Choose Your Background Noise

A lot of people have something going on in the background in order to keep them motivated while they write: this can be a favorite TV show, some of their favorite music, or even a podcast. Whatever it is, it's just something to make sure that there is some sort of noise; we don't do well where there's complete silence. This is probably a mixture of being a social animal where we need the sound of voices and that primordial fear that strikes when the forest goes quiet and you know a predator is heading your way. 

The bottom line is that we need some sort of background sound to help keep us focused and motivated.

Unfortunately, sometimes we'll get a little too interested in whatever we're watching or listening. We've all done it: Your favorite song comes on the radio, and all of a sudden you're in karaoke mode. While this is really embarrassing if you're in a coffee shop and it's just something everybody does, you need to keep in mind that if you're doing this way too often, then it may be time to look for a different noise in the background. 

(Okay, sometimes there probably something else distracting you and you're using the sound as an excuse to get distracted. If that's the case then it may be time to debate stepping away from the writing until you deal with the distraction. But that's beyond the scope of our current discussion.) 

Basically, you need to monitor your background noise, and make sure that it's not affecting your work. Whatever you're listening to should be helping keep you focused, not creating a distraction. If it is creating a distraction, then it's time to debate changing your background noise. Either stop listening to podcasts, go to something instrumental, or even switch genres.You may even want to consider creating a playlist that you can easily switch out songs, or using a number of different playlists. 

(I personally have a number of different playlists as well as rely on Youtube's mixes based on my favorites. The playlists include one that's a wake-up mix consisting of songs with a strong, fast beat to wake me up, another of inspirational songs to keep me motivated, and the rest is based on Youtube tracking my listening. This gives me a wide variety of music to pull from and thus give me something to listen to while not being a distraction.)

Regardless of what you listen to, be it music, news, or podcasts, just make sure that it's something that allows you to keep working. Nothing is worse than finding yet another distraction, and if that happens you need to kill it as quickly as possible. But...when you find that really great background noise it can be truly awesome to see the words appear on the screen as quickly as you think them, making your work go faster, keeping you focused, and making sure that you keep productive.

If You're a Writer, Why Aren't You Reading?

Read.

This is something I cannot emphasize enough that you as a writer need to be doing. Everybody gets their inspiration from somewhere. If you're not reading, if you're not watching shows, if you're not listening to radio, then you're cutting yourself off from your inspiration. If you don't have some sort of input into your life, you don't have any inspiration that's going to spark some really great idea. 

 Straight up: If you have something really good going on, and you can figure out how to pull it off, great, go for it, keep on doing it. But for the rest of us, we need a constant influx of ideas. We need to read magazines, we need to read stories, we need to read comics. It doesn't matter what we're actually reading as long as we have some sort of influx of actual ideas.

I know there's the counter-argument, that you're going to steal ideas unconsciously still. But here's the deal: You need to get over it. You need to see what others are doing, how they have solved (or failed to solve) problems that they've encountered while writing, and generally find inspiration. It doesn't matter if you see something so cool you want to try it yourself or something so bad that you want to see if you can do it better, or even something you're curious what your twist would like; you can't be inspired if you have no inspiration.  

I can understand trying to avoid plagiarism. That's fine. But you need to be aware that you need a spark from somewhere just to get going. But if you're so scared of other people's ideas, just by simply reading about them, well, how do you expect to be a better writer if you aren't looking at how other writers write? 

You're going to find out real quick that there's basically two facts out there. One: Everybody steals from everyone else at some point. I don't care if you're Shakespeare, I don't care if you're Dickens. I don't care if you're Toni Morrison. The bottom line is people are going to steal ideas from other people and there's nothing morally or legally bankrupt; it's perfectly fine. 

Two: You can't steal an idea. As long as you don't merely copy it, you should be fine. 

This means that you can do is take somebody else's idea. mess around with it, put your own spin on it, and have some fun with it. Cuz again, that happens all the time. Take advantage of it. Have a little bit of fun with it. Make sure that you have some sort of influx of inspiration to keep you going. But remember one thing: If you're not reading, you're not writing. 

So get out there and read!

Avoid That Pigeonhole

Don't pigeonhole yourself. The biggest thing that will help to sell your book is letting your fans know who the author is, knowing what they can expect from that person, and being willing to be a little bit surprised by what they see in the books. If you have this really great grandmother's thing going on in real life but your books happen to be really hardcore thrillers then you just found a really great sweet spot there: People expect the nice grandma and then get pleasantly surprised when grandma sucker punches them. You need to have a hook, sure, but you shouldn't let that hook limit you.

Making it more harder, however, is that some people like the darling, some people like the jerk. The jerk is great because you know this guy is going to say something interesting and it's not always going to be the most politically correct thing. Some like the darling becuase he's going to say what they want to hear, and sometimes the crowd needs that as well. But you also don't want to pigeonhole yourself as either: Sometimes you need to sweet, sometimes you need to be sour.

