I bet you’ve heard (real or imagined) that self-promotion is creepy, despicable and well, just plain wrong. Don’t do it. How dare you even consider it?! Don’t!
And two stamps of the left foot for extra measure.
My answer to such assertions against self-promotion is, quite simply, capital B – friggn’ – S! And I’ll tell you why…
Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.
― Stephen King
In this post I present you with 21 of my personal favorite quotes (lessons, really) from Stephen King’s brilliant book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and 21 interesting and fun facts about Uncle Stevie.
Every writer wants the process of writing to be easy. We want our writing to pour forth as if from an inexhaustible reservoir. We all want our first and only drafts to become bestsellers. And we want our readers to not only get us, but to never get enough of us. When we show up for readings, Madison Square Garden wouldn’t be big enough to hold all of our loyal fans.
In The Color of Money, the only movie for which Paul Newman ever won a Best Actor Oscar, there’s a scene near the end where he’s playing against the once infamous real-life pool player Steve “The Miz” Mizerack, and after Steve loses to Paul, Steve says, “I didn’t deserve that.”
And without the slightest hesitation, Paul’s character, Fast Eddie Felson, replies, “Yes, you did.”
The reason Fast Eddie said, “Yes, you did.” is the same reason too many writers the world over self-destruct, fail and quit writing.
Let’s face it, we all want to become better writers. Don’t we? I know I do. I strive to become a better writer every day, and in order to improve I’ve discovered the secret is in having awesome resources at your disposal.
What follows are a list of links to resources I’ve found pretty darn useful. Most are remarkable blog posts containing brilliant tips, tricks, and top secret, secrets.
One of the most frequent questions I receive is: How can I write and hold down a day job at the same time?
There’s a common belief (and a few myths that support it) that you can only do one or the other. But that’s not true.
The odds are if you write in public you want people to read your work. Seems like a reasonable assumption. I mean, if we don’t care if anyone’s reading our work, then we should stick to personal journals that we keep hidden under our pillows.
You can hide your work if you want to, and if you hide your work you’ll never let yourself down. But if you’re interested in getting your work noticed don’t fall for the myths presented in this post.
Seth Godin’s Homepage
I’d like to do a few quick shout outs to online friends who are helping me spread the word about Writer’s Doubt:
Writers the world over have suffered through unbearable self-doubt and many have overcome it long enough to write words that matter. But some haven’t. And some believe they never will. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Does it?