All Those Thousands of Words! A Morning Reflection...
My brain is having "the slows" this morning, so I have been sitting here, thinking about nothing of great importance.
Bloom of Hypericum, or Creeping St. John's Wort
Then I got to thinking about our contributions on a site like Steemit, along with the many other blog and article sites for writers, as well as web forums, social platforms and more.
For the Love of the Written Word
It strikes me it would be a pretty good bet that most people who are regular contributors here-- beyond just a few weeks-- like to write, to some degree.
More than a few people here are actually "writers" for a living, from aspiring novelists to technical writers to poets and beyond. Even those who are mostly artists and photographers quickly end up turning their presentations into "photo essays."
Of course, that makes sense... unless you're making videos, writing is our way to expression.
You've Written The Bible, and War and Peace, and More!
Have you ever stopped and wondered just how much this writing you do online adds up?
Goodness knows, I've been active in various forums and on writing sites almost since the first day I got an Internet connection, in 1994.
Soon to become summer berries!
Offhand, I can think of at least a few dozen "message board" type communties I have belonged to-- hobbies, psychology, writing, and more-- in which I ended up being a "senior" member, with 1000+ posts, or more. And that doesn't count any "real" writing sites, which have been numerous.
Most are gone-- Themestream, Writtenbyme, Brightideas, Squidoo, Helium; there were dozens more. Now we have Steemit-- a few people still add to the "content soup" on Medium, LinkedIn and other places.
Where am I going with all this?
Putting some rough estimates and a little math to work, the results are somewhat... enlightening, as well as "scary."
Being pretty conservative here, I easily send about a million words out into the nothingness every year! Most likely a lot more, because I haven't counted the 1000-odd listings I create on eBay, Etsy, Amazon and other sales sites every year (which involve writing descriptions) and the substantial volume of email I send.
And I say "nothingness," because these words don't really amount to anything concrete, beyond just "writing, for writing's sake."
"So what?" I hear a few voices ask.
I Wanted to Write A Book... but Could Never Find the Time...
Blooming elderberry
As I sit here, contemplating what is about to become my 250th original post/essay here on Steemit, I'm laughing to myself about the fact that I've always wanted to write books in the areas of psychology, self-development and human consciousness, but could never find the time to just sit down and do it!
Here's the kicker: 100,000 words is by most publishing companies' standards what qualifies as "a full length manuscript" in terms of what you have on your bookshelf, something with 200-250+ pages.
Like most of my posts here on Steemit, this piece is about 500 words long... times 250 posts, equals 125,000 words. Since February 2nd.
Ironic, huh?
Seems to me (as has often been the case!) that my "excuses" are both thin and invalid... which begs the question "Do I actually want to write a book?"
How about YOU? Have you ever stopped to consider just how much you have written and sent out into the public domain in the course of your Internet "career?" Especially if you are someone who is-- and has been-- active with writing, forums and blogs for a long time? Have you ever had ambitions to write a book? Do you wrestle with the conundrum that you "write enough" to complete a book every few months... and yet, you never actually write a book Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- join the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Posted at 20170713 08:44 PDT
I think we all have books in us.
I've read your article and most of the interesting responses below...
Like you, I do enjoy writing. I'm often not satisfied with the results, and may do a re-write later.
I think you are right about it being more difficult to organize a book.
You may not have meant that literally, but I must respond by saying that publishing in no way invalidates your copyright to things. I believe that you must be quite explicit about your intent to put something "in the public domain."
I am planning to write a "book" right here on Steemit. It will be a series of articles that tell the story of how our grandson was killed by the Medical/Industrial complex with the full support of the state and federal governments and "society" as a whole.
It is indeed a tragic story, one that needs to be told. It is heart-wrenching. It is very personal. I've deferred writing it for many years, and only recently have revived my intention to do so, with a new strategy.
I plan to "anonymize" it in order to avoid destroying some tenuous personal relationships. I hope to serialize here on Steemit. And, while I will do my best to be organized and to produce quality work, as the author / creator of the work, I have no compunctions whatsoever about learning from how it goes here on Steemit, and eventually revising and reorganizing it into what may ultimately be a more cohesive "bound volume" for presentation elsewhere.
Didn't mean to "write a book" here, but your articles tend to elicit longer responses from me quite often. Must be something about your writing! Thanks!
😄😇😄
@creatr, thanks for the thoughtful response!
"Public domain;" yes I get that, from the legal angle... more intended as a figure of speech, here.