 The problem with some writers is that they want to be one of the two extremes and that ultimately hurts their marketing. Sure, you can sell books by embracing the extremes: You have some authors who write some of the most treacly romances out there and other authors who write gothic thrillers where no one survives, and they all do pretty well; so that shouldn't be seen as a problem. 

But..this always limits those authors. If the romance writer starts writing stories where characters start dying in droves, she's going to have to start at Square One, as does the more violent author; they're not likely to keep their audience. On the other hand, the writer who was writing romance into his gory stories and the one who was occasionally having romantic couples dealing with serial killers is more likely to start off with a decent fanbase. 

They are better able to pivot into new genres with a good part of their fanbase intact. Sure, they'll have to put some effort into growing their fanbase, but they start with one rather than having to start from scratch. 

But you can't do this if you fly into that pigeonhole and roost there. You have to allow yourself some room for growth. You need room to evolve; writing a few books in a particular genre may help you, especially if the genre is a great fit, but you also need to keep trying new things. So don't be afraid to base yourself out of a particular pigeonhole, but don't feel that you need to stay there; explore other genres. 

Just don't get so comfortable in a particular genre, in a particular style, that you're scared to try new things. Even if you fail, at least you tried; that alone is worth the effort. You need to always be exploring new territory; pigeonholing yourself is never a good thing, especially if you use it as an excuse to indulge your fears.

Have A Marketing Plan

All writers should have some sort of marketing plan. Just like the outline, ths is going to be a roadmap to your writing just as your writing needs a roadmap so does your marketing. The same basic analogy applies: You're going to need to figure out what you can do, where you're going, and making sure you don't get lost. 

Because of that you need some sort of marketing plan. 

The same plan won't work for everybody. There's going to be a lot of people that suck at social media, for example; for these people they need to either learn how to use social media more effectively, or not use it. If all you're doing is posting and not posting links to your works, then you're not really using social media. For some people posting to a beta reading site works great because it allows them to generate some buzz. For them it works, while for someone who ws posting to the same site just to post may not find the same effect. 

The bottom line here is is that whatever you do has to work for you. You have to set it up specifically for you. But you need to have some sort of plan, you need to know where you're going. You need to know what you're doing. Above all, you have to have some idea of how you're going to accomplish it. Have a plan before you begin is always going to be your best bet as it gives you an idea how what you need to do and when you're going to do it; that knowledge helps guide you and keep you going. 

Here's something to consider: If you end up deciding to do go through some sort of marketing agency have them set up a marketing plans for you and make sure that you're helping every step of the way. There's a lot of stuff that you as a writer have to do in order to establish yourself as somebody that needs to be watched. Once you've done that, it's a lot easier to do any kind of marketing for yourself

Straight up: If you decide to go the anonymous route and you publish your stuff, you have to pray that somebody grabs it, but that just ain't going to happen. People need to know that your stuff is out there, and if you decide to not market it, they aren't going to know it's there. That virtually ensures that no one but you will read it.

You have to have an idea of how you're going to get to wherever it is you're trying to get to; if you have a book then you need to have a plan get it to the people who you know want to read it. So make sure you've got a plan, and make sure you stick to it.

Have A Passion For What You Write!

Make sure that whatever you're writing you have a passion for. We've all watched really horrible movies where you've got all this really beautiful stuff going on and but it just doesn't connect, where nobody can get behind it, where it feels like there's just something missing.  

Because of that hole it just never takes off. There's just nothing there for to grab onto and take it into ourselves.

The reason that they're a waste of time is because there is just no passion there. It was just something somebody did just for the sake of a paycheck, and it shows. That's something you need to avoid. If you don't have passion for what you're writing for, be it something you love, something you hate, you need to have some sort of "I need to get this out of my system now" situation going on.

You need to have some sort of emotional investment in it. 

If you're doing it just for the sake of doing it, it's going to show and you're going to be called on it. All you're doing is wasting everybody's time. This can happen during a project, when you all of a sudden find out that you basically have no connection to it. Sometimes, you know things aren't going to work out the way you want them to and you just need to move on. Let it go. Go on.Do something different.

There's nothing wrong with admitting something isn't working. You can tell when you've lost the passion for something and it will show. Should you complete it, it's going to be awful and you know it; you know you deserve any negative reviews. You're not going to be happy with it, the audience for it won't be happy with it, but hey, at least you finished it, right? Those kind of projects have been known to kill careers, so if you fall out of love with something, it may just be time to part ways.   

If it's just something you're doing for a paycheck and everyone knows it, then you can get away with having no passion for it; you aren't expected to. But..for anything else, you need to at least start with some sort of emotional investment in what you are doing; if not, then you should feel no guilt about moving on to something else. And if you have a problem being passionate about what you're doing, it's time to find something you are passionate about. 

But always have passion in what you do. It can be a red hot love or cold blue hate, but do it with passion.That not only ensures the best possible writing, but life is just too short to do things you have no interest in.So always do what you do with passion, and you will be amazed at what you create.