1000 Pages are Waiting to Be Edited and Published Because I Suck!
Over 200 articles, a novel, some half-written books, and dozens of short stories await their turn to find their readers, and I'm here whining about it.
I read about people struggling with coming up with content to write about. I honestly can’t relate. I have so many ideas, stories, and different types of writing I like to produce that I can’t keep up for the life of me.
Every couple of hours, I have to open up my notepad and write down some ideas for a new article. The general theme, title, and some bullet points. This way, I can relax and know that I won’t forget this “brilliant” new idea for a post. I wake up in the middle of the night and repeat the same process.
How could I have written so many articles in a couple of months?
Every day I get up at 5 in the morning and write. Before my family awakens and distractions rain down on me. This is my sacred time. It used to be for meditation and workouts. Now it’s my writing time.
One or two articles per day are easy for me. To write — not to edit and publish!
That is where I struggle most. Writing comes easy to me. Ideas come effortlessly; since I’ve begun writing again, they almost always flood me.
It’s like someone opened the floodgates from the heavens, and I’m the recipient. I can’t possibly turn all of these ideas into words, articles, and books.
I’ve always been this way. Once I focus on something, I get completely obsessed, and channels open up, overwhelming me with ideas.
Where I suck at is the execution of those ideas.
I struggle with perfectionism and keep re-editing, only to find more things “wrong” with my work.
It has always taken me more time to edit and publish than write. Is that weird?
Do I suck that much at writing, or am I trying to achieve some unattainable perfection? Who knows. All I’m sure about is that I’m doing something wrong. This whole process can’t possibly take this much time. It’s exhausting and not very productive.
I’ve read about people spending half an hour on editing. What? Damn! I guess I’ll have to go all “performance coach” on my ass and run a stopwatch when I edit. Once the timer expires, I hit publish, and if trash is what comes out, so be it. Live and learn.
It also doesn’t help that English isn’t my native language, so I struggle with confidence and most likely make more mistakes than the average writer.
I don’t really know what I’m doing.
I keep learning about SEO, Medium rules, linking, search engine optimization, and authority building. There is so much to learn, and I’m hardly a newbie online. It’s taking a lot of my time just to familiarize myself with things.
Not to mention that once I find out I should have done something differently, I then “have” to go back through all of my posted articles and change them. It never ends. I’m nowhere near done just correcting my past errors.
I’ve been trying to maintain some social media presence and failed miserably. I don’t like social media and have gathered zero traction. It makes sense. So I won’t be wasting my time on this anymore.
Then there is the whole teaser, duplication of articles thingy that shouldn’t take much time (backlinks, authority in Google,…), but for some reason, it does. There’s no point in writing if no one is reading. I must spread the word, make search engines aware of me, and give my potential reader a chance to find me.
I have to be my own prophet, editor, publisher, designer, advertiser, accountant, networker, and strict boss that demands results and forbids procrastination.
Writing is fun. It’s exhilarating. None of the rest of this business is, though. Not for me, anyway.
I ran through my drive today and counted the articles ready for editing, proofreading, and publishing.
200 plus articles. Each, on average at least four pages long. Most are longer. So, 800 pages of thoughts, ideas, and stories are ready to be edited and published.
Add to that that I have a sci-fi novel gathering dust and waiting for my time. I only need to edit and publish it (250 pages, give or take). I’m thinking of going the route of weekly publishing chapters or something similar. I don’t know yet. Publishing fiction, I suspect, is a whole new game to learn and adapt to.
“When will the learning stop?!” Never!
Then there are the old stories I haven’t had the platform to publish, but I feel it might be the time. I don’t even know what’s in that archive, to be honest: a few short stories, some useless babble, and a few half-written books I’ve probably outgrown by now. Fun. When the hell am I going to be able to process all of that with this speed?
For the past seven years, I’ve also been writing a travel blog in my native language that would be nice to translate into English and publish to a broader audience. I’ve tried using AI for the translation, but it’s nowhere near good enough yet. Someday, maybe I’ll get to it if tectonic shifts, tsunamis, and wildfires don’t completely change the landscapes and render them useless, or we end up in some dystopic lockdown again, only this time with a permanent travel ban.
“You will own nothing, go nowhere, eat maggots and pretend to be happy, or we will excommunicate your rebellious behind from society or worse!” (read it in a hard German accent of Klaus Schwab himself for an added sprinkle of love and compassion)
I keep reminding myself that I have to simplify things. My processes, editing, publishing, and “marketing.” It’s not sustainable as is, not to mention that I don’t make any money writing. It stands to reason that my free time will probably decrease in the near future, not increase.
The 80/20 rule must be respected. (Pareto principle)
I’m sure I’ll figure out which parts of my writing, editing, and publishing game are the 80% that only produce the 20% of the effect, but I’m not there yet.
I’m still in the experimentation and evaluation phase. In a year or so, I suspect I’ll begin removing the additional workload, as I will have numerical evidence of its effect or lack thereof.
So far, I’ve concluded that I should focus more on writing and publishing, cutting down on editing and social media, and giving the Gods of Fortune time to do their work.
I’m considering focusing my efforts on where I can reasonably expect my readers to be: Medium, Substack, and other writing/reading platforms.
I’ll minimize social media, as I don’t write short “bam, bam, thank you ma’am” articles, but long-form posts. Social media has messed up our ability to think and concentrate for extended periods. My readers aren’t there; even if they are, I would have to spend too much time “promoting myself” on these platforms for minimal effect. In between all the arguing and trolling, that is.
If I enjoyed this, so be it, but I don’t. Social media is cancerous to my mind and my inner peace. I don’t like it. The less I use it, the better I feel. Therefore, it’s safe to assume I will continue to suck at it.
As it stands, I’m thinking of publishing more articles, as I do notice my profiles only get seen when I post something new. The rest of the time, it’s crickets and silent farts.
More content = more chances of getting noticed. I am still trying to figure out how to produce an article per day without losing quality, though.
What have your experiences taught you?
Where was your time best spent?
What did you struggle with most?
What were your 80/20 activities?
How do you handle the SEO and ensure readers can find you?
I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
Oh well, my timer’s up for this editing session. I hope you’re not reading absolute unreadable garbage. If so, I apologize and blame my writing guru.
Be well.
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