In fact, where I grew up out in the country, we had a I actually lived in a double-wide trailer that was fixed up really, really nice, and I just always thought of it as a house, but it was act, in fact, a double-wide trailer.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And we grew up next to my grandfather.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: And so my dad grew up in that house that we lived right next to my whole life growing up.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And I can rem remember him talking about that outhouse and how cold it was, you know, going outside in the in the bitter Missouri winters and how much of a of an inconvenience that was to have to go all the way outside in the outhouse, which was not heated, by the way, and to use the bathroom.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that would be considered crazy today for the vast majority of people in the modern developed world, especially for like my son.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that he's ever used that outhouse or ever probably even seen one.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: So it's really interesting how how fast we get accustomed to technological changes and how fast we get used to advancements in society, especially in the realm of technology.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, when it comes to us as writers, in many ways, this is the golden age of writing.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: We have so much technology and we have so many opportunities than ever before to publish our work and to impact other people with our words and with our ideas and with our creativity.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Yet at the same time, this is also a challenging time for writers.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Even given all of our technology and opportunities for self-publishing and all those kinds of things, this still is a very challenging time for writers because there are so many options for writing and publishing that it's easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by all the possibilities.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: As a person of faith, I grew up learning about the Ten Commandments.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Ten Commandments are the rules that governed God's people back in the Old Testament.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, the Ten Commandments have formed the basis of ethical behavior in human culture for thousands of years.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And the helpful thing about having a set of commandments is that those commandments simplify things.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: You have a clear idea about what is right, about what is wrong, what you should do, and what you shouldn't do.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And those guidelines govern your behavior and they also eliminate some options.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: So what if there was something similar for writers?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: What if there was something like a code or perhaps a set of commandments that could help guide our behavior and show us clearly what is the priority in our writing life?
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're in luck because I have put together that exact list.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, these commandments are not original with me, and these are principles that have been practiced by writers and all successful creative people in one way or another for a really, really long time.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: However, I think it's helpful to have these collected in one place.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you this: I think you can go to the bank on these 10 commandments for writers.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And if you practice these consistently, you will be successful as a writer.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: These are the principles that I try to follow in my own personal writing, as well as in my ghostwriting business, where of course I'm doing writing for clients.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: But these will also help you no matter what kind of writing that you do.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in here to the Ten Commandments for Writers.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number one, embrace your identity as a writer.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: I think the number one problem that stops most people from writing has nothing to do with talent or ability.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And it has nothing to do with a lack of time or lack of opportunities, but it has everything to do with them not believing that they're a writer.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And when you stop and think about it, this is kind of crazy.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of insane.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: The average person can easily write 500 to 1,000 words every day between text messages, emails, social media, and other communication in their everyday life.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Yet when it comes to writing a short blog post of 500 words, or even something longer like a book chapter, they don't think that they're talented enough.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, success as a writer has very little to do with talent, but it has everything to do with seeing yourself as a writer, then putting in the work on a regular basis.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty much it.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: You see yourself as a writer, you put in the work, you learn, you grow, you develop, you publish, and you do the work that's required.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And if you if you write and if you publish, by definition, you are a writer.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have recently been training for a half marathon, and I guarantee that when I do this half marathon race here in a few weeks, I will be in the bottom 10 to 15% of runners as far as the time.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm a slow runner.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: My brother's a runner, he's been training for longer than I have, he's done more races than I have.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And I can guarantee you, I would bet a thousand dollars on this that he will come in way ahead of me.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: It's probably gonna take me at least three hours to finish this half marathon.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I have no doubt it's gonna take me at least that long.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: And I guarantee he will do it in probably two-thirds of that time because he's way faster than I am.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I actually weigh a little bit more than he does.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: So I know he's gonna be a lot faster, but you know what?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not in this for some kind of a speed competition.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm not in this to compete with anybody else.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, my brother has been a huge help to me.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: He's been a massive encouragement to me as I have started to get into running.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he's the one who got me into this.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and because there is an element to where it doesn't matter how old you are, you still have a little bit of sibling rivalry.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: He when he invited me a couple years ago to uh participate in a, I think it was a 5k race with him, I couldn't say no because I was like, well, I can't let my brother show me up.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, as silly as and as juvenile as that sounds, sibling rivalry I think is still is still a thing no matter what age you are, but it can be a really, really good thing.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: So I've appreciated how he has gotten me into this.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: And I know he's way better and way faster than I am, but I don't care because my whole goal is to not go for speed.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: My whole goal is to just finish.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: I just want to go to the race and finish.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And I know that even though I'm slow, even though I'm sure there's lots of things I can improve about my technique and all that stuff, my goal is to just go and finish.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And the process of doing all that helps me to be healthier and it helps me to have more confidence and those things then spill over into my writing.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So I embrace the fact that I am a runner.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I'm slow, I'm not fast, I'm really not very good at this, but I still embrace my identity as a runner.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And why do I do that?
