How to Stop Distracting Yourself With the Joy of Writing
Isn’t it time to get practical, grow up, and make being an author a proper job?
Time to get a grip
There’s been a concerning flurry of articles lately that seem to be suggesting we, as writers, should take ourselves less seriously and let the vagaries of creativity, spontaneity, and even joy run rampant in our writing lives.
As though this should be fun!
Before this gets out of hand, let’s stop, take a breath, and return to the anchor points of adult, responsible behavior as authors. We write to make a living, have a serious impact on the minds of readers, and put our pesky childhood traumas in their place.
Losing track of these objectives renders us vulnerable to common writing delusions, like the notion we’re here for love, praise, affection, connection or—god forbid—the joy of personal expression, authentic sharing, and being alive.
Here’s how to ensure that your unhinged joy for writing doesn’t get out of hand
Pay close attention to your stats on each and every platform you write for
Your analytics are the one and only complete picture of how you’re doing. When your numbers go up—views, reads, follows, likes—it means you’re doing your job. Forget about everything else. Whatever you need to write, create, fabricate, manipulate or masticate to elevate your numbers, just do it!
That’s what counts.
Engage with other writers as quickly as possible
When it comes to supporting your fellow writers, there’s nothing more important than increasing its speed. Your job is to write and bring attention to your creations. Acknowledging the existence of other authors is only part of that job. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by the brilliance of countless writers.
Remember, you’re here to shine your own shoes, not polish the reflection of others. Learn to speed-read through others’ work, skimming the surface of articles to pick up just enough detail so you can hit-and-run highlight a sentence or two, quote it back in a comment, and make it look like you’ve read the whole article and comprehended its meaning.
Just keep moving. Time’s a wastin’!
Figure out what people want to read before you start writing
It doesn’t matter what you want to write about, what you truly care about, or what interests you. What counts is whether you’re addressing a hot topic, riding the wave of a controversial subject, or lining yourself up with a mass movement of unconscious attention that is currently in vogue. How else do you expect to get people to read what you write?
Ignore the vapid suggestions that writing is a process of discovery, creativity, innovation or fresh perspective—unless, of course, you want to be completely ignored and slowly fade away, starving and alone, on the fringe of the content universe.
Use more headline generators, AI, and robots to do your writing for you
Hunches, instincts, intuition and what you feel are always going to lead you astray. After all, has your intuition been pretested for clicks? Has your instinct been verified against a zillion data points to remove the risk of embarrassing yourself?
Why in the world would anyone rely on the subtle and mysterious workings of human intelligence and creativity when they could know in advance what is statistically more likely to hit the mark of mass consumption trends that are already well trafficked?
That would be crazy.
Never self-publish or write for small publications
Once you start writing for small communities of readers who claim to be exploring a purpose, a vision, connection, healing or—worse—fun, you can be sure the end of your professional writing life is near.
Clock in and clock out
Remember, writing is your job. You’re not here to have fun, enjoy the process, or get lost in some imaginary “flow” state and pretend that something wonderful, significant, or blissful is occurring as a result.
Keep a clock in peripheral view at all times, do your job between set hours, and walk away when you’ve logged the requisite time.
Vacation regularly
The whole point of having a job is to be able to leave it behind and go on vacation. You’re sure to burn out fast if you don’t spend plenty of time away from the thing that’s a chore to do. Ignore the argument that making writing a joy, making it “fun,” being creative, or writing with a purpose is an antidote to burn-out. Anyone with a brain can see where that will take you. Back to work instead of to the Bahamas.
You don’t need to be concerned with the inordinate amount of time it takes you to get back into the rhythm of writing when you get home. This is a natural and ordinary part of responsible human toil. In fact, hitting your stride again is probably the best indication you could have that it’s time to book another cruise.
This is how it works in the adult, working world.
All good now?
I sincerely hope this helps you reorient to the necessary, grown-up rigors of writing life.
If you find yourself straying into the territory of personal growth, creative expression, and having fun with your writing, you can always come back here to remind yourself of what is truly important.
In fact, I myself have had the strange urge to turn this very article into something other than a practical and serious treatise on professional writing—but, as you can see, I have managed to dodge all of the above-named pitfalls and produce another gem of machine-grade prose.
Thankfully, by following this guidance, now you can too.
😂😂😂 can’t relate at all Rick! Great piece, made me laugh (jk I would never indulge in fun!)
Brilliantly tongue-in-cheek! The alternative title could be "Eight Steps to Insure You Finally Give Up on Writing Anything for Anybody! :)