You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One)

by Jeff Goins

That’s what this book is about. It’s about falling back in love with your craft and building a platform to share your work, so you don’t have to become a sleazeball who’s constantly pitching or selling yourself. Instead, you can focus on what you were made to do: write.

Anyone can do this. All it requires is a simple, scary solution: Believe you already are what you want to be. And then start acting like it.

And honestly, you’ll grow faster as a writer when you get feedback on your work from editors and readers. It all works together.

So whether the world hears your message—whether you leave the impact you were born to make—is entirely up to you.

The pursuit of blogging—and the career, success, and fame I thought would follow—had poisoned my relationship with writing.

Embracing your identity as a writer is mostly a mind game.

It was kind of ridiculous, but something crazy happened as a result of this campaign. It actually worked. As I started making these public proclamations of identity, I started believing them. I began to trust my calling before I had anything to show for it. Before anyone else called me one, I started believing I was a writer. I started acting like one.

Before others will believe what is true about you, you’ll have to believe it yourself.

This is dangerous territory, when your creativity hijacks your productivity.

No, it happened from doing the work—creating habits and building momentum.

I can’t react and create at the same time. Neither can you.

To create your best work, you’ll have to make room for it. You’ll have to cut out the excess noise and focus on what really matters: the writing.

myself.

You’re not as unique as you thought. There are a lot more people like you than you realize.

You have to be yourself, to speak in a way that is true to you. This is the next step to claiming your life as a writer—taking yourself seriously so your audience will too.

It is a rare occasion to hear from a writer who asks for feedback and means it.

Bad writers don’t understand this, which is precisely what makes them bad writers.

I don’t know. I have no idea, and I honestly don’t care to know. I know what I like, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is what works—what’s effective.

Effective writing is hard to argue with. It gets the job done.

The “genius” stuff happens in the editing process.

Genius is very simple. Simple, but not easy.

History proves that those remembered for their words are not always the most verbose.

If you’re filling the pages with unnecessary words, you are wasting the reader’s time. Remember: Every. Word. Counts. Act like it.

Real writers practice.

They practice in public.

It’s time to put your work out there—not because you’ll succeed. Quite the opposite, in fact. You’ll probably fail (I’m such an encourager). But it’s important. Because in the failure, you can learn.

The fear of something is always scarier than the thing itself.

As a result, something amazing happened: I started to have fun. And the quality of my work soared. I finally felt free to do what I loved.

It’s not enough to be good. You have to be great.

If you’re writing something that matters, people will disagree with you.

You don’t have to suffer; you can work instead.

If you want to be a writer—if you want this bad enough—you will work.

There’s a foolish way to pursue a writing career (waiting to be picked) and a smart way (building a platform worth noticing). Do yourself a favor and choose the latter.

I thought like a pollster not a conversationalist.

But when I stopped focusing on all that and came back to my passion, a crazy thing happened. People started caring. I found that when you stop seeking public approval, something interesting happens: People will be deeply attracted to your work. They won’t be able to help it. Passion is contagious.

Every writer wants her message to be heard. It’s a universal human need to be noticed, embraced, and accepted.

If you have something worth saying, you want people to listen because it matters to them.

I found out many of them didn’t start out as experts either. Instead, they just started asking questions. They started poking and probing and finding the answers to their burning questions. They shared the questions they were asking and the answers they found. They took their readers along on their journey of discovery.

If you want people to pay attention to what you have to say, you have to be legitimate. You need to have a reason for people to listen. You have to know who you are.

If you’re great at teaching and you’re an expert at something, then maybe you should be The Professor.

Just find your natural you. Your readers will love you and trust you for it.

There are three important steps to building any platform: Get experience. Demonstrate competence. Generate buzz.

Easy. Help people.

Helping people builds trust. With trust comes permission. With permission, the opportunity to share your work.

To gain momentum, to build a community of friends and fans and patrons, you have to have an image and personality people recognize. And it needs to be distinctly yours. Otherwise, you disappear.

Only you can own your own platform. Only you can manage your own brand.

Everyone has a brand. One way or another, you are making an impression on your audience. A brand will happen whether you like it or not. Either you intentionally choose one for yourself, or one will be given to you.

Think of it as a promise—one you get to deliver on with every word you write and every article you publish. Every book you sign. Every email you respond to. Every fan you meet.

A brand is who you are. But it’s more than that. It’s your truest self. The part people remember.

As Seth Godin says, be remarkable in the most literal way—so people will remark about you.