Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Writing Experiment

I recently read something (that I'm sure I had read before) which states that writers who talk about their current projects too much are more likely to not finish them.  A friend later posted something saying the same thing, explaining that when you talk about your project, your brain gets the same feeling of accomplishment that you would normally get if you actually finished the project, causing you to lose focus and the motivation to continue.

In light of this, I decided to perform a little experiment.  I recently signed up with the "Freedom with Writing" website.  They send out periodic emails with various writing opportunities, and info on how to make money writing in all kinds of ways.  They also offer some free eBooks on the writing life.  The first one was basically about how to write an eBook for profit.

I decided to take that idea, and run with it.  Long ago I had an idea for a book about what it's like to be admin support.  The idea was to describe, in great detail how to land an office job, how to conduct yourself on that job, what to expect, and what you will need to know (and/or learn) to do the job.  That old file is long gone, but the idea remained.  So, I sat down and started writing.

The thing is, I didn't tell anyone.  I didn't even mention it to my wife.  I just outlined the short book, and wrote.  Granted, it was easy to write as it was simply me pouring out my own knowledge based on years of experience.  But, in just under two weeks, I had a 10k+ eBook done.  And after several re-reads with edits, I decided to publish it on Kindle yesterday.

Now, while I hope it takes off and is a Kindle bestseller, I was actually more pleased with the result of the experiment.  It seems that not talking about the book may have played a part in me being able to finish it.  So, in the future, you will probably hear much less about what I am writing (which is saying something, since I rarely talk about writing these days anyways).  And since I have a big writing assignment due at the end of next month, now is a great time for me to start.

Incidentally, if you are interested in my new eBook, or know someone who might be, the link is below.

No comments: