Unless you have a team of people working for your publishing business, you’re most likely a lone, writer-entrepreneur. If this is the case, it is critical you maintain your happiness and wellbeing. For instance, if you’re unable to write and publish, then this can have a direct impact on your earning potential. Read on to learn how to ensure you’re able to work and keep smiling, through the 5 following strategies for being a happy a writer.
1. Set clear times and boundaries
Writing is your passion first and foremost. Something that you enjoy doing is always worth doing. Once you start you can’t stop kind of thing. However, when you need to make money from your writing, then you definitely find it difficult to stop. Put a stop to this not being able to stop behaviour.
Create a schedule where you stop writing say at 5 pm and take a break for a few hours to eat, spend time with the family, read, and meditate; whatever it might be. You need to create boundaries for yourself and consciously take time away from writing. If you don’t, no one else will. If you’ve just finished a fairly big freelancing job, and you can survive a day or two without having to work, use this time to switch off.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
You might think you can do everything yourself. Most entrepreneurs do, until they realize that what they want to do just isn’t possible to be carried out by one person. When writing and publishing your work, think about what activities you can get other people to help you with, so that you can concentrate on writing. For example, if you’re a self-published author, then editing is something you should definitely outsource (or a get a friendly person to do in return for you doing something back), if not only for your sanity, but also to ensure you deliver a high quality product to your readers.
3. Experiment
Your biggest source of creativity lies in your writing. Don’t stifle this creativity by believing you need to write a plot in a certain way, create a character in a particular manner or end your story in an expected fashion. If you write a story and it bombs, then no big deal. Listen to feedback from your readers, understand what they did and didn’t like. Build upon what they did and change what they didn’t.
Remember, having a flexible attitude that is open to feedback and experimentation will keep your mind calm. Otherwise, you will end up worrying for nothing, as it makes no sense to get hung up over a particular way of writing, which isn’t working.
4. Laugh
Laughter is such a wonderful stress reliever. If you’re feeling tense after a busy writing period, watch a funny movie or a comedy television programme, or hit a live comedy show. You could even take a walk and just look for what is funny in the situations you encounter.
5. Leave rankings and reviews alone for a month
As a writer you might have got into the habit of checking the ranking of your titles on Amazon every day, or you could be obsessing over why or why you’re not getting any reviews. When you do get a good review, you’ll be elated. If you get a bad review, you might feel down. Leave such things alone for a month or preferably learn to ignore them altogether. Instead just work on your writing and other things you enjoy doing.
Image credit: Peter Dutton on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0