Month: January 2022

ChatGPT Solved One Of My Biggest Problem In A Matter Of Seconds

Neera

Almost everyone has a story to tell about ChatGPT. People are trying to figure out the beast and the general masses have yet to comprehend how to use its power.

I have been writing a newsletter on Substack for two years. It is titled ‘A Whimsical Writer.’ I came up with the name on a whim. It doesn’t represent what I write about.

I want to change it to something more relevant which can attract more subscribers. After days of brainstorming, I came up with some ideas but none that excited me. Then someone suggested I should ask ChatGPT.

I had heard ChatGPT is brilliant at coming up with lists. I decided to ask it to give me a list of names for my newsletter.

I typed my question and made it as specific as I could and hit enter.

Off it went.

Line by line, it typed a list I would have happily paid $1000 to a consultant.

Here is what I wrote and the answer I got:

Please provide 10 titles for a newsletter that teaches writers how to write and how to become a productive and prolific writer.

  • “The Writing Digest: Tips and Tricks for Productive Writing”
  • “Write Now: A Newsletter for Aspiring Writers”
  • “The Productive Pen: A Guide to Writing More and Procrastinating Less”
  • “The Writing Sprint: Strategies for Boosting Productivity”
  • “The Pro Writer’s Digest: Insider Tips for Writing Success”
  • “The Writing Habit: A Newsletter for Building a Consistent Writing Practice”
  • “The Write Mindset: A Newsletter on Productivity and Mindset for Writers”
  • “The Write Connection: A Newsletter for Connecting with Other Productive Writers”
  • “The Write Flow: A Newsletter for Mastering the Craft of Writing and Productivity”
  • “The Write Path: A Newsletter for Finding Your Way to Writing Success and Productivity”

Brilliant! Isn’t it?

I particularly like the last two.

  • “The Write Flow: A Newsletter for Mastering the Craft of Writing and Productivity”
  • “The Write Path: A Newsletter for Finding Your Way to Writing Success and Productivity”

Which one gets your vote?

Want to take your writing to another level? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

Neera

Writing is demanding, messy, and disorderly. It will demand a lot of your time and energy. The only way to succeed at it is to build habits. Here are some habits that can be effective tools in your toolkit:

1. Write every day.

If there is one quality writers should pursue more than any other, it is to write every day.

Even when nobody is reading your work, even when you don’t know what to write, even when you know your work is not up to the mark, if you keep on writing, you will get better.

2. Don’t try to be original.

If you try to write an original article or a story, you will never get started. There are thousands of articles out there on the same topic. They still get read. Yours will be different because it will have your voice, your emphasis, and your story. That alone will make it original.

3. Don’t compare yourself with other writers.

Some people are brilliant conversationalists, while others have to learn the craft. Rather than comparing your work with others, compare it with your previous year’s work. If it is better, you are improving. You might still not be at the level you want to be, but you will get there.

4. Experiment.

Write haiku. Tell a story using just dialogue. Write non-fiction using fiction techniques of fiction. Try different forms of writing. Writing is creative, and creativity is making connections between other seemingly unrelated things.

5. Make mistakes.

Mistakes are the best way to learn. We can see what we didn’t see before by making mistakes. Mistakes also show us new possibilities. Making mistakes is not a sign of ignorance or inefficiency; instead, it is a sign of being courageous. We can attribute many discoveries to mistakes.

6. Note down your ideas.

Successful writers are fastidious about recording ideas throughout the day. Mark Twain carried a pocket notebook with him for his ideas. Thomas Jefferson jotted down notes about everything from the growth of plants and flowers to observations about daily life. Assign a notebook to collect ideas. Carry it with you everywhere. Commit to writing 5 -10 ideas in it every day.

7. Have fun.

It is hard to pursue any activity which is not fun. If you have fun, you can learn effortlessly and achieve much more. Have fun with your writing. Make a game out of it.

Entertain and be entertained.

