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The Steve Laube Agency

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Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » The Writing Life » Page 6

The Writing Life

Unnecessary Work

By Dan Balowon November 21, 2017
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Continuing with my series of “unnecessary” blog posts (last week Unnecessary Words), today we cover unnecessary work, which I define as making something more difficult than it needs to be.

So you understand my worldview, I always take the escalator, elevator or moving sidewalk, I know all the shortcuts on my computer keyboard and I love microwaves.

Why make something harder than it needs to be?

Here are a few areas where authors might create more work for themselves than necessary:

Platform Development

Some aspiring authors attend writers’ workshops about development of author platforms hoping for the announcement, “There is no need for platforms. Just write books!”  When they hear the steps to developing a platform, they are momentarily discouraged, but still believe the industry will someday abandon this apparently ridiculous requirement.

It’s never going to happen, so move on.

Developing an author platform is much more about consistent and intentional work than rocket science knowledge and herculean effort.

There are many things in life which could be made much easier if you simply worked on them for 15 minutes a day rather than spending hours and hours dreading the task before you, and compressing a month’s work into one mind-numbing marathon.  The quarter hour spent doing the task each day, frees one to do something else and accomplishes a task in less time overall.

Think of how much work can be avoided if you simply did a little each day and skipped the time spent dreading and procrastinating, which is no fun at all.

Networking and Professional Growth

This might be construed as part of platform building, but I am defining this as a slightly different process involving connections with professional people who can help you progress in your literary career.

How can you work unnecessarily at this? Actually it’s pretty simple to identify.

You will spend a lot of wasted hours if the only person you think of is you. Others see through this behavior rather easily.

Frustrated looking for mentors, reviewers and endorsers? Become a mentor, reviewer and endorser.

Anyone who successfully networks with people for any purpose does so for mutual benefit, not a one-sided benefit.

When you focus on serving or helping others rather than yourself, you will be amazed how quickly others will want to connect with you. The time and effort of making connections is dramatically reduced.

The more you work to get others to network with you, the more difficult it becomes. The more you think how you can bring value to others, the less time it takes.

Finding an Agent or Publisher

I know what you are thinking, “This will be interesting how he handles this one. Agents and publishers intentionally make things difficult for authors!”

An author makes more work for themselves when they believe all agents and publishers are alike. Rather than spending six hours investigating and researching, and three hours targeting the right agents and publishers for their purposes, aspiring authors spend dozens of hours blanketing the countryside with proposals to people who have no stated desire for their type of work, creating many more hours of angry reflection and loathing toward agents and publishers.

Doing a little research and firing fewer but more targeted arrows will save a lot of time, work and unnecessary anxiety.

There are many more areas where authors work unnecessarily, from not intentionally planning their time at conferences, to using out-of-date technology.

This isn’t about becoming overly obsessive about how you use your time, but spending time on something unnecessarily burns hours from your life you will never get back.

 

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Category: Agents, Get Published, The Writing LifeTag: Networking, Platform, The Writing Life, Work

Your First Writing Assignment

By Bob Hostetleron October 25, 2017
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If your writing doesn’t start with this practice, you’re cheating yourself. Lauren Winner, author of the wonderful memoirs, Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath,  tells about an experience she had when a writing student of hers showed her part of a memoir that was astounding, far better than this student’s usual writing. Winner asked the student what had transformed her writing over the course of …

Read moreYour First Writing Assignment
Category: Career, Faith, The Writing Life, TheologyTag: Faith, Prayer, The Writing Life

An Author Knows They are Having a Bad Day When…

By Dan Balowon October 24, 2017
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“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”  (First lines of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, Simon & …

Read moreAn Author Knows They are Having a Bad Day When…
Category: Humor, The Writing LifeTag: Authors, Humor, The Writing Life

The Damaged Reader

By Dan Balowon October 17, 2017
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Not like I am some overly sensitive guy, but often when I hear a sermon in church or some Christian presentation, I cringe when a pastor or speaker might say something to the effect, “Raising a family is the most important thing a married man and woman do in their lives.” I agree it is very important, but I also think about the middle age couple four rows in front of me who had multiple …

Read moreThe Damaged Reader
Category: Marketing, Reading, TheologyTag: Audience, The Writing Life, Theology

Writing Advice We Wish Would Go Away

By Bob Hostetleron October 11, 2017
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I mentioned in last week’s blog that I asked some of my writing and publishing friends to tell me what one “writing rule” they’d like to see go away…forever. Many cited the timeworn, “Write what you know” (see here). Others, however, gave different but similarly helpful answers. Author, speaker, and writers conference director Lin Johnson said, “I heard this often in my early freelance days and …

Read moreWriting Advice We Wish Would Go Away
Category: The Publishing Life, The Writing LifeTag: The Writing Life, Writing rules

Don’t Write What You Know

By Bob Hostetleron October 4, 2017
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I asked some of my writing and publishing friends to tell me what one “writing rule” they’d like to see go away…forever. Many of them gave the same answer. Emphatically. Author, blogger, and writers’ conference director Edie Melson said, “We need to quit killing creativity with the time-worn advice, ‘Write what you know.’ Instead, go write what you’re passionate about.” New York Times and …

Read moreDon’t Write What You Know
Category: The Writing Life, Writing CraftTag: The Writing Life, Writing Craft

Author Nuances

By Dan Balowon October 3, 2017
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Writer and humorist Dave Barry wrote, “The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion or ethnic background, is that we all believe we are above-average drivers.” The same applies to artists and writers. Most feel they are pretty good at their craft. But success as an author is a complicated mix of factors. If accuracy, neatness and timeliness were the secret to …

Read moreAuthor Nuances
Category: Craft, Creativity, The Publishing Life, The Writing LifeTag: Art, Nuances, The Writing Life, Writing Craft

The Challenge for American Christian Authors

By Dan Balowon September 26, 2017
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The majority of Christian books published every year are written in English by authors in the United States. U.S. Christian publishers in a billion dollar industry publish many thousands of new titles every year. Still, I am not sure all American authors who desire to have their books spread across the globe and translated into various languages have the credentials nor the global insight to be …

Read moreThe Challenge for American Christian Authors
Category: Communication, Publishing History, The Publishing Life, The Writing LifeTag: Christian, Communication, Culture, Faith, The Writing Life

Fail Better

By Bob Hostetleron September 20, 2017
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Writing is hard. Writing for publication is even harder. And writing to be read and re-read is a Sisyphean task (go ahead, look it up; I’ll wait). So it is no wonder that Samuel Beckett’s line from his novel, Worstward Ho, has been adopted not only by athletes (they are tattooed on Stanislas Wawrinka’s arm) and billionaires (Richard Branson cited the quote in an article about his airline’s future) …

Read moreFail Better
Category: Inspiration, The Writing LifeTag: Failure, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Vocabulary Word of the Day: Bifurcation

By Dan Balowon September 19, 2017
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Some words are specific to a certain field of endeavor and some are flexible, used to describe something in a variety of arenas. One such word is our vocabulary word of the day: bifurcation. Simply, it involves splitting something into two distinct parts. The prefix “bi” indicates two, so it is simple to remember the number of parts involved. It is used in general science, medicine, law, …

Read moreVocabulary Word of the Day: Bifurcation
Category: Book Business, Conferences, The Writing LifeTag: Book Business, The Writing Life, Writers Conference
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