Lifewriting For Writers #3: Polish and Submit

Hi, Steve Barnes here with Life Writing Live. I am now live, apparently. So I managed, my God, it's Thursday and I've actually managed to do one of these every day. I'm gonna try to do that five days a week, all month. Let's see that. We're talking about writing the. I like to talk about life. And so I'll talk about three different things, three different arenas. My career, my family, and my physical health and skills. And hopefully what I'm talking about here will appeal to enough people that this is something that will be worth people's time. I'll try to do this sometime. You know, I'm going to try to keep aiming at doing this. At noon today, I had to go to the Social Security office for my son and stuff like that, so I couldn't get here in time to do that. But I'm here now. So, you know, between 12 and 1, we've been talking about the life writing approach to story. And this is not. These are not going to be exhaustive conversations. They're going to be suggestions that you tune into. Our new podcast, LifeWritingPodcast.com you can find out more about it. It'll drop on Sunday. That'll be our first episode on Sunday. But we're going to be talking there about life using our own lives as the primary example. That's the only thing that's fair and honest to do, really. And hopefully, once again, there will be things there that are of value to you. So I wanted to lay out for the year discuss the six part life writing process that we teach. And today will be part number three. The first part is to write a sentence a day. The second part is to write one to four short stories a month. And the third part is to polish and submit those stories. Now this is critical that the idea is to get at least one story per month out the door, out the door being submitted. And to do that, you might have to write every day a little bit, at least one sentence per day if you're not willing. If you can't write at least one sentence a day, 30 sentences a month, you need to ask yourself if you really wanted to be a writer. I mean, it's totally okay for you to say, eh, this isn't for me. But if it is for you, then you need to look at what is it that stops you from doing the minimum amount that will get you there. So we're talking about that minimum to be able to kind of get in the game so you can learn, so you can grow, so you can get your name known so you can develop your own ways of writing, of accessing your creativity. One of the things that you have to do is you have to learn how to finish a piece of work. Not just to write it, not just to produce text, but to actually finish it, polish it and let it go, to actually put it out into the world. You're clear. You're not just developing intellectual skills, you're also developing emotional skills, the skill of dealing with your own fear, your own procrastination, your avoidance, the voices in your head, whatever, all that stuff. If I lay out to you what I call the critical path, a critical path, there are other teachers who can advise you to go other ways. And of course, you can synthesize something yourself. All I'm saying is that if you follow this, you will win. Everybody who's followed it so far has gotten published. They get published somewhere between 20 and 30 stories. If they're following what it is that we're talking about here, before they get to 30 stories, they're published. So if that's what you really want to do, I'm literally laying you out a path that has worked for everybody who's tried it. And one of the things that you have to do is get the stories, finish the stories, get them out of your drawer and put them out in the mail or put them on the Internet. You send them out to people, you submit. People might say, well, where do I submit them? Well, I'd say to that, where are you reading your stories? Because in a couple steps, you're going to be advised to do a lot of reading. These six steps work together and they complement each other. It's not just about writing. It's about constantly improving your writing. It's about being on the the path of mastery of writing. And in that sense, a master of writing is someone who has all their basic skills at the level of unconscious competence so that they can create under pressure, and they've committed to their path for a lifetime. Doing that puts you on the path of mastery as much as anyone else has ever been on that path. Although some of those people are horizons ahead of you, that's okay. They either started before you, they worked harder than you, in some cases, they had some advantages. But if you're on that path and you're actually creating, isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that the core reward to write and to share your dreams with other people? If your goal was only to make money, it's absolutely possible to make money writing. But you Better learn marketing, because that's where the money comes from. Unless somebody else sees your stuff and is so entranced by it that they're willing to do the marketing for you, they're willing to take that responsibility for you. But if money is what you want, absolutely possible. But study marketing. If you want to get published. This little piece right here is just about how do you write, finish what you write, get published with it. So those are the things to finish. And how do you polish your work? Well, there are lots of advice. There's lots of advice for that. Every one of these steps. We could spend months breaking down what's here. And there's so much to say and there's so many questions to answer for you about that. But how do you polish your work? One of the best ways to polish your work is by reading it aloud. And that way you can actually get the flow of what, what the work is. Another is to develop a circle of readers, people who are at your level and hopefully above, who can begin to look at what it is that you're doing and to give you advice. If not above your level, then they're following a very specific pedagogy. They're following a very specific pattern. When we are doing the Life Writing podcast and our Life Writing Premium program, we will be giving you opportunities to meet with people and exchange stories and we'll even be reading some of your stories aloud and showing you how to criticize them so that every time you write you're getting a little bit better, getting a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. And that's all you have to do is get a little bit better at a time. So that's the thing. Please send any questions you have. I'll answer anything. Really. This is, you know, we're trying to be pretty transparent about this. You know, we, Tananarive and I are working writers who are married and raising a family, raising a beautiful 17 year old son and work out together to stay as healthy and energetic as we can possibly be. And we want you to succeed and we believe that if success is for you, is to write better and better and better and get published more and more and more. We can help you with that. What we can't do is guarantee how far you'll get or how you'll look in comparison to somebody else. Nobody can promise you that. But what we can promise you is a healthy, happy, successful life. Writing life. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you later. Bye bye. Oh, by the way, lifewritingpodcast.com we're starting this Sunday. Love to see you. Bye. Bye.