Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” That’s not only true in a spiritual sense, but in a creative sense as well. No matter what type of writing we do, whether fiction or non-fiction, our objective as writers should always be the pursuit of truth.

The novelist Wally Lamb said, “If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.” But what does that mean, exactly? Let’s break it down in practical terms. There are three types of truth we must keep in mind when writing.

First is the objective truth. If we’re writing non-fiction, this means we should check our facts and strive for accuracy. If we’re writing fiction, our stories should be true in the sense that they reflect the human experience.

Second is your truth. This just means that we are true to ourselves. We are not trying to portray ourselves as someone we are not. It also means we are trying to be true to our creative calling and natural giftedness.

Third is the reader’s truth. Whenever someone reads your writing, they come with their own agenda. They have a perspective. They have needs, desires, and pain points. There is something they want from your writing. It might be education, it might be entertainment, it might be inspiration, or a combination of all three.

It’s hard to keep these in balance, but it’s essential that we try. That is part of the challenge, the calling, and the privilege of being a writer.

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This is not unique to writers. Anyone in a creative field, or anyone trying to build a career for that matter, faces this hurdle. How do you get people to sit up and take notice? How do you draw attention to what you are building?

The comedian Steve Martin famously said, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” The simplicity of this statement is stunning. Those seven words contain the secret of getting noticed, building an audience, and all the other things writers and creatives want.

It’s worth asking ourselves whether we are committed enough to our writing craft to keep going until people notice us. Are we willing to put in the early mornings and late nights? Are we willing to keep rewriting and editing until it’s as good as we can possibly make it? Are we willing to try different things even though there is no guarantee it will work?

The answer to those kinds of questions will determine whether people will ignore us… or they will eventually sit up and take notice. It’s the willingness to do the work and to keep getting better—not necessarily your level in talent—that makes all the difference.

Question: Have you committed to becoming so good they can’t ignore you?

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So far we have talked about getting specific on your core message and audience, and building the platforms where you will share your content. Now let’s look at Milestone #3: Write consistent content that helps your readers.

Why it’s important: When you write consistent material, specifically blog posts, it helps your SEO (search engine optimization) and also builds an audience. It’s impossible to build an audience, and to create loyal readers, without actually producing content consistently.

This is a big problem for many writers. The consistency is what gives you credibility over time and allows you to build up a library of content. Believe me, I have been through times when I’ve not been consistent, and it really hurts your growth. It also makes it hard to feel motivated when you keep starting and stopping.

One of the great benefits of creating content consistently is that you can repurpose the material into other formats like podcasts, email newsletters, books, courses, speeches, training, and more.

The big challenge in doing all this is that it’s hard to stay steady. It’s very easy to get excited about your new material, or your new platform, and write for a while… then give up. If you can just stay consistent, you will be ahead of 95% of other writers, I guarantee.

As far as a schedule, I recommend a baseline of creating something once a week. More specifically, I’d recommend at least a 500-word blog post once a week. If you can do that for a year, you will have enough material for a book, if you have organized the material in such a way that you can compile it into a book.

Daily Question: What could your writing business look like a year from now if you wrote a blog post every week and shared it with others?

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There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “People who are too busy rowing the boat don’t have time to rock it.” The meaning is pretty straightforward: when you are occupied with doing the work, you don’t have much time to criticize others.

William Faulkner said something similar: “The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.”

If you are too worried about what other people think of you, it might be because you’re not putting enough time into your writing. Spend your emotional energy on creating, on serving, on writing. Then you won’t have much time left to care much about what others think.

Daily Question: On a scale of 1-10, how much time and energy do you spend worrying about what others think of you?

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In this episode, I begin a series on the making of my Father’s memoir of his experiences in Vietnam. I’ll be writing it with him over the next year or so. I talk about why I’m doing it, some of my fears as I start the project, the process I’m using to figure out the theme of the memoir, and some of the resources that will be helpful as we create the memoir.

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There is a lot of pressure in the writing and publishing worlds to create the “right” words—words that are moving, effective, emotional, and whatever other superlatives we want to put on them.

Is it important to impact the reader and make a big difference? Sure. But you don’t get the gold unless you dig for it.

