Why Do You Write?
By: Thomas Plummer
Tags: Creativity, Writers On Writing, Writer, Work, Writing

Why Do You Write?

Creating a writing career using an expected outcome

By Hakinmhan on iStock (image licensed by author)

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my writing career is writing daily with no expected outcome of where I was going and what I want my writing to do in my life?

We sit, we create, and we get buried by life. Daily deadlines, trying to squeeze an hour in of writing time between spouse and kid time, and all the other nonsense that drains our day and fills our time.

The question we never find time to ask ourselves is, “What is my writing going to do for my life?” If this was a business problem which is what most new writers should consider it as, the question would be, “What is the expected outcome of this work?”

The simplistic issue is we write going forward when we should be writing from the expected outcome backwards. We should always start with the end in mind and work backwards from that target.

Blogging is a perfect example of writing without a plan. New writers blast out content as often a possible hoping to create readership through volume. Each article is a standalone delivering an idea pertinent to what the writer is thinking about or working on today. The reader gets a steady stream of new articles, and if the writer is good, a readership builds. But is this the most effective way to think about your writing?

Experienced writers take a different approach. One of my clients writes a new book a year based upon his philosophy as professional coach. He blogs several times a week but always dedicates his Thursday post as an extended piece which is in reality a chapter for the next book.

He hates the thought of sitting down for a month writing a book, so he creates the book outline at the end of the year then uses the chapters he is planning as his weekly guide. If some of his chapters need to be longer, he just breaks down the material over several Thursday posts. At the end of the year, he gathers his material, does a few days of editing to make it flow, then submits it to his editor.

The lesson is he started with an expected outcome and set his writing schedule to match what he wants to get done a year from now. Everything he writes is part of a bigger plan that moves his writing and speaking career ahead. If he has a new speaking idea, he writes about it as a test to see how his readership responds then tunes the concept for his next presentation.

The most important thing to take away from your own writing is that he never writes a word that is not part of a bigger picture long-term plan. Everything created every day is written to move his career ahead.

This strategy is also the answer to one of the more common issues raised in many writing articles geared towards new writers. There is a school of thought you should write across a broad spectrum of topics to establish a wide base of readership, but I do not think this work for most new writers. Writing in multiple areas is like the old adage where you are decent at many things but the master of nothing.

If you are a fiction person, then write fiction and try to develop your craft as you create each week. If you want to write a nonfiction book, then research and write often about that subject so you establish yourself as a subject expert. The advice is to go narrow but work hard to establish yourself within that niche.

Writing with an expected outcome is also a method of career planning. Using the blog example from above, if you research weekly about an area of expertise you want to write about over time, such as a book next year, you become the source of that information opening yourself up to consulting, more books on different aspects of what you are mastering, public speaking and other avenues that you prepared for by seeing a target and working backwards.