Want to take your writing to another level? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

One Cool Way to Grow Your Audience Beyond Your Wildest Dream

Neera

I have been writing on Medium for almost 18 months now. All this time, I had paid no attention to growing my audience. I have roughly 2600 followers, but I am aware most of them don’t read my articles.

I have a small number of subscribers to my publication Authorpreneurs, who get, on average, two articles a week from me in their inboxes. These are my niche audience who are interested in writing books. I write articles to provide them with writing, publishing, and marketing information.

In addition, I have been writing a Substack newsletter for more than 14 months. It is growing at a snail’s pace, but the subscribers are my die-hard fans who read everything I write and occasionally let me know if they liked (or disliked) a particular piece. 

Three weeks ago, I started writing on LinkedIn regularly. Imagine my surprise when I watched my connection swell, 10–60 comments on my post and whooping 490+ subscribers to my newsletter that is just two weeks old. 

What is going on here?

It is not that I have become a great writer overnight. I am still the mediocre writer who fights her daily demons to write a decent enough piece for publication.

But there are a few things in play here, though.

LinkedIn Algorithm

LinkedIn is at a point where Facebook was in 2012. LinkedIn wants to grow, and it wants its users to grow as well. So any post you write, if it gets a little interaction (as little as five comments in the first hour), LinkedIn sends it not only to all your connections and your connections’ connections and anybody who comments, their connections too. 

If your post gets a whole lot of interactions then LinkedIn sends it to everyone on the platform.

Of course, it is my hypothesis (I have no inside knowledge) but I have been seeing the magic happen for a few days now.

This recent one I watched unfolding was mind-boggling.

If your post gets a whole lot of interactions then LinkedIn sends it to everyone on the platform. 

This is exactly what happened to a fellow writer Sasja Nieukerk-Chomos who is also participating in 30 Days LinkedIn Sprint with me where we writing a post a day.

Sasja Nieukerk-Chomos wrote a post and it got close to 800 likes and hundreds of comments in the first hour. Then the post went viral. It now has 34,447 likes and 2679 comments and perhaps close to a million views (I can’t see the view counts only Sasja can).

Image by the author
Image by the author

Sasja Nieukerk-Chomos on LinkedIn: #leadership #psychologicalsafety #linkedin30daysprint | 2679…
18 years ago today my father took his own life. He was so damn tired. He was only 60 years old. My father was a…www.linkedin.com

Of course, the content of the post, the connection with the workplace (LinkedIn is a platform for professionals) and the touchpoints of the story helped but I haven’t seen it happening on Medium.

So in short, growth on LinkedIn is phenomenal at the moment.

LinkedIn Newsletters

I had my own taste of unbelievable growth. I started a newsletter on Linkedin last week which picked up 230 subscribers with the very first issue. This week when I sent the second issue of the newsletter the subscriber numbers swelled to 490 plus. 

It is not possible to get this many subscribers unless LinkedIn is promoting the newsletters. LinkedIn introduced newsletters just a couple of months ago, needless to say, they want more people to take advantage of that. But they are being more successful with it than any other platform including Medium or Substack. 

The reason is that most of the users on LinkedIn are professional and they are interested in certain topics. My newsletter is about writing, creativity, and productivity which are the right niche for the LinkedIn audience. 

Takeaway: if you want to start a newsletter think about LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Polls

Now here is the most interesting of all the observations. 

Last week, I wrote a little post asking the audience to help me choose the book cover for my next book. 

My coach suggested that I should formulated the post as questions in a poll, so that I could use the algorithm to advertise my book for free.

I used her idea about a book writing sprint I want to run. So I wrote a post and added a poll at the end of it. 

Image by the author

I have 857 views on the post so far. It will run for another six days. That’s for the power of running polls on LinkedIn. Now hundreds of LinkedIn users know I am creating a program. They feel part of its formulation, and I have people ready to take the course. They are even helping me shape the course. 

It is what my coach calls a win-win-win.

