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Consistency in Writing

Consistency is hard. That’s why it’s so rare—and so valuable.

As a writer, you need consistency for many reasons:

Improving your craft
Feeding creativity and generating ideas
Building an audience or an author platform

All of these goals require consistent effort over time.

The importance of consistency came home to me recently reading Mark Schaefer’s new book Cumulative Advantage* about the fact that advantage breeds advantage.

In the book, Schaefer offers a formula for how creative innovative ideas take off, or books become best-sellers that lead to a friendship with Oprah. (Hello, Tim Ferriss.)

Authors who already have platforms have more success with their next books. Success breeds success.

Many factors contribute to wild success: identifying a “seam” of opportunity, leveraging that seam with a “sonic boom” of promotion, getting others to help you spread the word. And of course, luck and personal fit come into play.

But his formula includes building momentum through constancy of purpose.

Here we are again—consistency. Schaefer writes: “Consistency is more important than genius.”

How can you introduce consistency into your writing life? Here are a few ideas.

Find the right pace

Maybe you’re one of those people who can publish a blog every day. Seth Godin does, bless him.

I’m can’t do it — and I’m a writer.

For years, I blogged every week. Over time, it felt like a chore—which probably showed in the writing. And the blog work pushed aside other writing that I wanted to do.

A couple of years ago, I switched to every other week. I told my subscribers. Nobody complained. I suspect that most people didn’t notice.

This schedule (usually) gives me time to put together a thoughtful post.

If you want to blog every day, go for it. It’s more important to me that I write every day than that I publish every day. That leads to the next point.

Set small minimum goals

Whether you’re writing a journal or publishing a blog, there are days you’ll want to say Nah, I’ve got nothing. I’m too tired.

Challenge yourself to meet at least a small, minimum effort—say, five minutes.

hand writing with green pencil in blank journal

My voice teacher Julia Nielsen led a fantastic “How to Practice” seminar this summer, and referred to James Clear’s “Two Minute Rule” (from Atomic Habits*). She suggested that five minutes of warming up, mental singing, or repertoire study could count as practice.

The same thing applies to writing.

You can always find five minutes to tinker with the next blog post, write in your journal, or revise your manuscript in progress.

It may not be the hours that you envision being necessary. But you’re still writing, reinforcing the habit, reminding yourself and the universe that you are a writer.

Good ideas may appear in those five minutes.

Even showing up for a short time, you feed the background mental systems (the Muse) that are critical to creativity.

The Muse isn’t greedy. Give it five minutes here and there, and it might deliver.

Don’t confuse consistency with perfection

I subscribe to David Gaughran’s author newsletter. His most recent email had the subject line “I’m alive!”

He’d dropped off to deal with some personal issues. And as much as I relish that newsletter, I hadn’t really noticed its absence. (Sorry, David!)

Was I upset? Indeed, no. He’s human. I’m human. I wish him well. (If you’re an indie author, subscribe to his newsletter.)

Sometimes you’ll miss that blog deadline. You’ll skip the journal entry.

Being consistent isn’t the same as being perfect. Life is messy.

Your blog readers will understand and forgive you. Forgive yourself. And then keep going.

* These are affiliate links; if you purchase the book through them, I will earn a small percentage, which I put toward buying more books for give-aways. It’s a virtuous cycle of sorts.

Adding to the Written Word

Listen to this post!

An email arrived in my inbox the other day with a beautiful video attached. It came from someone I did not know, inviting me to participate in an event.

Ordinarily, I would tag the email to read later in the day. (I try to “time-block” handling requests like this.) But the clip for the video was beautiful and it made me curious. So I clicked the link and watched it, smiling with pleasure.

The video accomplished several things better than a simple, text-only email could:

It caught my attention. I answered the email right away.
I got a better idea of the sender (Marina Tselner, a creative, positive visual artist).
Watching it established an immediate sense of connection with the sender.

That was a lesson in the power of video, combined with email.

Later that day, I was recording the audiobook files for 33 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Business Emails. I infused the text with lively intonation and expression. I hope the listeners will hear the smiles.

Narrating made me think again about the limitations of print. Readers must supply their own tone of voice.