I wouldn't expect you to remember, but some months back I wrote a piece on authors using Steemit to "serialize" potential books as a viable alternative to trying to get sponsors on a site like Patreon... it got a mixed bag of responses, but it really does make a lot of sense to me. It allows for the building of a targeted "following." You get almost instant feedback... including some that may guide the ongoing development of the book. And you get some "pocket money" as you go along. At the end, you put it all together and offer it as a for-pay "souvenir" (Seth Godin's term, not mine) to your followers... keep a log of everyone who ever comments on the "book" posts and at the end send 0.1 SBD to each with a "thank you for being part of the journey and here's a link to the final book published on Amazon" memo.
Steemit's own @ericvancewalton has already blazed that trail with one of his books... seems it has worked pretty well for him.
Thanks for the kind words, btw... that means something to me and gives me a small measure of hope that "engaging content" is worth the effort!
I thought your "public domain" comment was probably parabolic, but now I'm certain... ;)
Depending on the book, the topic, and the magic pixie dust called "virality," Amazon books seem to range anywhere from total flops to raging, life-changing successes... A couple of cases in point would be "The Martian" by Andy Weir, and "Wool" by Hugh Howey.
So, when will you begin writing your book? That's the problem with interacting here on Steemit; you loose pretexts and excuses when you start to expose your thoughts and intentions... You know, peer pressure starts to kick in? ;) :P
HAHA! Welcome to the reality check!
I know for a fact that I write at least 50K words every November during NaNoWriMo. You want a writing challenge to get your book done - or at least a good head start? - Join up and try it. :)
There is always push back or an excuse why we can't do things; to beg off before we've even begun! So my "canned" question to them is, Failure is easy. Are you afraid you'll succeed?
I'm really happy that you've had this reality check and I hope more people read it. The excuses we make really are thin and invalid. What we often lack is discipline and direction. Find your compass, pick a destination, then go toward it. It's that easy...and that hard. :)
@merej99, I've actually done NaNoWriMo several times. Flubbed it, badly. Gave myself permission to write non-fiction, even though it's about "novels," and that helped some, although I didn't complete the assignment. Gave myself permission to complete the task as "daily articles" and wrote 65 and almost 100,000 words in 30 days.
At least I now know what my block is... it's being good at organize "small" ideas, being lousy at organizing "big" ideas.
That said, I have what I want to write pretty figured out, so I am seriously considering "serializing" my book idea on Steemit, come November because now I am really in the habit of writing daily. That's an idea! Maybe we should have a "Steemit NaNoWriMo!"
Count me in! This is the first time I thought I might not join WriMo because I'm seriously hoping to be at Steemfest2 and that's at least 4 days before I can even begin to write. LOL It's not impossible but it puts me behind the gun before I've even begun. There's still time to see..... But I like your idea. Definitely need core people to hold each other accountable.
@merej99, I'm definitely going to "noodle" it around for a bit... I might make a couple of shoutout posts just to see if there's interest... need to search old posts and see if anything/anyone on Steemit "observed" NaNoWriMo last year. NaNoSteemit, anyone?
I was the Municipal Liaison for Florida Elsewhere last year. Managed to finish my 50K words (barely) but don't know if I can commit to being ML again. Heck, I'm already dreading November because I have NO story ideas! I might stick with the anthology of short and terrifying tales. LOL
Uh.. Ah.. Oh.. Really? You guys are some really heavy duty writers.. Let me say it loudly: I won't participate in NaNoWriMo this year for sure. Pfew... how is this possible? 50k words!!! Ouch.....
Oh, I totally honor that, @steemfluencer... it's not for the faiont of heart. It would be a bit like doing this current "Community engagement challenge" for 30 days straight... "You have to write 40 original posts of at least 300 words each and comment a minimum of 1500 times on your fellow participants' posts."
Sends most people-- except hardcore writer geeks-- running for the hills!
got it. Some years ago I started a blog on how to become a great writer. I was imagining me being able to learn how, by giving advice to other young writers - it was the wrong way, but I was young and naive..:)
it does not matter if you write blogs or books..The ultimate reason we write is to share our idea,story or feelings...It boils down to 2 things..how many people you reached and how much money you made...So the question is whether we would have made more money and reached more people if we wrote a book..we cant tell untill we write one..
fyi..my dream is to write a fantasy novel as big as a song of ice and fire..i am young probably have a lot of time(atleast that is what i think now..)..so hopefully by the time i am 30 i will finish atleast one book...
I tend to be a far better blogger and article writer than anything else... I tend to "think in small chunks" and I think that has been one of my hurdles when it comes to book writing.