Takeaway

Tom Kuegler once wrote You Can Dominate Every Social Media Platform If You Do These 3 Things: 

  1. Write five times per week.
  2. Respond to every comment.
  3. Follow everyone who interacted with you in any way.

I am applying this approach to LinkedIn and it is working. 

I will keep sharing my LinkedIn learnings with you. Stay tuned.

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For more tips and motivation, subscribe to my newsletter at A Whimsical Writer.

11 Tips For Writers Who Want To Take Their Writing At Another Level

Neera

I love writing. I hate having to write.

Each day is a struggle to meet my commitments, whether to write books, articles, or social media posts. Steven Pressfield, the author of the bestselling book The War of Art, calls it Resistance. Resistance is a mythical force that acts against human creativity. It has one sole mission: to keep things as they are.

Whether you’re a writer or an artist creating art from your imagination, you have to fight a daily battle with Resistance.

“On the field of the Self, stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight, resistance is the dragon. The battle must be fought every day.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Creative work enriches our lives, but it comes at a price. Creating can throw up all sorts of insecurities and anxieties, leading to blocks and procrastination, hindering our creative flow. 

When I was working full-time, I used to write late at night. If you have a day job, you know what I mean. Trying to come up with an article after a 10-hour working day is enough to rob you of your sanity. 

Things didn’t get better when I became a full-time writer. Instead, they got worse. Now I had all this time, but my productivity took a dip. I witnessed Parkinson’s Law in action — “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” 

I was wasting too much time on research.

I was trying new ways and rejecting them when they didn’t work. 

I had no structure to my day.

I didn’t have a system.

It took me two years of trying and cementing habits before I could become a productive writer. 

Figure out what is holding you back

You will not perform at your best if you don’t know what is holding you back. Write down all the things stopping you from becoming the writer you want to become. Be honest with yourself. Mine were:

  • I don’t have time to write. And when I do have time I am not productive.
  • I am not good enough.
  • English is my second language; I will never be able to write like a native English speaker.
  • I don’t have the skills to write a balanced article.
  • My grammar is not good, and my vocabulary is limited.
  • I spend too much time reading other people’s articles and feel discouraged that I can’t write like them.
  • I spend too much time in front of the computer and still have nothing to publish at the end of the day.

Once I knew what was holding me back I could work on it by changing my mindset.

Start by changing your mindset.

We need to fit writing around the rest of our lives rather than our lives around our writing. When I understood that, my perspective changed. 

Rather than resenting that I didn’t have enough time, I started limiting my writing time and aimed to finish writing projects in the allocated time.

I also realized that I can’t be productive by using short-term hacks but I needed long-term systems that are sustainable. So I started looking for methods that fit with my way of working. 

I like to work on a single project in a day. I call it my Daily Focus Tasks. These tasks could be writing an article, working on the novel, creating a course, or creating illustrations for a picture book. I have made these Daily Focus Tasks my number 1 priority. I make sure I accomplish them every day. If I do nothing else but just the Daily Focus task, in a year, I would have 365 tasks done. That will be quite something.

Develop rituals.

Rituals are the automatic but decisive pattern of behaviors. Many artists and creatives establish them to get them to the right frame of mind before working on their creative project.

Many athletes have rituals that they follow before they enter the arena. It could be as simple as saying the affirmations while running towards the field. 

Steven Pressfield has a ritual to invoke the muse asking the divine to help inspire his work before writing each day. 

Establishing rituals at beginning of our creative efforts is a great way to avoid the possibility of turning back or giving up. By making the start of creating an automatic routine you replace doubt and fear with comfort and routine.

I have started a small ritual before embarking on my writing session. I rewrite my manifesto by hand on a notebook or a piece of paper (whatever is handy). It reminds me of why I am writing and my commitment to writing. It puts me in the right frame of mind.

My manifesto is:

  • I shall write every day.
  • I shall not compare myself with other writers.
  • I shall improve with very new book and article.
  • I shall have fun with my writing.