7:48
SPEAKER_00: It's because I run.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Literally, that's all that you need to do to qualify yourself as a runner.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: A runner is a person who goes out and they run.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing is true for writing.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: If you write, then by definition, you are a writer.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: If you're putting in the work, if you're if you're cranking out words, if you're writing stuff on social media to try and help people, if you're writing books or blog posts or whatever, you are a writer.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: So if you're doing those things, you can proudly call yourself a writer.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And then this is the most important commandment of all.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: You have to embrace the fact that you are a writer.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: That is who you are, and you're proudly going to call yourself that because if you write, by definition, you are a writer.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to commandment number two, which is don't compare yourself to other writers.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: You can make a lot of mistakes as a writer and still be successful.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: But one of the mistakes that will kill your enthusiasm and your success is the habit of constantly comparing yourself to other people.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, it's almost impossible not to do this as a writer.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: It's human nature for us to compare ourselves.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And social media over the last 10 or 15 years has made it impossible not to notice other people's success in writing.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you see a friend of yours hit a bestseller list or they launch a new book or they have some other kind of success related to their writing, it's hard not to feel jealous and it's hard not to feel a little bit of a ping of insecurity.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll I'll admit I feel that probably every day.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible not to feel those things because we are human, after all.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: However, when we when we sort of bathe in that negativity and that insecurity, whenever we just douse ourselves in it and whenever we stay there, that negative energy doesn't really help us achieve our own goals.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we focus on the things that we lack, that negative mental energy only slows us down and it makes us feel worse about ourselves.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And worse yet, what you see on social media is only a small snippet of other people's lives.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: For example, whenever you see a friend of yours have a successful book launch, you're only seeing the highlight reel of that whole big long process.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: You don't see the months or even the years of hard work that went into the making of that book.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: For example, my friend John Stangy just had, uh it was back in May, he had a book come out with Penguin Random House, one of the, you know, handful of major publishers in the world.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: And lots of people saw his book launch, and there was all kinds of cool stuff.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: And I was part of this process too, by the way.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm a huge fan of John.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: He's a wonderful friend and just a really, really awesome guy.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people saw that book launch and they saw the excitement and they saw pictures of him and lots of us going to Barnes and Noble and and buying the book and holding it up and taking pictures and putting those on social media.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: They saw that, but what most people didn't see is the year and a half before that, whenever John was was trying to find an agent or and writing the book and going through various drafts and the late nights and the early mornings and the editing process and all the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into an actual book.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: People don't see that.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: What they only see typically is the excitement and the enthusiasm around the success of it.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: So realize that whenever you you see things on social media from other writers that look like they're sort of living the awesome writer's life that's filled with going to book launches and successes and stuff, all those things are really good.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And those things are part of what I feature for myself as well.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: But remember that you're only seeing the a very, very tiny tip of the iceberg.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: You're not seeing all the labor, all the years of practice and the daily writing and the hard work that went into that success.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't post that stuff on social media very often because it's not as exciting.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: So just realize that whenever you feel that tinge of jealousy because you see other people's success, you don't need to because you're only seeing one very small part of the totality of their writing life.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: So instead of feeling jealous, here's what to do.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Let other writers' success spur you onto your own greater achievements.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: You're not on the same journey as they are.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: You have your own journey with writing.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: You have your own books to write, you have your own story to tell, you have your own thing to build.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: There's no point in comparing yourself because you either end up feeling bad about yourself, which is not good, or you end up feeling prideful because somebody else is not as far along as you are.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And both of those are negative emotions.