For me, the question is "how many people did I reach?" and "Did they like it?" If they liked it, presumably there will be upvotes bringing the money.
Good luck with the novel... if you truly want it to happen, you'll make it happen!
If you think in small chunks you can write compilations of short stories..Like you can have several chapters each focussing on one philosophical topic..
And I might pursue something like that... several people have suggested that I create a book of "personal essays" (I write non-fiction), since the work is already written.
I think you're work is out there for all to see @denmarkguy and whether in book form or as individual, stand alone pieces they convey your thoughts, feelings and message in the moment which may be no bad thing in itself.
I imagine that you yourself are a fan of physical books and would love to see your own in physical print but I also think and believe that you may agree, that there is a false assumption among many that being a published author makes you more qualified to speak on a given subject than the everyday man in the street.
I don't feel this is the case and therefor I don't believe it is necessary to be a published author in the traditional sense in order to have a worthwhile, valid and informed opinion on any given subject matter as you so often do.
I'm sure a carefully selected, edited and updated collection of your posts on steemit would make for a very interesting book! :)
I much prefer to read a physical book myself but to be honest I don't do as much as I should which is ironic given my post about traditional skills from a few days ago.
Hope you are doing well! :[)
Thanks @tonyr... I'm a bit old-fashioned and the whole idea of "writing a book" is probably connected mostly to the idea of something tangible to hold in my hands so I can say "I made that!" And that's purely for myself, not for anyone else... or to project expertise, or to convince anyone that I know what I'm talking about.
One of these days, I will probably assemble a collection of articles I've written and publish them as a book of "Writings on Sensory Processing Sensitivity." Or something like that. After some 20 years, I already have the audience... last time I "Googled myself" (Things we could never say to our parents!) it returned over 200K hits, most of which were mine... so it's just a matter of getting off my duff and stop making lame excuses!
I'm not surprised you have so many hits on Google as you are pretty prolific here on steemit at least and if this level of writing has beeen consistent over 20 years you must have a substantial back catalogue to choose from. :)
Well, do ya? :-) Apparently you have written 1.25 books this year. I'd have to say that 250 solid posts is a good milestone. You put in a lot of effort and it shows, not like other accounts with 2,000 useless image posts swiped off the internet.
For me, these first few weeks here on Steemit are the first articles/posts I have ever written. It is fun, time consuming, but I enjoy it. I think a lot of that has to do with the community here. We've chatted about that before.
I still have to finish up my next gardening article I wanted to post today, but I got sidetracked with a drawing contest entry - another one of those self-employed distractions. LOL Now I'm trying to catch up on posts I've missed in my feed.
Yes, we definitely give ourselves some "self-employed distractions." There are days when I feel completely exhausted doing "busy work" and yet at the end of the day nothing was accomplished. Come to think of it, this is exactly why you rarely see me in chatrooms. Even though I've probably missed out on a ton of connections and upvotes, I get time sucked into those forums and then really NOTHING gets done. I have to pick my battles and well, you know where my focus is until the 18th. LOL
[edit] PS - CONGRATULATIONS ON 250 POSTS!
I was just chatting with @denmarkguy on his other post about the daily distractions. Somebody needs to invent more hours in the day for us.
I could definitely use more hours in the day. I'd probably fill them all and still only average 5 hours sleep. Damn my tired eyes - the rest of me is awake!! LOL
I typically do some of my best writing when I'm on vacation... because my wife and I tend to vacation in places where we can totally unplug, and "entertainment" is sitting in the shade with a book and a cold drink, reading... or a laptop, writing.
Unplugged vacations are the best. We go on cruises and, well up until recently at least, we would be totally disconnected. No phones, no internet, just relax and do whatever the moment provided. Now they have hi-speed wifi on the ships giving my wife an "urge" to connect. lol
Well, we know you have plenty on your plate until July 18th, @merej99!
I know I should probably join some of the guilds or chats or Discord channels... it would probably help with upvotes; these days I have far more comments than I used to (and not just since the challenge started) but far fewer votes... and people seem much stingier upvoting comments, as well. But whatever... I'm having a good time!
I've been seeing a terrible habit of people voting not just their own posts (something I do) - but voting their own comments (something I will never do). I'm wondering how everyone else is feeling about HF19 right about now?
I'm not happy about recent developments @merej99... HF19 looked good on paper, and "equality" nickname had a nice ring to it. But there's a cynical part of me that thinks "selfishness" would have been a better nickname.
