Like this:
- I had sweet fanmail from a would-be man of letters who had found some of my more writerly writing and wanted to tap my mojo. I wrote what I thought was good advice to him — briefly, both because that’s the soul of wit and because I am perpetually short on time. (Note the equation of haste with perpetuity. You can’t learn this stuff in a correspondence course.)
- ProBlogger Darren Rowse is hosting a competition to see if people can write good blogging advice in Twitter-length posts. So I cut my writing advice down to 140 characters on the nose and posted an entry.
- Yesterday at his Conversation Media and Marketing weblog, Paul Chaney wondered how webloggers produce content that is “Well-written, insightful, practical, providing value to the reader.”
- Finally, every day brings news that someone new is following me on Twitter, even though I’ve posted perhaps six times on Twitter since it was introduced at South-by-Southwest almost a year ago.
Ergo, in one fell swoop — for my young fan who would be better off writing than reading, for the ProBlogger hordes, for Paul Chaney and for the Twitterpated — four birds with one stone:
Writers write. You’ll get better by writing, not by doubting yourself. We all miss perfection. It’s the aiming for it that makes us better.
It only looks easy…
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Mariana Wagner says:
Thank you for the reminder. This was my entry:
Love what you do and discipline yourself to continually do it better. Always be a student. Success will surely follow.
January 11, 2008 — 10:22 am
Greg Swann says:
Excellent. But I think we all might be at risk of writing fortune cookies. My lucky numbers are 7, 19 and 52.
January 11, 2008 — 10:57 am
Gary Elwood says:
Ann Lamot in Bird by Bird says give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft. And I think it was Chris Garret who said expect your first 10k blogs posts to be crap. Eventually you rise.
January 11, 2008 — 11:01 am
Derek says:
“Writers write. You’ll get better by writing, not by doubting yourself.”
I think I need to print that out and post it on the wall. I am seriously doubting some of the things in this novel I am writing which of course, I sent you a part of.
As for lucky numbers, I don’t know why but I always end up with a 6 in my baseball jersey. I wore 6 in pro ball, 66 in football, and now wearing 16 as a coach.
Two of my former coaches both wore the number 8. I added them together and realized I was a clone of both = 16.
January 11, 2008 — 5:24 pm
Teri Lussier says:
Ruminating.
January 11, 2008 — 8:57 pm
Andy Kaufman says:
Thanks for the heads up Greg. Four birds in one stone eh? ‘magic stone theory’? hmm.
Here’s my tip:
Don’t wait. Just do it, then do it better. Write for yourself and find your voice. Be authentic and link to those who help you along the way
BTW- Don’t be a stranger over on Twitter. I’d love to see a Swannism or two every now and then.
January 12, 2008 — 5:06 am
Jay Thompson says:
As I tend to get a bit long winded sometimes, I’ve found Twitter helps me learn to get to the point.
And ask Kevin Boer, it’s good for limericks.
January 12, 2008 — 9:32 am