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Both of those will take you off course.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: So, commandment number two, very, very important, don't compare yourself to other writers.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number three, take action on what you learn.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: A few months ago, I cleaned out my home office.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This is where I'm recording this podcast right now.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And over the last, I would say, five or six or seven years, I had printed off, and this is no exaggeration, I had printed off thousands of pages of free PDFs, ebooks, seminar and workshop notes, and other material that I thought would help me with my business and my writing.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And truth be told, I used very little of it.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Most of it was great material that was taught by great people.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: These were leaders, these were authors worth following and worth reading their stuff, but it was too much information.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: It was way, way, way too much information.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And for several years, I fell prey to just what I call the curse of knowledge.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I was accumulating way too much knowledge, or at least I was trying to, and I was putting very little of it into practice.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: I would download another free PDF or take another course, and I would get overwhelmed, and I would make this big-to-do list of here's what I got to do by this time, and I would never do very much of it because I would just get paralyzed by all this information.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe you have done this also.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really easy to do.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: There is so much great information out there that it's almost impossible not to have a constant stream of it coming into your podcast player or your inbox.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: So here's the key.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Here's what to do.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: The next time that you listen to or read something helpful, figure out if it's something that you should take action on in the next few weeks.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: And then simply you just do it.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty simple concept that will work wonders for your writing and for your business.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, this may sound kind of counterintuitive, but I also want to encourage you to delete or to unsubscribe from things that are not helping you on your journey right now.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: So this sounds counterintuitive because I produce this stuff for my own business as well.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to tell you, if if you're listening to this and you're thinking, you know, I don't need to be writing right now, I need to be doing something else.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: If this podcast isn't helping you and I'm not serving you well, then don't don't listen to this.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't let me clog up your life if you don't need what I'm what I'm teaching or the things that I'm bringing to you.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to not feel guilty about that.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to unsubscribe, to not listen, to not buy or interact with my stuff if it's not helping you.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: If it is helping you, that's great.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: But uh what I want as as a writer and as a content creator, I want for you to reach your goals.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And if that means that I'm not the person, that I'm not the best person who can help you do that, that is totally okay.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh I just want to kind of give you permission to delete this episode and stop listening right now if this is not helpful to you.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's how much I want you to be successful.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be successful so much that I'm giving you permission to delete me from your podcast download stuff.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds very counterintuitive and and probably not very markety, um, but be that as it may, that's that's how I feel.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So here's what's funny.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I cleaned out my office a few months ago from this stuff, uh it took several, you know, regular-sized trash cans to fill up the big trash can in front of my house.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, those roll-off containers where you set on the edge of the curb a couple times a week.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: I literally filled up that whole roll-off container with printouts, uh papers that I had just never used and hadn't looked at.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And I had, you know, there were, I remember many times over the years I had printed off all this stuff.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, I would print, I would print out like this 50-page PDF or this 200-page ebook or whatever, and I would hole punch it and I would get a binder and I would arrange it all really nice and be like, okay, I'm gonna go through this, and I never would.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And so finally I just got rid of all this stuff, and uh, I kept, I kept a little bit of it, probably only like 5% of it, that I thought I probably could still use and go through, but I got rid of the vast majority of it.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: But it was so freeing to be able to discard that material that wasn't helpful to me right now in my journey.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: So don't be afraid to do the same thing.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to get rid of stuff that's not helping you.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: But then the stuff that is helping you and that you need to do, take action on it and don't overthink it.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number four is make time to read every day.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, you knew I was going to get around to this one, didn't you?
