I know how to write. I know how to edit. I know how to craft articles that gain hundreds of thousands of views. I don't know how to market.

At its heart, marketing is about convincing someone that you, or your brand, is worth paying attention to. And that requires - go figure - your own belief that you or your brand is worth paying attention to. Or at least to be good enough at pretending that you can muddle through until you have enough clients that even you yourself can no longer doubt your own legitimacy. 

I don't believe in myself though. I know I have worthwhile things to say, I know I can take your work to the next level (I've done it many times). I know that I have the ability to teach authors to become better at their craft through my careful, empathetic feedback.

So I should believe in myself, right?

I should, but I don't. Because believing in myself would mean that I don't .

Some of you may read this post and think, 'this is classic imposter syndrome. I don't like that term, though, because I believe very much in my own work. I just don't believe that I, Beka, am worth bothering anyone else about.

How to market, when you find yourself ignoreable? I'm still working on that.

The 30-day series on getting from idea to first draft is done; I'm trying to edit it into an e-book to share on here, but I'm very slow. I've been focusing on my fiction writing and searching for a day job, with not much self-editing going on.

Speaking of which: if you have any favorite resources for self-editing, I'd love to hear about them! I'm searching for both myself and for the series I'm working on next. Editing, in my experience, is simple. Self-editing, meanwhile, feels like one of the hardest parts of writing. It's difficult to catch the mistakes in your own work, even after countless read-throughs (or perhaps because of those countless read-throughs).

What advice has stuck with you? What books/resources have helped you edit your own work? Let me know here or in the comments below!

Writing is hard.

It's also easier than you think it is. Just like with anything you do, the best way to get better at writing is to keep practicing. This week's posts include advice on how to keep going even when you think no one likes it, why it's good to write forward rather than going back and editing your work as you go, and some tricks for figuring out where to go next if you feel stuck with your story!

 My series for NaNoWriMo on drafting a story continues! My second week of posts delves into some of the more practcal considerations around how to write a story, as well as some motivation for you when you feel like giving up:

• Day 7: What if my writing sucks?
  • The trick is to make it suck deliberately, so you’re not an anxious mess about it.
• Day 8: But what if my idea sucks?
  • It's probably not the idea itself that's the problem, but the way you're writing about it. Here are some practical things to think about to help you approach your idea in a more deliberate way.
• Day 9: Character arcs
  • The way I get into stories is through character arcs, because a story doesn’t happen unless it’s happening to someone, or being told through someone’s eyes. Without a perspective to frame things, there is no story.
• Day 10: Plot
  • Many people confuse 'things happening' with 'plot'. Events =/= Plot. If you learn nothing else from me, learn this.
• Day 11: Setting
  • Your setting can reflect your charcters' internal states, enhance interpersonal struggles, and can cause struggles for your characters to overcome. In some cases the setting becomes a character in itself!
• Day 12: Inspiration
  • Some places I like to go when I'm looking to get out of my own head and motivated to write.
• Day 13: Avoiding the info-dump!
  • Fanfiction has lessons to teach us as writers, and one of those lessons is how to skip the info-dump when you're writing.

I hope you find something useful in these posts, and remember, if you'd like to hire me to be your writing cheerleader and help you finish your story, please check out my writer coaching page and book a mentoring session through my ko-fi!

I'm here to help!

Some of you might already know that November is National Novel Writing Month. Since I already write 15-20k worth of words every week between all of my outlets, I decided instead of setting myself the goal of writing 50k towards a novel in November (the goal of NaNoWriMo), I'd set myself the goal of writing a post every day helping you get there!

Many new writers stumble over ideas of what's 'right' or 'wrong' in writing. Here's a hint: there's no right or wrong. It's whatever works for you. And, most importantly, it's remembering that writing is not editing. They might be related, but when you're trying to get ideas onto the page you cannot also be criticizing yourself, or else you'll never get that story written.

It's okay to write messy, and edit later.

My series of posts is being published on Tumblr, which is a blogging platform I really like! I'll be doing a roundup of my posts there each week, so you can pick and choose what you want to read. If you want to see everything I've written so far on that blog, you can visit my archive. You can also ask me a question through my ask form, and I'll answer it on the tumblr!

Finally, without further ado, my roundup from my first week of posting:

• Day 0: What is a story?
  • A story is a retelling of events that shows a change in the main character. That's it.
• Day 0.5: What's not a story?
  • Some examples from fanfiction, and why not every type of writing needs to be a story!
• Day 1: Where do good ideas come from?
  • They come from you. The trick is to get out of your own way.
• Day 2: How do I pick which idea to write?
  • Try to be as uncritical as possible. Your brain has so many good ideas already, you just need to let them out.
• Day 2.5: Sample brainstorming session
  • I show a sample of my own brainstorming process, and discuss a possible story that I could write based on my idea generation process.
• Day 3: Outlining (pantsing vs plotting)
  • What are pantsers? What are plotters? Why should you be both?
• Day 4: What about research?
  • Two letters: TK.
• Day 5: Outlining (part II)
  • More about how to plan your story to make sure you're hitting the emotional points you want to hit along the way!
• Day 6: How do I get started writing?
  • There's no trick to it. To start writing, you just start writing.

I'll share the next batch of posts next Wednesday, but until then, if you want to you can go ahead and follow me on Tumblr or on Twitter so you can get my posts every day!

To put it simply, content strategy is your unique plan for finding and engaging your audience using whatever media suits your business the best. 

As a writer and editor, my content strategy is my pipeline for turning ideas into written content that's relevant to my different audiences (my readers, potential writing clients, and business clients) and then setting up a process to make sure that all of that content gets delivered to all the right outlets on a regular schedule.

Juggling so many different projects can become overwhelming extremely quickly. That's why I create systems to capture my ideas, pipelines to keep them organized, and automations (using tools like Airtable) to move projects from idea to posted with as little friction as possible. Once the hard work of setting up those systems is done, it's easy to create quality work, knowing that as long as I keep it updated in my pipeline, everything will get where it needs to go in the end.

Your content strategy will most likely include written content like blog posts, webpage, and newsletters, but it might also include things like podcasts, videos, or other content to engage potential customers. It all depends on who you're trying to reach, and what you want them to know about you!

If all of this is overwhelming to you, or you don't have time to create a strategy yourself, consider hiring a content strategist to help get your content production on track. We can take all of that psychic load from you, and let you keep doing what you do best.