Total honesty and transparency ahead.
On the advice of an agent that I queried, I’m trying to build up my platform. A platform is simply the reach that a person has on the Internet. It’s measured by Facebook likes, followers on Twitter and Instagram, hits on a blog, and the size of an email list. It’s important for authors to have a platform, because publishers want to know that an author instantly has a certain number of eyes that will see that they have a new book out. And that certain number needs to be great.
The agent recommended I get the book Platform by Michael Hyatt. Michael Hyatt is the ultimate guru in platform building these days. So I’ve been plugging through his book, trying very hard to follow every single one of his recommendations. And his main recommendation seems to be that in order to build a platform, you need to blog consistently.
Blogging is hard for me. That’s a weird thing to say as a writer. But I’m a fiction writer. I like completely making things up. Blogging is less making things up and more putting together actual information that the world wants to hear. I have no idea what anyone wants to hear from me. I can write about writing, but if I do that, I’ll only reach writers, and are they the ones I need to build my platform on? I’ve written stuff about my stories, but honestly those posts don’t do as well. So I’m not sure that people want that information either.
Which brings me to yesterday. I forgot to blog. According to my self-imposed schedule, Tuesdays are blogging days. And I missed it. I did laundry, I went grocery shopping, and I spent a lot of time reading. But I didn’t blog. My main question is, have I damaged my fledgling platform by forgetting to do the one thing that is supposed to keep it growing?
I find it hard to blog these days, mostly because I find the Internet a hard place to be. Everyone is angry. People are angry at events, people are angry at other people, and people are angry at other people for not being angry in the way that they are angry. My blog is one more note in the deafening noise, and I’m not sure what that note should be.
So I forgot to blog. Or maybe I’m just a bit weary of clamoring for attention. Probably a little of both.
Tori….add to the beauty. Even in times of anger, upheaval, war, and destruction…culture still needs beauty, hope, stories, imagination. They need your stories. It may not know they need it – but they do. And this adding with beauty is not putting our heads in the sand with regards to the evil and heartache all around, but it is entering into it and showing up with our light. I’m in the middle of a book called “Culture Care: Beauty for our Common Good” by Makoto Fujimura, and the essence of the book is that a thriving culture must have beauty…and not simply for the pragmatic and reductionist sense….like what “function” does this have…”how much money can it make?” (though those are important questions to address for the professional), but rather, what can I bring and give freely to the culture in a way that brings beauty and light to it and encourages others to do the same.
I haven’t kept up on all of your blogposts (sorry!)….maybe I should go back and see if you’ve done this, but it would so fun (I’m thinking) for fellow writers and even your readers, to know they story behind characters…what inspired them….tell the story of the day “so and so” came to your mind ….where were you? what were you doing? what was going on in your life that week that may have contributed to this character? what drives you nuts about the character that you feel you can’t change now?
I just kind of unloaded…sorry. But I don’t want you to stop bringing your beauty……I’ve been in my own wrestling about just being “another voice” online….but remember there’s no such thing as scarcity….there’s only abundance with creativity….Tori bringing what exactly only she can bring, is what is needed…..okay….I’m done! Thinking of you and knowing tensions!
Bringing beauty and light…I had definitely forgotten that perspective. I’d gotten buried under the weight of what everyone (on the Internet) is telling me what I SHOULD be writing about. But they’re not the boss of me, are they?
Beauty and light it is. Thanks for the reminder, Friend. ?