16:13
SPEAKER_00: This is probably no surprise to anybody because I talk about reading a lot.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's because reading is a vital part of your creative life.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, before you pause this and and just kind of holler out, hey Kent, didn't you literally just say take action on what you learn and stop consuming so much stuff?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did say that.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So how do these things, how do these two things work together?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's how they work together.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: You need to read often and you need to read widely, and then you need to figure out what is helpful and what is not helpful.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: That this is the importance of reading, is because it gives you creative ideas.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: You have the cross-pollination of concepts and and facts and historical figures and biographies and business learning and uh things that help you with your money and your marriage and your parenting and all those things.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's important to really, that's really important to be exposed to all those things.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: You have to fill your creative well, but then you have to decide what should I apply right now in my life.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: You can't do 78 things in your life right now, but you can do two or three things.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So you've got to read a lot in order to figure out how to apply something into your life right now.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me address two quick things about this point of reading.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: First of all, what should you read?
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I recommend having two books going at any given time, one for education and for business growth, and another one just for pleasure and for fun.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: For example, right now I'm reading a book by the world-renowned copywriting expert Dan Kennedy, and this is a book on marketing, but I'm also rereading the excellent book, The River of Doubt, by Candace Millard.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And this book tells the story of Teddy Roosevelt's journey down an uncharted river in South America after he lost the election for a third term in office.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And literally, this is one of the best books I've ever read.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: It's so engaging and it's so engrossing, and it's just written so, so well, and it's lots of fun.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm reading those two books concurrently, or rather, I'm rereading one and reading another for the first time.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, it's interesting.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's sometimes these ideas that pop up in both books in totally different contexts.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: And I find that reading two books concurrently is very, very doable.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to read, you know, 10 books concurrently, but I can do two books concurrently, and that's kind of my own system.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, secondly, how should you read?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I I've said what you should read in terms of have two books going, but how should you read?
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, I have one rule that helps me a lot, and the rule is this I always have a book with me.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Whatever I'm reading, I take it with me everywhere that I go, and I mean everywhere.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: So this afternoon I'm gonna go pick up my son from school, and we're gonna go take his driver's tests, and he's gonna be out doing his test and the driving part and the written part.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm probably gonna have between sitting in the high school parking lot and going to the DMV, I'm probably gonna have at least a half an hour, probably more like an hour, all told that I'm gonna be doing nothing.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: So I can sit and answer emails on my phone or do social media, and those things are great.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Or I can take a book with me and I can I can read, you know, maybe 50 pages or so, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take this Dan Kennedy book and I'm gonna try and finish it up today.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: I've got, I think, 75 more pages left uh before I finish the book.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really good.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Good stuff.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's how I approach this is I take a book everywhere that I go.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: You never know when you're gonna have a few minutes here or there to read, so I just take a book with me everywhere.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: So however you approach reading, whatever your system is, make sure that you read at least a few minutes a day.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Those few minutes of filling your mind with good material is going to pay off hugely.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: After all, if you want to write books, you've got to first be a person who reads them.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go to commandment number five, which is write every day.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's get something clear for a minute.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: When I say the phrase write every day, it's the kind of phrase where people ask, so Kent, do you actually mean to write every day?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And yes, that's literally what I mean.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh this isn't a euphemism, it's not a uh, you know, it's not a figure of speech, it's not a metaphor, it's not any of those things.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I literally mean write something every day.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: But what am I suggesting that you write?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's my definition of writing every day.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Write something that advances your goals as a writer.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And that can include material for your book, your blog, your podcast, or some other type of content that helps you reach your goals, but it can also mean just writing in your journal for five minutes or writing a social media post or writing an email to somebody and sharing some ideas that you have.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this has to be like a hard and fast thing, because the reality of it is that if you if you are working on your book for seven days a week for years on end, like if you're working on books seven days a week, I don't necessarily think that's really healthy.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: I think you do need to give your brain a break occasionally and you need to be doing different kinds of things that you're writing just so you can have some cross-pollination of ideas.