Until you make it, fake it!
Okay, so you’re not a famous author with a dozen published best-sellers under your belt. Why not fake it? You probably think I’m crazy. How do you fake being a well-published, best-selling author? That’s not quite what I’m talking about. Faking it as much about your mindset as it is about specific actions you take to prepare yourself for success. Allow me to explain further:
First, let me start off by saying that many entrepreneurs and freelancers follow the creed that until you make it, you should fake it. So what exactly does that mean? The statement means that just because you’re not a successful freelancer or entrepreneur doesn’t mean you can’t act like one.
In other words, you should treat your writing as if you are a published author. This means taking it seriously, setting goals and being diligent in getting your work out to editors, agents, publications or who ever else might want to buy your work. Because essentially, that is what you are doing, you are selling your work to someone else.
Faking it also means viewing your writing as a business. Keep track of all your income and expenses. If you don’t already, get a basic business finance software program to start keeping track of the money flowing through your business (I’m using QuickBooks Simple Start – it’s free!).
There are two main advantages to taking your finances as a writer serious early on in the game: First, you will feel more professional, rather than sitting on the couch feeling sorry for yourself. More importantly, however, when you do start selling your work (whether it’s fiction, poetry or even ad copy), you’ll have a basic infrastructure in place to keep track of your business transactions. You won’t be scrambling around looking for those hand-written invoices you faxed in a drunken haze while celebrating your first published work. This organization will make you more productive, freeing you up to do what you love: Write!
Furthermore, a lot of writing in general, especially the writing process, is psychological. And that is a big negative for us writers. Why? Because there are so many things working against us: Self doubt, constant rejection by editors, not being taken seriously by family/friends and the list goes on. Faking it gives you a leg up on those psychological issues because you are "tricking" your brain into thinking you are a professional. When you start to think like a professional, you start to act like a professional.
Suddenly you’re not just sitting down to work on that novel manuscript because you love doing it. Yes, that’s a huge part of it, but you’re also spending all that time and effort because you eventually want to get that novel published. Right? I don’t think anyone writes an entire novel with the intention of shoving it to the bottom of some desk drawer and forgetting about it (although I’m sure it happens quite a lot).
Faking it has nothing to do with pretending to be someone you’re not, like going around telling people that you’re a bestselling author when, in fact, you have only published a short story or two. Faking it involves changing your mindset so that you view your work with the seriousness that it deserves. More importantly, however, faking gets that idea of failure out of your mind (not completely though) and you start to live by that old saying "Mind over matter."
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