Another lesson, this time on the power of audio.

A word-person like myself doesn’t like to admit this: Sometimes, words alone are not enough.

Tone is tricky

As readers, we aren’t great at interpreting a writer’s tone.

We only have the print on the page, without body language or vocal inflections. We read through the lens of our current mood and what we know about the writer. So, we misinterpret tone easily.

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that people misinterpret the tone of emails about half the time.

Half the time!

As a writer, you can take steps to make sure people understand your meaning.

Write with clarity and care
Avoid sarcasm (extremely tone-dependent)
Use emojis and punctuation to point at the right tone
Use stage directions to add tone and humor [wink, wink]

Even then, some readers won’t respond as you hope.

We all swim in a sea of words. Voice or video clips can elevate your message.

Boost your words with voice or video

My son Mark introduced me to Loom—an app that creates quick screen share and/or talking head videos.

He uses it when providing feedback to people. (You want to set the right tone when giving feedback so that it lands well with the recipient.)

I’ve used it to explain how to do something on Amazon. Describing online processes takes time and effort. It’s easier to record and narrate what you’re doing so the recipient can watch, pause, and follow.

Audio-only clips also make an impact. Hearing someone’s voice asking a question increases my sense of urgency about answering.

When my words need a little extra support, I’m going to think about adding my voice, or even my face and voice to emails, blog posts, social media posts and more, to help the message along.

Supplementing the written word

You may think: Who has time to listen to clips or watch videos? I hear you. I’d rather skim things at my own pace—it’s more efficient.

That’s why I suggest you combine writing with other things. Use the words to summarize what’s in the clip, or perhaps entice someone to watch or listen.

Attention is a scarce commodity. We must earn it. Sometimes, we do that best by showing up alongside our words, in audio or video.

Finding Your Publication Path

A landscape view of forest trails winding through tall, eucalyptus trees.

A familiar question came up in a writing workshop I led last week. A participant wanted to know how to publish the many stories he had accumulated during his unusual life. It’s a common and important question, and so hard to answer!

Many of my conversations with writers revolve around publishing options. People often want to know the right way to publish their works, to get a book out into the world.

I dedicated one chapter of Get the Word Out to the publishing question, and that’s not nearly enough.

Alas, there is no single right answer.

All I can do in these conversations is guide people to think about their priorities, and to make sure they clearly understand their options.

Three truths about publishing

People tend to think about publishing decisions based on knowledge they’ve accumulated over the years. Here are three current truths to factor in to your decisions:

The publishing landscape continues to change. You can learn from someone else’s experience in the past, but the river has kept flowing since they stepped into it.
People’s content habits are shifting as well. We’re consuming content in different media—print, video, audio. That inevitably affects publishing decisions.
A book isn’t always the right format—or the first format you should choose.

That last truth is hard for me to write, book-lover as I am. But it’s true. A book may not be the best way to reach your audience.

And even if it is, perhaps a book isn’t the first way to publish your work.

A tale of two Andys

You may have heard the story of Andy Weir’s break-out bookThe Martian. Weir originally wrote the book as a serialized story on his blog, getting feedback on the science as he went.

His readers started asking for the content in a more convenient form, so he self-published the book on Amazon. It took off, and the rest is history—traditional publishing contract, the movie, Matt Damon…

He didn’t wait to write until he knew his path to publication. He wrote and shared the story on his blog. He took an untraditional path.

Then there’s my friend Andrew Duxbury—less well known in literary circles than Andy Weir, no doubt. He’s a professor and geriatric physician at the University of Alabama. In addition to his medical work, Andy is a creative soul, involved in local singing and musical theater, and an astute observer of the world around him.

He started posting about his experiences during the global pandemic on Facebook— thoughtful posts filled with professional observations and personal stories.

Again, his readers encouraged him to put the material in book format. He worked with an editor and publisher, and the Accidental Plague Diaries arrived in the world as a book.

Cover of book The Accidental Plague DIaries

Blog posts. Facebook posts. Would either of those paths work for you? Maybe not.

But the key point is this: how can you get your work out into the world?