I have NOT changed my approach to posting, or to the quality of my content, or to my approach to curating... but something has definitely happened... Over the oast 30 days, I have watched my average number of upvotes shrink, and the average number of comments on my posts almost double. And people are getting extremely "chintzy" with their upvotes because I am seeing rewards (currency declines notwithstanding) decline much faster than number of upvotes.
Meanwhile, my curation rewards remain quite solid.
I don't upvote my own posts (I do upvote my art gallery's posts-- separate account-- because it's still a small account looking for traction) and I only upvote my own comments when I write something I feel is significant on a post with 100s of comments, and I want to raise my comment out of the cloud of "nice post-- please follow me" at the bottom of the list. But that's maybe twice a day.
We used to worry about "rewards pool rape" by whales... now we have a different "rewards pool drain" called "purchased whale upvotes." Randowhale, booster, whaleshares and what you... there are a couple of dozen of them, now. Problem... why?
Because everyone is using them, they don't really "work." You send 2 SBD to get a $4 upvote... which becomes worth $2.50 by the time you get to payout... and then 20% of that goes to curators... so you're back to getting $2... so all that REALLY happened is that some struggling minnow put 2 SBD in the pocket of some whale who already has 700,000SP.
Yeah... THAT's "equitable." NOT....
Sorry, got carried away there...
/end rant
THESE ARE VERY VALID POINTS and not enough people are paying attention to their "investment" into those trails and the returns they're getting. Personally, I consider myself a team player but I try to steer away from those groups. Sure, I could be doing a lot more to grow my own account but frankly, I'm satisfied with my organic SP growth and apparently I love giving away the earnings to boost the gift economy. I'm still a believer in that and I'm not likely to change my ways any time soon. There's more to life than chasing a volatile token. It's the people that really matter to me. :)
I think when you have good content like yourself, @denmarkguy, "Me", it's ok to upvote, not so much for the money (I'm worth 2 cents), but the credibility up-tick. When I get my slider I will just move it down to 1% for my own posts.
For comments I only have two conditions for self-voting:
I have read for many witnesses' posts they were not all excited about HF19, and wish they had some more input on it first. To talk through the longer term effects, like the 10 votes issue.
The beautiful thing about hardforks is that we can have more and make adjustments with each. In my opinion, Steemit is rather unique and being in somewhat "uncharted territory" I can forgive some missteps along the way. A few months ago I was all for trying to break the place to find the weaknesses. The people who have faith in the platform will weather the storms...and we have. :)
[edit to add] I like your upvote practices. You're right. Sometimes a self vote raises you above the garbage that's out there.
That's true, it's an ever evolving experiment. I'm here for the long haul - powering up with each post. So we'll see how it goes. :-)
Isn't the truth. There are so many things that can divert our attention. I think that is one of my main challenges here are Steemit, is how to contribute, spend time reading others and giving them a little boost, and still keeping my eye on what I need to accomplish in my own work.
Indeed, life here on Steemit is more involved than typical social media sites. It takes more thought, time, and organizational skills to write daily entries like these, than posting selfies for likes.
Heh... it would not be a great loss in my life if I never had to look at another picture of some young (or not so young...) woman posing with "duck lips."
Totally unrelated side note - but I think you will appreciate this guy's work. Mind-bending futuristic structural paintings. Peter @gric
I went and looked at Peter Gric's page... those are some pretty mind-bending pieces of art... wow! Thanks for sharing that.
His talent is incredible, would be nice to have something like that on the wall here, but if I understand his euro pricing page - that won't be happening any time soon lol
It's not easy. I get as much done as I do because I work in a retail environment and have high speed internet... I have lots of 5-20 minute breaks in the action where I can read a bit and put out a few comments...
Thank you for the kind words @steempowerpics!
As an idle sidetrack (a couple of years ago) I decided to offer myself some perspective... and concluded that I have written the equivalent of The Bible 13 times (Old + New Testaments) since 1990...but I have never managed to write more than about four chapters of a book.
Well, thanks... and one of the main reasons I was so ready to abandon Facebook when I found Steemit. Not to sound elitist, but I just don't consume information at the "dank meme" level. It bores the snot out of me.
That is impressive. All the stuff that you wrote, for instance even many of your daily posts here, could they be compiled into a book, or journal type book? You have nice photography too. I imagine even a coffee table book of your thoughts, philosophy, concepts, etc with photos.
I hear ya on the other junk. Finally got my wife off of CrapBook , now I'm trying to slowly wean her off of Wasteagram :-)
Boy oh boy are you right about considering how much we have written and put into the public domain. I must have written enough content for 10 books over the last 10 years on my blog site about success, and it's good stuff. I just never took the time and the discipline to do something more with it. Your words are inspiring. Your words are book worthy!
