From Medium:
1. Don’t waste your readers’ time
2. Writing a book is like describing a building. Look at the first brick and write all about it. Repeat this process for every brick.
3. When you are starting out, consistency beats quantity. Find a schedule which works for you and stick to it. Slow momentum is better than no momentum.
. . . .
11. Writing even 100 words is progress.
12. Writing even 10 words is progress.
13. Checking notifications, however, is NOT progress. Turn off anything you get from Twitter, Medium, WordPress, Facebook, or Quora.
. . . .
18. Don’t check your statistics at all until you have at least 5,000 readers.
19. Even at that point, don’t check them more than once a week.
20. Speaking of statistics, most of the “little tweaks” to improve them don’t matter unless you have tons of readers.
21. And people who constantly TELL you about the little tweaks like how a post does at 8 AM on Thursday vs. 6 PM on Monday are typically selling you statistics services.
22. Use the free time you get from not checking your statistics to write more
Link to the rest at Medium
boring. and maybe accurate for the guy who wrote this. Not even close for most of the writers I know. I dont want to read a sex manual about dos and donts. Finding out as one goes along, is cool
#1 and #2 seem to be in direct opposition to each other.
“Be obsessed about your writing”
They call it Medium because its content is rarely well done.
Goodness, that’s funny. I’ve gotten the best giggles today from reading posts around the web.
::mic drop::
5,000 readers?
I guess this article is directed that the successful folks.
But then why does it talk about consistency and 10 words as progress?
Oh, it’s Medium…a site that chases fads and with lackluster content, content that you forget about nearly as soon as you finish reading it.
reading what?
HA HA!
OMG, let’s get every boring, useless detail about this building down. I know the readers are aching to read that. What, no sales? Hm. Wonder why.
I can agree with #1, though. And something about being consistent and writing words. Other than that, yeah. What were we talking about again?
68. Don’t waste time on Medium.
Ding ding ding!
Who describes a building brick by brick? What?
Talk about a lousy analogy. Do they mean CONSTRUCTING the building brick by brick?
^^^
beat me to it!
This, exactly! Whether it means his descriptions are horribly, boringly, exhaustingly detailed, or whether it means he can’t craft a metaphor to save his life, it doesn’t make me want to take his writing advice. Or read his books. o_O
Angie
I think that he is paraphrasing from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ or _Lila_. I need to read those books again. HA!
Went to Amazon, pulled up _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, and the “Look Inside”. I searched for the word “brick” and on page 191 found the story of Pirsig getting a woman to break through her writer’s block.
“Start with the upper left-hand brick.”
She wrote 5,000 words about the Opera House, brick by brick.
When I checked just now, Rule #2 was the top highlight. It doesn’t specify why people are highlighting it.