Many people struggle at the beginning of a new venture because they get advice from so many people who contradict each other.
I find it helps to remember there is no one way to do anything, but it is best to follow one way at a time.
At the beginning of a writing career you may hear so many different things:
Write for magazines; the pay is much higher.
Write for content mills; the pay is steady.
Write for your own contentment; the work is more rewarding.
If you are spinning around and don’t know where to turn next, you need to settle down and choose a route.
Follow one compass
A mentor will help with this process. One mentor. Follow that mentor’s one way until you have mastered it. If you start off in one direction with one compass and then another steers you differently, it may take you years to get where you want to go.
When you understand what works for you, then you can look into the tweaks that up your game.
I was watching a documentary about geocaching on PBS World last week. They mentioned a current debate between various environmental groups and park rangers about the length of time it takes nature to reclaim and subsume a trail once beaten into existence. Some say 3-4 years, others 22 years. The point is that once you have blazed the trail it remains there for some time.
Beating Your Path Into Submission
For your career this means that the toughest times will be those early months when you are doing things for the first and second and third times. You may not find a system and a flow for every project. You may feel like you have to keep learning the same lessons over and over.
You have to trust the process. You have to trust that each time you step out you may have to clear vegetation that shot up overnight, you may search in vain for signs you left yourself the last time you walked this route, but if you keep going that path will become clearer. You will internalize this path as it learns to anticipate you.
Over time, the jungle recedes to your step. The vegetation and animals become trained to stay out of your way and you will no longer need clues to stay on your trail. What took hours of hacking with a machete will become an quick afternoon stroll.
But it starts with that first step off the beaten trail, into the woods, believing in your ability to stake your claim in the wilderness.
And following just one compass.
Love the idea of following one compass- it is so true! You will hear lots of opinions when creating anything- from a proposal to a Web site. I think any project is part discussing with experts, and part finding your own path. It’s more like, follow one compass, and use it as a guideline. Don’t let it dictate the detours you can make along the way that will make you that much more knowledgeable.
Tammi, your words are so true.
The net gives us so much opportunity to learn new things which had a huge impact on us starting our writing but the one problem is that we are ever learning so it’s a bit overload sometime.
As we begin one direction with our compass, we get distracted and excited for another.
It takes a lot of self discipline to stay on your own path. If you go back and start another (over and over), you’ll never reach your destination.
See it through at least once. From there, start your new path. If you ever decide to go on a previous, it won’t be nearly as rough as when you first go through it
Great work Tammi – really reinforcing great ideas on success.
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Thanks Leah and Murray!
There are so many ways to get from point A to point B, that one can easily be distracted – especially with all the information available on the internet.
Distractions…often times thought of as the bane of writers because it’s so easy to get side…how’s the weather there, by the way? You get my point.