You said "I've always wanted to write books in the areas of psychology, self-development and human consciousness, but could never find the time to just sit down and do it!" Your posts on Steemit have been inspiring to me.
Whenever I come on, I always want to check out to see what you have written most recently, because your topics are what I want to hear about and they are well written.
In fact, it was finding your posts that made me finally join Steemit, because then I knew it was possible to find topics and people that I care about and are like minded. I gave you a shoutout in my introduction as a result. https://steemit.com/introductions/@wecanbesublime/what-wolf-shall-i-feed
Thanks @wecanbesublime, and a slightly belated welcome to Steemit!
Clearly, you're a writer, as well... and this part really resonates:
So far, the only authentically helpful suggestion I've have had came from a friend who's an editor, who suggested I simply pick my 30 best/most popular pieces and publish them as "A collection of Essays" in book form, instead of worrying about "writing a book." The material is already there, so why write it all over again?
I'll go read your intro... hopefully I can keep inspiring!
Hi @denmarkguy. You words keep inspiring me. Thanks for the affirmation about my writing and the helpful hint. I have published on Amazon on the Kindle platform, and I know that we have to be careful about just taking blog entries and republishing them in that format, but I love the idea of the collection of essays. I could do that in Create space, in paper format.
This morning I was planning a blog post here, and got some ideas of how I could bring some of the content here, just saying it in a different way.
My brother suggested that I do video posts from my work on other sites. I'm thinking about that too.
Another Idea I have is creating an ecourse with the material and actually generating some income, what a novel idea.
I';m taking this month and next month to meditate on how I would like to live the rest of my life. What do I want to be doing it, what are the essentials that I want in my life. It shall be an interesting summer. All of these ideas just swarming on my poor HSP body and personality (LOL). Is't it a wonderful problem to have?
I actually find it quite rewarding to publish shorter project based writings. That way I can cover the topics that interest me the most right now while getting to know a broader specter of niches.
Publishing shorter posts also allows one to focus on the most important aspects. When you publish a book you need to cover almost everything, some of those words and some of the research time will bore you.
I know it is probably more satisfying to publish a book on a topic which makes you an expert. I do, however, doubt that this satisfaction outweighs the accumulated satisfaction from numerous shorter publications.
Just my opinion, but I have never published a book so what do I know :)
ronni
@ronni, I have sometimes observed myself and I generally feel quite excited about short publishing projects... they can be thorough and well researched like your post on Pioneering on Steemit... but they are still short-ish. The idea of "writing a book" feels quite "heavy" to me... and feels more like it would be "a chore" than something enjoyable, and since I work for myself, the notion of "arbejdsglæde" does mean something to me.
Considering a particular topic, I also ask myself WHO I am trying to convince that I am "an expert" through writing a book... myself? Someone else?
@denmarkguy ** You are absolutely correct - even a wildlife photography blogger like me has started writing photo essays. Nothing even close to what you accomplish though. A million words plus a year is impressive indeed. You could have written a whole novel !**. However, it all depends on what makes you happy. If writing does then the length of article or money to be received does not matter. Thanks for sharing. Upvoted.
I am continuing my passionate focus on wildlife. Today I wrote a blog on Snoozing parrots with my musings about Thomas Carlyle equating parrots to economists. I request you to take a look at it when you have time. Your comments, as always, would be an encouragement and incentive for me to make better blogs. Thanks
Thanks @vm2904; this type of writing has always been quite easy for me because it feels so much like "having a conversation" with a potential reader... it's very free-form, follows no literary structure; it just ebbs and flows according to what I am experiencing from what I am reading.
With your wildlife articles, I see you as simply having a conversation with people seeing the photos, again as if it were a dialogue.
I'll be off to read, in just a bit.
On the flip side, I have hated reading since I finished my last Master's Degree program. I used to read alllllll of the time and that I don't have the time to read a book any more! Now I say that I just don't like reading. Yet, I read articles upon articles online regarding parenting, DIY, etc. I've never stopped to consider that as reading because it didn't come in the form of flipping through pages in a book. I've never actually considered how much I write online...mind blown!
@thesimplelife, it can definitely be an eye opener!
I still read a lot... but like you, it's no longer complete books, it's endless online research in articles and blog posts, typically related to something I am writing about.
This post has received a sweet gift of Dank Amps in the flavor of 16.07 % upvote from @lovejuice thanks to: @bhightech. Vote for Aggroed!
Thanks for the @lovejuice, @bhightech... appreciate the recognition.