Finding your own path

You don’t have to write a book to make a difference in the world. You have many options, including:

Blog posts
Social media posts (be sure to save the work locally as well)
Serialized fiction sites like WattPad, Relish, or now Amazon Vella
Subscription newsletters (like Substack)
Flash Nonfiction (see this list on Brevity)
A podcast series
An audiobook (with or without accompanying print book)
A video series

Watch and learn from how other people share their ideas. But don’t be afraid to blaze your own trail. In today’s world, there is no single “right” way to publish your work.

The only wrong path is doing nothing.

You might also like…

Read Get the Word Out for more advice on finding a path to your book.

Tidying Up Your Writing

A few years ago, my husband and I moved out of a house that we had lived in for over 25 years. As we sorted and packed, I turned to Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (and later Netflix special) for inspiration in dealing with the accumulated stuff.

Before you ask—no, we did not sort all of our earthly possessions into piles and choose only those that “spark joy” to remain. Even so, her approach offered useful insights into letting go.

Kondo suggests we thank the things we no longer need for their service, and then let donate them or send them on.

It’s a beautiful antidote to the sunk cost fallacy. (I paid so much for these pants I never wear, I can’t get rid of them!)

Recently, I realized that this approach works for words as well as stuff.

What to do instead of killing your darlings

Cutting is a necessary, and sometimes painful, part of revision. People often tell writers that they need to “kill their darlings.” That advice that sounds doubly dark coming from Stephen King! (See his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.)

Of course, the advice is sound. As writers, we often become attached to bits of brilliance that we enjoy, but that don’t serve the reader. Getting rid of them is painful.

Metaphors like kill and murder only make revision harder.

I’ve been working with an author who has done extensive research for her book. She has countless hours interview transcripts filled with wisdom. Of course she wants to share it in her book.

As lovely and generous as those conversations are, they don’t all belong in the book. That doesn’t serve the reader.

Here’s the hard truth for nonfiction writers: Only a fraction of the research you do ends up in the manuscript.

Fresh off watching Marie Kondo’s latest Netflix special, I tried something different. I told her, “Look at each of these interviews. Will these passages spark joy—or understanding—for the reader? If not, thank them for their service and move them elsewhere.”

She laughed, but understood my point.

We talked about things she could do with the research that didn’t end up in the book. She could create blog posts or publish interview excerpts to support the book launch.

The research has value, but not all in one place and all at once.

“Tidying up” your writing

How about your work? Are you trying extra hard to keep your favorite bits? Is the resulting book, blog post or article longer than your reader is likely to finish?

You might need to tidy up. To do this, think like the reader. As you read, put yourself in their shoes and ask:

Does this spark joy? Understanding? Insight? Is it necessary for the larger purpose?

If you discover defensive feelings about a passage, at some level you may realize that it doesn’t fit.

You might need another set of eyes. Ask a friend, an early reader, or a developmental editor to weigh in.

Of course, you’re the author. You get to include a few things that you find uniquely entertaining or wonderful. If you’ve earned the reader’s trust and understanding, they’ll stay with you.

But if readers feel like they’re lost in a rummage sale of your favorite things, they might wander off.

If you have a tough time cutting things from your manuscript, give it the Marie Kondo treatment. Acknowledge and honor the things that you’re cutting—then send them to a good home. Your reader will appreciate the tidier text.

Failure Stories for the Win

As children, we learn by trial and error. We fall, get up, and try again. Sometimes the mistakes are painful. We learn not to tug the cat’s tail or grab at hot pans on the stove.

We continue to learn from our mistakes as we grow. Remember your first full-time job? I shudder to remember my earliest content marketing attempts.

As we continue in our careers, our tolerance for mistakes disappears. The stakes are higher and errors can be costlier.

So, what do we do? Too often, we decide we know ‘enough’ and put aside the learning mindset. We keep doing the things that are safe and comfortable.

And playing it safe is itself a mistake—especially when operating in a world of flux and change.

How can we keep advancing in our careers without experiencing painful or embarrassing mistakes? Through stories.

Learning from other people’s mistakes

When we read or listen to a story, we put ourselves in the protagonist’s place for a moment. When they make a mistake, we can internalize the lesson. That is powerful magic.

