Writing and Creativity: Writing as a Business, and How Good is "Good Enough?"

I have been a writer for as long as I can remember.

Even after some 40-odd years of writing (as an adult), I still love the creative process of putting words together into some kind of meaningful (hopefully!) message, polishing up my first draft, editing, formatting and adding images... all before I hit the "publish" button, or submit my words to some print media.

Although it's by no means my primary source of income, writing does remain a "business" of sorts for me, and that means that — no matter how attached I may be to enjoying the creative process — I have to look at the practical aspects of writing and publishing.

What is over the horizon?

But it Takes SO Long to do "it" Properly!

It's one of the more common complaints I hear from many wannabe writers and creatives.

It takes 10 minutes to formulate an idea enough to decide to start writing, then an hour to turn out a first draft, then another 90 minutes to edit and polish that up to publication worthy status, then another 30-45 minutes to pick and choose illustrations and images and formatting...

... and before you know it, you've spent five hours creating an article, or a blog post, or a newsletter piece.

The follow-up statement to that tends to be some discontented mumbling about "not being able to AFFORD being a writer."

It might surprise you to learn that it took me 27 minutes (give or take) to get from idea conception to publication on the post you are reading right now!

The ferry arrives....

What I Learned About Creative Writing... From the News Industry

Like many writers, I "did time" writing bits and pieces for newspapers and magazines... and occasionally "scripts" to be part of talk radio.

One of the things you learn in those industries is that perfectionism and a tendency to "overpolish" a story is your enemy. And whereas you might be horrified to publish something that seems less than "completely finished," 98% of your readers only care about the message you are sharing, NOT whether you have created some kind of award winning prose.

And when you're in the business of writing, that becomes very important to remember!

Imagine, if you will, the difference between being able to pump out maybe two marvelous pieces of writing in a day... and perhaps getting paid $20 each for them... and being able to pump out 12-15 "perfectly serviceable" pieces that you also get paid about $15-20 each for.

Just do the math!

Grasses in the evening sun...

Good Enough... and the 98% Solution

Now, let me start by saying that there is absolutely nothing wrong with striving for excellence in your work, as a writer! Please keep that in mind.

But if you're treating writing as a business — that is, you're somewhat counting on making money at what you do — you have to put practicality on at least an equal footing with perfection.

And so, the best advice for aspiring writers I can offer is to learn to be content with "the 98% solution," at least in instances where you are not trying to make it perfect or win a Pulitzer.

What brings this advice to mind, at this moment, is the proliferation of so-called "Tribes" here in the Steemitsphere. With that, the realization that I would like to keep a measure of integrity in my content by creating tribe relevant content, going forward... and that means multiple publication styles... often multiple times a day.

If that's your strategy, you can't afford to sit around and spend several hours polishing each piece up to perfection!

The golden hour....

Temporary... vs. Permanent

Something to keep in mind when you write for your blog, or some venue in the world of Steem: Your words here may be "permanent," in the sense that they are committed to the blockchain for all eternity, but they are only functionally relevant for the seven day period until rewards are distributed. After that? Well, they fall into some kind of "archive," just like newspaper and magazine articles.

Many writers, however, "become writers" based on the idea that they are going to write books.

Writing a book is quite different from writing a blog post or an article... in the sense that the words (and style) of books are designed to be around and referenced for a very long time.

As such, that striving for perfection and getting it right is definitely warranted!

But we're not writing books here... so keep that in mind when you find yourself slipping into that pattern of trying to "do too much" with an idea and a post!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're having a great week!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 190828 11:44 PDT
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This piece was created for the Creativecoin community as it relates to the creative process, and for the Intrepreneur community as a personal business development related post.
Length: +/- 800 words
This is original content, created on August 28th, 2019.