One of the worst things that happens to me when I sit down to write is the perfection problem. Fingers hang over the keys: a, s, d, f and on the right, j, k, l and semi-colon (which some famous writer says never to use....it only shows you're pompous). There they hang, fearful of producing drivel. But not writing hurts. If I get up without getting something on the screen, I feel like I've failed myself.
Enter Austin Kleon, author of Share Like an Artist and the more recent Show Your Work. I'm reading the latter, underlining like crazy, nuggets like: Send out a daily dispatch. No matter where you are in your work, pick a small piece of it that you can get "out there," meaning online. "Writers like Twitter," and indeed, I find myself posting short pieces, or a link to this blog on Twitter with a hashtag of #amwriting, which seems to get me some followers. It works.
I have a long way to go, and I'm not entirely comfortable in sharing my actual fiction, but I'm getting something about my process or progress on the non-fiction beer book, out into the Twittersphere every day. Some of my followers are e-book publishers or people hoping to help me market a book, but I'm "meeting" other writers, many of them with helpful blogs, who get me writing more and more.
And writing something every day has been my goal for a very long time. It's getting a lot easier as I practice at it.
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