Get in the habit of writing daily.

In the second half of the last year, I stopped writing a daily article on Medium to concentrate on writing books. I immediately noticed the difference. Even though I was writing towards my books I was not writing every day. Somedays I just researched other days I edited. I realized that I was not fluent anymore. 

Everyday writing is more important than you think. When Stephen King had an accident and couldn’t write for several weeks, he found the words were not connecting right when he finally started writing again. His writing muscles had atrophied. He needed to exercise again to continue writing the bestselling thrillers he’d been writing for thirty years.

Productive writers can produce an insane amount of work because they commit to writing every day. Start developing your writing muscles, after a while, you will establish writing as a habit ingrained into your DNA.

Keep track of your time and find out where your time goes.

According to the 2019 American Time Use Survey an average employed person spends:

  • 3.6 hours a day working
  • 9.6 hours on personal care and sleeping
  • 1.8 hours on household chores
  • 1.2 hours on eating and drinking
  • 0.5 hours on caring for others
  • 0.8 hours on purchasing goods and services
  • 5.1 hours on leisure activities and 
  • 1.4 hours on other activities.

Every day we get twenty-four hours to live our lives in a meaningful way. But once you account for all the obligations each of us has, there really isn’t much time left; a paltry two and a half hours for most of us, to be exact.

Your time outside your day job is precious. Know where it goes and decide how you spend it. 

A helpful tip is to break your day down into 100 points. Where are your points being invested? Some of these points are spent sleeping (33), some are spent working (33). Figure out how much of the remaining points you can spend creating. 

Bring work concepts into your creative life.

Your day job can teach you some valuable lessons about turning up and getting the job done. In your day jobs, you are given set tasks and targets to achieve, you perform those tasks dutifully and in the majority of cases get the work done.

How often do you do that with your writing?

Turn up to your writing like you turn up at your job. Treat it like a second job and put in an honest day’s work. Start your day early and do your creative work first thing in the morning

Starting your day an hour or two earlier is a fantastic way to get your writing done before your day starts. It feels really good when you start your day with a blast of creativity. You will also take advantage of the creative benefits of dream state first thing in the morning.

That is why so many writers start in the wee hours of morning much before their family wakes up.

Start 30 minutes adventures.

Everyone has at least 30 minutes for lunch; most have an hour. This is a perfect opportunity to outline an article, research your next novel, or anything else which would support your creative work.

Use the deadtime well.

Most people spend at least 20 minutes commuting to work. A good use of this time is listening to audiobooks. If you take public transport, pen and paper are great to catch those amazing ideas which come and go daily.

I listen to podcasts while walking and course video while cooking. When I am watching TV, I usually have my sketchbook handy. Whenever there is an advertisement, or a show that is boring, I reach out for my notebook and start sketching.

Have TV and Social Media Off Days.

We use TV to unwind and Social Media to stay in contact with family and friends. How about eliminating those two twice a week. 

We sometimes invest so much time on some very average programs under the guise of unwinding. Try turning off the TV for a week and invest that time writing. It’s incredible how much you can get done. If you use this time to write two pages of a book every day, you will complete the first draft within six months.

Designate one day a week as Creative Day.

You do not have two opposing lives in conflict; you have one life and the challenge to develop a healthy work/art balance. 

Marisa Anne Cummings, an LA artist declared Thursday as her creative day and started a website called CreativeThurdsay to publish her progress and her artwork there’s. What started out as an intention to be more creative 1 day a week, in 2006, became a big business in a few years.

Try and focus on the positive aspects of your day job and use your creative nature to make your day more interesting and productive. Like most things in life, you get out what you put in. 

If you want your day job to be more meaningful, put more energy into doing it well, engage in the challenges that arise, and improve your own situation through the creative gifts you possess. 

Try to avoid those negative thoughts which do not serve your situation. They will only develop into negative energy and resentment towards your day job. 

If all else fails find a new job! Maybe you could find something more in line with your art or support your creative direction by providing flexibility around hours.

