I have often talked about the importance of finishing a first draft of your book quickly. I’m not saying you should be sloppy or rush through things. You should make your book, or any writing for that matter, as good as it can be.

But the fact of the matter is that we all have limited time on this earth. There comes a point after you have written the first draft, the second draft, done revisions and formatting, and the other things you need to do to make it great, when you need to publish it.

Your #1 goal should be to get your current project finished and published, and then move on to the next thing. We make this whole writing thing overly complicated sometimes.

Make it good, do your best, and hit “publish” on that sucker. You won’t become a better writer by continually tinkering with your current project and never actually pulling the publish trigger. You’ll get better by doing more work and learning from each one, while getting feedback along the way.

It’s hard to get a lot of meaningful feedback on something you have not yet published.

The author Dan Poynter was one of the early advocates of self-publishing. He said, “If you wait for inspiration to write you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.”

Maybe that’s an overstatement. Even waiters deliver something to the table.

So, make it your goal to deliver your work to your hungry readers who have been waiting for your book.

Today’s Challenge: Finish that book you’re working on and publish it.

The post The Productive Writer: Publish Your Work appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today I want to remind you of an obvious truth, but it’s a truth we like to avoid: You’re going to die someday.

When you die, what happens to all those ideas you’ve been storing? All those books and stories you wanted to get to someday, but didn’t? What happens to all those plans and dreams?

The truth is that all those things will die with you unless you do something with them while you’re still alive. The exception, of course, is if you’re one of those authors who leave notebooks full of amazing ideas, and publishers turn them into books years and decades after your death, or they have other writers flesh them out and list you as a co-author. But I digress.

The fact remains that for most of us, our creative ideas will have no value once we are gone.

Here’s another way of saying it: It all goes back in the box when YOU go in the box.

So make use of those ideas now. Don’t wait around for the perfect time because it will never come.

Great ideas are like money. They must be spent in order to have the greatest value. Money in circulation does far more good than just sitting in your bank account piling up.

Your ideas are the same. Put them out there in circulation on blogs, podcasts, social media, books, articles, or workshops. Just get them out there and see what happens. You might just be surprised what happens.

After all, your life has an expiration date. So make use of the time while you still have it.

Question: Are you making a habit of getting your ideas out there, or are you storing them for the “someday” that may never come?

The post In the End, It All Goes Back in the Box appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.