Technology companies love sharing “customer success” stories that model how customers use their applications. While success stories are wonderful, we may learn more from their opposites: failure stories.

When I set out to write my latest book about business emails, I knew it needed stories. The title of the book, 33 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Business Emails, prompted me to look for tales of failure.

I asked people for their embarrassing email stories, and they responded! Some were funny, others cringe-inducing. People sent many more stories than could fit in the book, but each one contributed to my sense of the pervasive problems of email. And all held lessons for others.

This got me thinking about how we share our successes much more readily than our failures. Maybe that’s a missed opportunity.

Sharing our failures is generous

When we want to help others, it’s tempting to tell them what we think they should do. It may be more effective, however, to let them know what does not work. Your goal is not to instill fear of change, but to inspire learning.

Yes, that means that you have to show up as flawed and imperfect. That’s generous, too. Because we are all flawed and imperfect.

Which stories should you share? It depends on what your readers might need. Look for uncomfortable experiences that also bring happy endings—lessons learned, situations rectified.

Show a path to the future. Don’t be afraid to model learning, with all its messiness and mistakes.

Failure is success in progress - handwriting on a napkin with a cup of coffee

Try this: Whether it’s for your next blog post or journal entry, explore a time you made a mistake, and what you took from it. Would others find this valuable? Experiment with writing it, creating a narrative that includes the lessons learned. And if you’re comfortable, try sharing it with others. You might be surprised at the responses.

It’s time to write better business emails

white paper airplanes, from crumpled to smooth, on yellow background

Our crowded inboxes drive us nuts. We resent their intrusion on our lives and the pull they have on our attention when we’re trying to work.

Then we get frustrated when other people don’t respond to the emails we send them.

Plenty of people think that email is broken. In A World Without Email, Cal Newport writes about the cost that the constant stream work-related emails has on actual productivity. It’s a fascinating book, yet even Newport agrees that email will be with us for a long time.

It’s time to confess that we are part of the problem.

We contribute to cluttered, unmanageable inboxes by writing messy, stream-of-consciousness emails that put the burden on the recipient to make sense of them.
We don’t include enough information, generating a swarm of follow-up emails.
We fire off a response quickly to show how responsive we are, without contributing to the discussion.

When we don’t use email with enough intention, we contribute to its burdens for everyone—ourselves included.

Who has time to polish email messages?

We’re all busy. Most of my email mistakes happen because I’m trying to move too quickly: to clear out my inbox, to respond right away, to get through the email so I can get back to writing.

It’s almost always worth spending time on the most important emails—the ones to your team, colleagues, partners, or clients.

Better yet, you can adopt processes to protect yourself from the worst email failures. I think of them as safety nets. Once established, they save you time and hassles down the road.

Here are three reasons for investing a little time and attention in your email habits.

#1 – Protect your reputation

In a fast-paced world, we toss off emails quickly, without a lot of care. And that sometimes backfires.

As I researched my latest book, 33 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Business Emails, people sent me stories of emails gone wrong. There were many:

The inside joke unintentionally forwarded to the customer
The person who sent a complaint about a colleague to the person driving them nuts instead of the manager
The sensitive email about an executive appointment that sat on a shared printer where everyone could see it

Emails can misfire in so many ways, sometimes without our knowing it. People misinterpret the tone of our emails all the time, and we have no idea it’s happening.

Most email failures are survivable, but why put your business reputation at risk?

#2 – Differentiate yourself

In a world of dysfunctional email, you can rise above the fray. You can show up as someone who thinks and communicates with clarity.

Paper boats on stormy water, one lifted above on a paper airplane

A few extra moments crafting a thoughtful subject line and clear opening will inspire people to open your email, or to find it later when they need it.

Add subheads and a logical structure to a lengthy email, and people will think better of you because they understand what you want.

Spend a few moments thinking about everything the recipient needs, and you can avoid back-and-forth messages.

#3 – Hone your writing skills

People tell me all the time that they don’t have time to write. But you probably write email messages every day. Approach that writing with intention.

Emails are an opportunity to cultivate clarity of thought and expression. They give us a chance to practice our writing skills—every darned day.