Find meaning In your art and purpose in your day.

A day job may not provide meaning, but it does provide the means. Viewed as part of the creative process, your day job can allow you to engage with people and find inspiration through life experience. 

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” The same could be said for working a day job, your art is your why and your day is the how.

We generally feel better about ourselves when we positively contribute to something beyond ourselves. To feel genuinely motivated towards your day jobs, believe what you’re doing matters in some sense. The purpose is a source of fuel not just for higher performance but also for thinking more creatively about overcoming obstacles and generating new solutions during your days.

Takeaways

Writing is hard because we put so many expectations on ourselves and those expectations block us. Use some (or all) of the tips listed below and lift some of the weight off your creativity. 

  1. Figure out what is holding you back.

2. Start by changing your mindset.

3. Develop rituals.

4. Get in the habit of writing daily.

5. Keep track of your time and find out where it goes.

6. Bring work concepts into your creative life.

7. Start 30 minutes adventures.

8. Use the deadtime well.

9. Have TV and Social Media Off Days

10. Designate one day a week as Creative Day

11. Find meaning In your art and purpose in your day.

Try having fun with your writing and you will find passion that got you into writing in the first place.

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For more tips and motivation, subscribe to my newsletter at A Whimsical Writer.

7 Essential Components of An Author Website

Neera

A website is an absolute must for authors. As soon as a reader finds a new author, the first thing they do is check their website.

Your website is your home on the internet. Your readers should always be able to find you there. It is the best way of connecting with your readers outside social media. They can find out what books you have written, which one is coming next, and how to contact you. If you are blogging, they can learn from your articles.

It is one location that you have complete control over.

Social media platforms can change their rules anytime (like Facebook has done a few times now), and you can lose your audience in a single day. But a website is your own real estate in the cyberworld.

Besides, social media content has a shelf life of a few minutes, whereas your books, articles, and announcements are always there.

Your website doesn’t need to be complicated; simple is often better. Three key areas to focus on when designing and building an author site are:

1) Your books. These should always be the main focus. It would help if you had your books displayed in a way that is easy to understand and navigate, especially with a series. Each book should include the cover, description, and purchase links. This is also a great place to highlight any awards or reviews to help sell your books.

2) Gaining newsletter subscribers. This should be your second focus. Offer something of value, such as a free copy of your book or a short course to entice readers to subscribe to your newsletter. It is better done through a landing page.

3) Your information. Readers want to know more about you, so include an ‘About’ section that showcases your personality, information about contacting you, and links to your social media accounts.

If you have had any experience building websites, you will know they could be a nightmare. You spend hours and hours solving technical issues which seem trivial but end up giving you sleepless nights.

But my biggest problem was to figure out what should an author’s website look like. Unfortunately, there is not enough information out there, and whatever is there was contradictory and didn’t address a lot of my requirements.

I went to website design companies specializing in building author websites, but they asked $5000–$6000. I was not prepared to invest that much money into the website. So I started looking for other options.

Luckily I came across a managed solution that had all I needed on my website. It is built by a thriller author Nick Stephenson and his team, and I am very happy with my new site.

According to Nick, an authors website should have seven essential components:

  1. Home Page
  2. About Page
  3. Books Page
  4. Call To Action
  5. Free Book Offer
  6. Invitation to Join Your Book Review Team
  7. Blog

Home Page

The Home page is the most visited page of an Author’s Website. Therefore, it must grab the readers’ attention while at the same time giving them enough information about you and your work.

You don’t need to write volumes about yourself or your books. Images work much better. Please check out my Home Page, and let me know whether or not it is inviting and gives you all the information you need.

About Page

About page is the second most important page on an Author’s site. It is where readers get to know you better. You should include here everything you want to share with them.

My About page has my photos, a bit of blurb about my writing history, and my second passion — sketches.

I

Books Page

Your “Books” page is the third-most visited page on your site. Most people will enter your site via the homepage. They would want to check out what other books you have written.

