Five Secrets of Success in Writing I Discovered After Writing More Than a Thousand Pieces.
I will not get more followers or subscriptions. I’m sure I won’t get any awards or more than a handful of views, even with the number of followers I do have. This story won’t go viral. Read to the end
1 If you’re lost in the deep woods, and you happen to hear street traffic toward your right, walk towards your right.
2 Walk as far as you can today and tomorrow because it’s tough to walk at night.
3 If you’re lost in the deep woods, enjoy the peace and quiet.
4 When you get out of the woods, it’s a personal joy and success. The press probably won’t be there waiting.
5 Nobody will give you money when you meet your goal to get out of the woods, but they may unexpectedly and alternately pay for the movie rights.
How are you expecting to earn money on medium? Be surprised. It may just come over the transom.
Change your perspective on why you are writing. Write to be writing. Write for the practice. Write to get better. Ignore the numbers. Don’t sulk if they go down. Sometimes the numbers on my mailing lists don’t go up much no matter what I do. My Twitter followers remain static, though I post daily. Nobody seems to like my bribes.
But two years is no time in writer-years.
Think in longer terms. Start to be open to other advantages that will present themselves the more you write. And the larger your portfolio.
Here was my thought.
I looked at my more popular stories and used them as guides for new stories, and then I put some of them together into books that have longer shelf lives. I deconstructed them and looked at their architecture.
Architecture is everything.
Whether you wish to take an empty lot and design an office building, or if you are going to draw a portrait, and you need to see how the subject’s eyes fit with the rest of their face, you use it.
Songs have an architecture. Stories have an architecture of their own. It’s up to the artist to use the architecture that works with the site or the medium, not make it work wherever you want it to. Study your best story’s architecture. Duplicate it in a new story.
I try to study what works for me. Then I do it some more. Then I tell people about it. Twitter. Facebook, Linkedin. Substack. My website. Even if readers don’t care now, tomorrow, may soon bring a whole new crop of people who will love it.
Learn better how to beep your own horn. People will eventually see you. Some forms of success will come to you, even if it’s not as you had pictured.
Last words
I finally learned not to dwell on my stats except to pick out my best-performing stories, study their composition, and repeat, only a little better.
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