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: And of course, if you're working on a big project, you know, over two or three months where you're writing that first draft, you're gonna be writing on that more intensely than other things.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: So you have to figure out what you need and what works for your life and and for the kind of things that you're trying to create.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, whether you write on weekends or whether you do it every day is that's completely up to you.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: But I liken this to somebody who is trying to live a healthy lifestyle.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be healthy, you have to eat healthy every day, not just whenever you feel like it.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So the real question is, how healthy do you want to be as a writer?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be in tip top shape, I encourage you to write every day, preferably the first thing in the morning when your mind is still fresh.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, before you're checking email and you're getting into social media and all that stuff, uh, I recommend writing then.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes that's when I do it, and not always, but that's that's when I try to do it.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: That's what I aspire to do, and that could be really, really helpful.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, commandment number six edit what you write.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, this one is an easy step to skip because we always feel pressed for time.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Many times when we are writing stuff, particularly if it's on a schedule or we're doing client work, we just want to get our work out there without the big hassle of carefully having to read it over, running it through editing software, or have someone else help us with the editing.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I recently took my wife to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for our 25th wedding anniversary back in June.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, this was the most expensive meal I've ever purchased.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: The entire bill for just the two of us was over$200, including the tip.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: But the service, the food, and the setting all reflected the fact that we were in a fancy restaurant.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I knew that's what the bill was going to be, so I was totally expecting that.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: I was happy to pay it.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: It was our 25th wedding anniversary, so I wanted to really do it, do it up and do it right and go out for a super, super nice dinner.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: And we really enjoyed it.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It was a great place.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, I can think of the times when I have gone through the McDonald's drive-thru or Hardy's or White Castle or whatever, and I've gotten a cheeseburger and it was just kind of thrown together in a hurry.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: It's sloppy, sloppily put together.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the cheese isn't laying on the burger quite right, or the buns off center or something like that.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: That's super common with the fast food burger place.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: And even though the contents of the burger might be fine, the presentation was not so great.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is the difference between writing that has been edited and writing that has not been edited.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: When you edit your own writing, or when you have somebody help you with writing, you're taking care to make sure that your grammar, your punctuation, your spelling, and your content is as good as you could possibly make it.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily always mean you have to hire an editor for everything that you write, but it does mean that you should take the baseline steps to ensure that whatever you publish is as excellent as it possibly can be.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, a steak and a burger basically consist of the same ingredients, which is, of course, beef.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: But the presentation of those things is radically different between McDonald's and a Ruth's Chris steakhouse.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Same basic ingredient in their in their main dish, but the presentation is far, far different.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you to be like the Ruth's Chris of writers.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Think about your presentation, think about your editing, think about how you're communicating things.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, a sloppy writer and an excellent writer are both using words, but they're presenting them very, very differently.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So how do you do this?
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I recommend at the very least rereading your material a few times before you publish it, and also running your writing through grammarly as well as doing a spell check.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I also oftentimes use the Hemingway app, which is great.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't use that for everything, but I do use it for typically books and sometimes longer articles and that sort of stuff.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: And all of those are free and very simple ways to improve your writing.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number seven, publish what you write.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily mean publish every single thing that you write, because that's not realistic.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: For example, I don't publish anything from my personal journal.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I've kept a journal since I was in college, you know, well over 20 years ago.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's say I went to college in 92.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: So that's been uh 29 years, I guess.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: So next year I will have that will be my 30th anniversary of starting college.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: So I've kept a journal for almost 30 years.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't publish stuff from that because that's personal.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: But if you write something that you intend for other people to read, you need to edit it, and then you've got to publish it.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, this may seem like kind of a silly thing to include in this list of Ten Commandments for writers.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: After all, why would somebody write a blog post or podcast material or even a whole book and yet never publish it?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that this happens all the time, and the and this happens because we get scared of what other people are going to think.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And we think that our writing isn't good enough, and we wonder, do I have any talent to begin with?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And why am I doing this in the first place?
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I confess to you that I have done this myself.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are at least, these are the ones that I can think of, there are at least two full-length books that I wrote a few years ago that have never seen the light of day.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: These both of these were books that I put together years ago as part of an email challenge.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: So both of these are like 40-day challenges.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one was like a spiritual kind of a thing, and the other one was actually on health and fitness.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And those were things that I just put together.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: I wrote like 500, 500 to 700 words a day for each of those emails for 40 days in a row, and I collected those, but I never did anything with them.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going through that stuff now thinking, how can I repurpose this?
26:38
SPEAKER_00: How can I use this?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Or is this even something that I want to publish?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wrote them, but I never published them.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have a good reason for never having published them.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I just sort of lost steam and didn't do it.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm revisiting that stuff and thinking, how can I get this material out there so that I can help people because it's really good stuff.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: I just never didn't did anything with it.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this has happened to you as well.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: There are tons of people who have written screenplays, books, speeches, and other material that they just simply never published.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: They just ran out of steam and they gave up.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, it's really, really easy to do.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Again, this has happened to me and it's probably happened to you as well.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: So my challenge is to take what you've written and publish it somewhere so that it can help other people.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And you've heard the saying, if a tree falls in the forest, doesn't make a sound.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a related saying.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: If you write a book but never publish it, does it impact anyone's life?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, yes, there is some value in going through the exercise of writing something.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: There's always a value in writing, no matter what kind of writing it is.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: But imagine how much more valuable your words could be if you actually publish them, if you give those words an opportunity to inspire people, educate people, and entertain people.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number eight is do what scares you.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Think about some of the most important achievements in human history.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: These would include things like Amelia Earhart flying solo from Hawaii to the U.S.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: mainland, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbing Mount Everest, Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, Magellan sailing around the world, and many thousands of other people who faced their fears and took action anyway.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: The odds were stacked against them there was a huge chance they were going to fail, but they still didn't anyway.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, you and I are no different.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: We have challenges and scary things staring us right in the face every single day.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: And you could probably think of something that intimidates you as a writer.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Is it setting up a website?
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Is it publishing a book?
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Is it pitching an article to a large publication?
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Is it writing and publishing a short story?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, whatever it is, run toward it.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: If you want to do it but you feel scared, that is your subconscious mind telling you that it must be done no matter how you feel about it.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if you and I only ever do what feels comfortable, we won't make any progress.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: We won't grow.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Progress and growth are predicated on doing what scares you.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So put on your big boy pants, put on your big girl pants, and start moving forward.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: You'll figure it out as you go along.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as you overcome one challenge, an even bigger one will be waiting just behind it.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: But you can't get to the bigger one until you first conquer the one that's right in front of you at the moment.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So don't be scared.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Run forward, conquer that sucker, and keep moving on.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Commandment number nine is learn from other successful riders.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to dealing with successful riders, we typically have two different responses.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: We either dismiss their success as just dumb luck, or we ignore them because their success reinforces our own sense of insecurity.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And if you have ever responded this way to a successful writer, don't feel bad.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Every creative person on the planet has felt this way at times.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Our natural pride as creative people makes it hard to put ourselves in a learning position, but that's the only way that we can grow.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, a major key to success, I think, is putting yourself in the orbit of other successful writers.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And this can include people that you'll never meet as well as people that you can develop a personal relationship with.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's take two quick examples, Stephen King and another writer who you know personally who is more successful than you.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, chances are pretty slim that you're ever going to be able to convince somebody like Stephen King to mentor you personally.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: However, there's plenty of interviews and articles about his writing habits and his approach to storytelling, and you can learn from all those.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: You can learn a lot from those, actually.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: But even more powerful is the writer that you get to know personally.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: So if there's somebody in your circle in your orbit, and I'm I know that there is, invite that person out to lunch.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Have them as a guest on your podcast.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Subscribe to their newsletter and develop a dialogue with them or join their course or their mastermind.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: You'll be amazed at the openness that other successful writers have to sharing their strategies and what they've learned from their failures.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for goodness sake, have me on your podcast.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: If you have a podcast, I'd love to be a guest, no matter what your podcast topic is.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: I can come and talk about something that's related to your topic, whether it's writing or getting organized or habits or productivity or something like that.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do that.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Or shoot me an email and say, hey, Kent, can we jump on a Zoom call?
