Why You Need To Publish 1,000,000 Words on The Internet
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After writing millions of words in the past few years and making a full-time income from writing, this is my best advice.
One of my least favorite taglines I see in people’s bio is Aspiring writer.
I went to a friend’s wedding this weekend. It was wonderful, but the wedding officiant made the same deadly mistake. She opened with, “I’ve never officiated a wedding before.”
Oh no.
It’s sort of funny, but also off-putting.
What are people thinking when they hear that?
Oh, great…This is going to suck.
If you’re ever giving a public speech, the worst opening line you can say is, “I’m not a great public speaker.”
It goes the same way with writing.
Don’t aspire to write — just start writing. A lot.
Then, write some more. And more. And more.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Gary Halbert:
Write. Write. Write. Write. Write. Write. Write.
I was never an aspiring writer. I started writing blog posts in 2017. No one read them. I wasn’t a successful writer, but I was writing, not aspiring to write.
When you suck at writing (like me in 2017) the #1 thing you can do is write.
Reading about writing, listening to people talk about writing, and thinking about writing is all great. But, if your goal is to be a successful writer — whatever that looks like for you — you need to write.
Writing 1,000,000 words
A million words sounds like a lot of work.
And it is.
Stop searching for the easiest and quickest path to success.
It doesn’t exist.
Look at the people at the top of their game. They’re the people who have done the most, and continue to do the most. The top 10% spend more time doing their craft than the bottom 90%.
Writing a million words is the tutorial you need to complete before playing the game at a high level.