This means we have to adopt the discipline that miners have. We show up and we dig. We produce the words. We do the work of writing every day, or at least, as often as we can.

There is a lot to be said for creating a set amount of words, even if they are not the “best” words. Many times, you’ll put something out there that you think is just okay, and people love it. And the opposite happens, too. You’ll put something out there you think is great, and it flops. This it totally normal.

For example, the pop star Billie Eilish put out a book recently. I’m sure she got a massive advance from the publisher. However, the book has flopped. It wasn’t a hit. (My own opinion is that her publisher made the false assumption that her massive number of social media followers would translate into book purchases, which doesn’t make any sense because they’re not a book-buying crowd . . . but all that is beside the point.)

There’s much value to having a regular gateway to creating something—like a weekly blog or daily podcast, or whatever—that forces you to create the words, then figure out what is connecting. We all want gold, but we have to dig for it. We have to put in the work.

Daily Question: Are you willing to put the work in and do the digging every day in order to extract the gold?

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Most people, including myself, create a task list each day. We also call this a “to do” list. These are things we must do. And in a world that increasingly demands our attention every second—in a world filled with ever-increasing opportunities and connections—this list seems to get longer all the time.

The antidote to all this is to create a “stop doing” list. These are things you are NOT going to do.

Some examples:

– Stop committing to extra activities.

– Stop feeling guilty for not doing more

– Stop answering email 15 times a day

– Stop starting new projects until you publish the current one

– Stop comparing yourself to other writers

– Stop watching the news

– Stop holding grudges

– Stop following people on social media who irritate you

Success as a writer and creative person isn’t really a matter of doing more. It’s mostly a matter of eliminating the negative and unproductive things in your life so the good things can naturally start sprouting up.

Daily Question: What item from the list above should you stop doing?

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Although this podcast is called The Daily Writer, the reality is that many people don’t write every day. They may set aside time every couple of days or once a week to work on their writing.

I want you to know that this is totally legitimate. You shouldn’t take the concept of the “daily writer” too literally. The main point is to write regularly, whatever that looks like for your schedule. The more regularly you do it, the better you will be.

There is some writing I do not do on a daily basis, but weekly. For example, I write material for this podcast once every week or two. I write a bunch of episodes’ worth of content at the same time because I’m in that mental mode, and it goes much quicker than if I were to try and set aside a few minutes every single day to write or record.

This is called “batching” your work and it’s a great productivity principle. Do similar kinds of work, or write similar kinds of content, at the same time because you’re in that mental space already.

You can do this with email, book content, podcasts, blogs, or anything else. Give this a try and see how it will improve your writing output.

Daily Question: How can you consolidate your writing into batches during the week to help you be more productive?

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We live in a world where miraculous things happen every day. Of course, most of these things don’t seem miraculous to us. They seem ordinary. But it all depends on your perspective.

Seeing with your eyes seems ordinary to you, but to a blind person, it’s astonishing.

Taking a breath seems ordinary to you, but to a person on a ventilator, it’s astonishing.

Walking down the street is ordinary to you, but to a paralyzed person it’s astonishing.

Talking to someone on a wireless phone may seem ordinary to you, but to someone in the 1800s, it would be astonishing.

Having the freedom to go to the store may seem ordinary to you, but to someone in prison, it’s astonishing.

Mary Oliver said, “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

As a writer, part of your job is to help others be astonished. But you must first let yourself be astonished by the everyday miracles happening around you every moment.

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There are many characteristics we associate with the image of a writer, such as laid-back, creative, introverted, or imaginative.

But one word we don’t usually use to describe writers is “powerful.”

When you think of power, what kinds of people come to mind? You probably imagine athletes, bodybuilders, superheroes, and CEOs. Those people have a lot of external strength. They have the ability to shape events and make things happen.

However, writers have power of a different kind. What kind of power is this, exactly? The children’s author and teacher E. B. White said, “A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.”

As a writer, you have the power to literally shape reality… to impact how people think and see the world… to inform how the public perceives issues… to spark people’s imaginations with stories… to move them to action with your ideas.

Yes, your personality may be shy, introverted, or laid-back. But make no mistake, you have the ultimate power: the ability to change people’s hearts and minds with your words.

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