If you want to make direct sales of your books, you will do that from the Books page. For that reason, it is going to need most of the work.

You need to make sure you have a straightforward way to display your entire catalog. Each book should have a clear description and prominent “buy” buttons.

Free Book Offer

This is also the landing page where you offer a free book (or other goodies) so that readers get to know your writing style, and you start building your reader base so that you can announce your future books to them.

Invitation to Join Your Book Review Team

As you will be writing more books, you should build a review team to get to read your book first and provide you feedback. They are your beta readers as well as the ones most likely to give reviews on your book sales page.

Call For Action

You should have a call to action to join your newsletter at the end of each page.

Blog

Your blog is where you regularly publish to stay in touch with your readers. You can choose what you want to write there. I write articles primarily. I publish all my articles first on my blog and then on Medium, thus keeping the ownership of my intellectual property.

Final Words

My website still needs a lot of work, but I am happy where it is at the moment. I hope it is inviting and proving all the information my readers need.

I built it mostly myself, using a WordPress-based hosting service (nrdly.com) that has author-specific templates.

If you need any advice or have any questions regarding building or updating your website, ask them in the comments section. I am not an expert but I will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.

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You can subscribe to my newsletter at A Whimsical Writer.

How I am Using LinkedIn To Establish Myself As A Writer

Neera

I am participating in a 30 Days LinkedIn sprint with 80 other participants run by 

Tom Kuegler

. We are going to publish 30 posts in 30 days. It just started on 10 January, and I have already seen some fantastic results.

My first post, I Hate Sprints, got 1877 views and 58 comments. Even when posting daily on the platform, I didn’t get this kind of engagement. Before that, I never had more than 600 views and occasional 1 -2 comments.

Image by the author

Compared to other platforms, it is much easier to grow on LinkedIn. In three days, I generated 3215 views and gained 33 new followers.

Just a few days ago, I struggled to come up with personal stories. It felt as if my well had gone dry, but as I read other people’s stories, it triggered my memories, and now I have many more stories ready to share.

I found personal writing is much easier on LinkedIn as the audience is primarily professionals and refined, unlike Facebook and Twitter, where some troubled people try to put everyone down.

Short-form storytelling works much better on LinkedIn, as you get straight to the point.

Why participate in a sprint?

Why not do it yourself?

Because sprints work.

Tom Kuegler found that the first hour after posting on LinkedIn is crucial for the success of your post. For example, if you get five comments in the first hour, the LinkedIn algorithm thinks your post is engaging and promotes it.

Working in a cohort where everyone posts around the same time and engages with other participants’ posts, you can quickly get five or more comments within an hour.

Viola, you get LinkedIn machinery behind your post!

My 1877 views were nothing compared to another participant, whose Day 2 post had more than 10,000 views in 24 hours.

How LinkedIn Can Help You Establish As A Writer

LinkedIn is one platform that is most suitable for writers. Even more than Medium, Vocal, Substack, or Twitter. It has a unique blend of all the ingredients you will need to have an author career.

  • You get way more views and fans on LinkedIn than Medium in way less time.
  • You can create a useful post in less than 20 minutes which can go viral within 24 hours.
  • The more people will see your posts, the more they will know your writing style and the value you can provide.
  • LinkedIn allows you to send a newsletter (a brand new feature released just this year), which means you can build your fan base right on the platform without urging readers to join your other newsletter.
  • You can win freelance work right on the platform. Most of the companies come looking for freelancers on LinkedIn.
  • You can meet other writers and collaborators who could enhance your writing career much faster than working by yourself.
  • You can market your products without getting penalized (most Medium publications don’t like when you promote your services).

Takeaway

For the next 30 days, I will be concentrating on posting on LinkedIn and sharing my learning here.

If you like, you can follow me on LinkedIn by clicking here.

Since everyone is affected by the diminishing views on Medium, LinkedIn could be an alternative for us as a writer.