Ksenia Anske's Blog, page 11

The cost of interruptions

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It seems a quick easy thing to do, just to check your email or Twitter, or answer a call. 

Don’t. 

Even though it'll only take you a minute, your mind will keep processing whatever it is you did for the next hour. And if it was something important, or irritating, or exciting, you’ll keep thinking about it for the rest of the day. Hell, maybe even a week. Wonder. Fret. Worry. 

The cost of interruptions to your writing is not time. The cost is attention. 

And when your attention is gone, the cost...

Nap

Naps are good for you.

The end.

Gif source 

Listen to your body

Your body often tells you things you ignore and continue pushing it, to keep working. Keep writing. Keep sticking to that word-count goal, or page-goal, or whatever goal you have.

This is counterproductive to your writing.

Your mind sits in your body—inside your head—and it’s nothing more than a bunch of fat, blood, and nerve cells. And other tissues the names of which I don’t know. And if’s missing something, it won’t functioned properly, no matter how much you try to force it (you know that...

Every interruption takes away 40 minutes of your writing time

This is my rough calculation, based on about six years of writing full-time. 

Every little interruption, be it checking your email, or Twitter, or answering the phone, or the door, or talking to someone in person, kicks you out of the concentrated writing mode, and it will take you 30-40 minutes to get back into it.

So if you only have 1 hour to write, or even less, a single interruption can cripple your whole writing day.

Hide.

Hide well.

Create a hide-out that is free of interruptions you can f...

Your writing is a service that will improve the world

This is good one to tell to people who view your writing as a hobby, or as something that will never make you money, or who diminish it in some other, unreasonable and inappropriate way (because anyone condemning any art-making is totally unreasonable and inappropriate):

Tell them: “I do the service that will improve the world.”

You don’t have to explain your choice to write, to justify it, or to reason with those people who will attempt to tell you they know better and try to drag you into an...

Eliminate the human factor

Writing will result in people reading your work, and people reading your work will result in them talking to you. Even if it’s only friends and family. But of course, like all of us, you dream of lots of people reading your work. 

By the act of writing, whether you want to or not, you open yourself up to scrutiny and criticism, as well as praise and admiration. Interacting with your readers will take time, and that time will be taken out of your writing time.

How to balance it?

Some writers cho...

Test your book title with Google AdWords

I stole this idea from Tim Ferris's The 4-Hour Workweek book. He has tested the title for his book this way, and I'm thinking of doing the same for the book of WRITING TIPS you asked me for, compiled from these daily posts (it's coming...it's coming).

The way to do it is simple. 

Come up with a few title versions—Tim suggests five—then do the cheapest text-based Google ads. They will rotate automatically. Have them point to a page on your site where it says something like "The book is on back...

Plan your book marketing 6 months ahead

Your book is your product, and you've got to let people know it's coming just like the big studios let people know a new movie is coming by teasing them with a trailer.

Choose whatever strategy works for you, and read the Goodreads blog for great case studies and examples.

However, don't kill yourself or your bank account.

Do what you can, but start doing it at least 6 months in advance.

If you're on Twitter, tweet about it.

If you're on Facebook, post about it.

If you have a blog, blog about it.

I...

What all bestsellers have in common

You can read this book yourself, The Bestseller Code, and draw your own conclusions (it's fascinating, and it'll give you a lot of "Aha!" moments).

You can also submit your manuscript to the book's authors for an analysis on how well your book will sell. Or not. Again, you decide how true or not true this is, or how useful or not useful.

Or, you can use my summary below as a quick guideline for your daily writing, as a lot of it makes perfect sense and follows what I've been teaching here abou...

Do your work instead of chasing people

We’re conditioned to be nice (women, especially) and to market our stuff to everyone everywhere (whatever that “stuff” is), and we often confuse “being nice" and “marketing” with chasing after people who are not interested in us or in our art. 

This chasing includes posting stuff on social media to people who don’t care, advertising your stuff to people who don’t care, and marketing to people who don’t care.

Stop it. It’s a waste of your time.

Spend your time doing your work. Making your art....