31:13
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to just chat with you, have a few questions about writing, and I would totally do it.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Or you could say, hey, Kent, I'm interested in joining your Daily Writer community.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: That's a group that is definitely going places.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: It's full of people who are taking action, reaching their writing goals and doing some really cool things like writing books, whether they're nonfiction or novels or short stories.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, some people in the group are launching podcasts and doing all kinds of other business-related things.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really, really a lot of fun.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: So you've got to put yourself in the orbit of other successful people.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: This is the exact reason that I not only run a community myself, but I continue to pay to be part of masterminds, courses, retreats, and conferences.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I just got back from a retreat, from a several-day business retreat in South Dakota.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: I drove nine hours to go to this retreat and was there for three days.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm sorry, four days, and drove back.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I spent um probably spent about a thousand dollars total on this retreat between the expense of going to the retreat, the hotel, you know, food, um, gas, all those, you know, lost time opportunities because I wasn't doing business stuff during that time.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was, but I wasn't like doing client work.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: But I was happy to invest that time and money into myself to go to that retreat because it helped me to get more clarity on my community.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: It helped me to feel more motivated.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: I got some deeper connections with the people at the retreat, and it was totally, totally worth it.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you to invest in yourself also.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: A lot of writers aren't willing to invest any time or money into their creativity or into their business.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: But when you do that, you immediately set yourself apart and you get yourself on a fast track to greater success.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, final commandment here, commandment number 10, is teach what you know.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, this one, teach what you know, is a corollary to the previous point about learning from other successful writers.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, you have to help other writers be more successful.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: So, in commandment commandment number nine, we talked about you've got to put yourself in a learning position to other successful writers.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And here it's the exact opposite.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: You've got to help other writers be more successful.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of people in your orbit, I guarantee, who would love to achieve your level of success, whatever that might be.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Even if your only level of writing experience is starting a blog, there's plenty of writers who would love to learn how to do that.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: So don't dismiss your skills just because you think you don't have that much in terms of skills, or because you think that your skills are really common and nobody would be interested in learning that anyway.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And what could I teach somebody?
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's not a healthy way to think because I guarantee you know things, even in the realm of writing, that other people would really, really love to learn.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't mean that you have to label yourself as a teacher or that you have to set yourself up as some big expert.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: It just means that you're sharing what you've learned.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And you can do this on social media, your blog and email newsletter, through speaking, and so many other ways.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: One of the most simple and powerful ways to help other writers is to host a weekly mastermind call.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: I've been a part of a writer's mastermind for I think seven years, something like that now.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And each week we meet on Zoom and we talk about our successes and our challenges.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: And that weekly meeting has an amazing way of encouraging my spirit.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing is that it also helps other writers because they have challenges of their own.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: The whole idea of a mastermind is to bring together like-minded people to help each other solve their problems.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And I cannot begin to tell you how many times over the years that a mastermind has helped me push through a problem or an obstacle.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And many times the obstacle isn't just something that's out there, it's the obstacle within my own head.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: I am almost always my own worst enemy.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: But when I help other people, it gets the focus off myself and it reminds me that I do have some things to teach others.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a brain, which you do, and you can write words, and you have some experience in that realm, no matter what it is, I guarantee that you can teach other people.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: So there you have it.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Those are Ten Commandments for writers.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Again, these are not unique to me, but I think it's helpful to have them collected in one place like this because it helps us all to focus on what is most important in our growth as a writer.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: So let's review this list again.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Number one, embrace your identity as a writer.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Number two, don't compare yourself to other writers.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Number three, take action on what you learn.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Number four, make time to read every day.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Number five, write every day.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Number six, edit what you write.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: Number seven, publish what you write.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Number eight, do what scares you.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Number nine, learn from other successful writers.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: And number ten is teach what you know.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: So I challenge you to choose two of these commandments and put them into practice over the next couple of weeks.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear how this impacts you and your life.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: So feel free to shoot me an email at Kent at dailywriterlife.com, and I would love to hear about your success.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.comslash writing prompts.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.