Self-Publishing Beatitudes

When reading random articles on the internet, one of my favorites was by author Brian Niemeier on his Self-Publishing Beatitudes. I highly suggest reading it if you have any ambition of being a writer or are just curious about self-publishing.

Of course, I didn't really follow any of this advice when I published my first novella but that was mostly me just flailing around with what little knowledge I had. While I still don't have much knowledge, what little I've learned since then has mirrored his article nearly completely. Check out his other articles if you have the time, too. They're all really well written.

To sum it up, writing takes time and effort. You're probably going to have to give something up to do it, something you enjoy doing in order to improve and grow as a writer. Whether it's a hobby you like doing in your spare time, napping, or maybe even working extra hours, something has to give. There are only so many hours in the day. You can't be a better writer if you don't dedicate any time to writing.

You need to read as well as write to not only keep being inspired but to improve your own writing through the example of others. For instance, being a rather ignorant kid, I've never read Louis L'Amour before. I don't write westerns, but I have since read one novel and a short story collection and what he wrote really inspired me to sharpen my writing and work on several character-writing weaknesses I'm prone to doing. Keep reading, especially good books, it's only going to help you.

You need to know your strengths and weaknesses and realize you can't do everything. I'm not a very technical person, for instance. I probably won't end up writing Science Fiction. This isn't because I can't learn processes and theories and incorporate them into my work, but that I probably never will. I can only write what interests me as a storyteller, and as much as I like to read the genre, as a writer it is not something that interests me. I have more of a Fantasy bent, which means that is the genre I should be paying the most attention to in order to sharpen my strengths. It doesn't mean I won't ever write something in my weaker genre area, but if I'm busy trying to improve my weaknesses all the time, my strengths will suffer. Something has to go on the back-burner, and it should not be the aspects of writing I'm better at.

Anyway, there's more here. Give it a read, it's quite fascinating.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo project is going pretty well. I've written 10,000 words so far and am quite enjoying the project. If you're wondering why I wrote so much it is because this story is going to be longer than my other ones and I need to write more to compensate for the time limit. Don't worry, I find this fun.

Even if I don't hit the limit in time, I will have written a giant chunk of it which is good enough for me. Hopefully I can get it written down by the end of the year and then go into heavy editing and polishing mode like I did last year.

So that's my update! Have a great week and I'll see you next time!