Time Management Tuesday: Go Ahead And Shift Your Focus. You Can Do That. Also, I Wrote Some Introverted Humor.

 You Are an Introverted Parent was published last week at Frazzled. The piece was selected for  Medium's boosted program, which means I got additional marketing there and reached a higher audience. I am happy with the results in readership.

You Are an Introverted Parent is my seventh published piece of writing this year, equaling last year's publications and one less than the year before. I've published 35 pieces of various types of writing on Medium since I got with the program. That was about 4 years ago. Does 35 published pieces of work in 4 years seem like a lot to you? It seems like a lot to me. I'm afraid it seems like a great deal to my Facebook friends who have to endure all my announcements there whenever I publish something new.

How Much Time Does It Take To Write These Things, Anyway?

Here's the thing. A woman who started writing at Medium in January of this year sometimes publishes 20 articles a month there at various publications. Additionally, she started her own publication. She sometimes publishes several times a week or even more than once a day. Yes, when you're writing at that kind of speed, quality is going to be very up and down. I don't read everything she writes.

Nonetheless, from things I've read at Medium, the way to collect  followers--people who are Medium members and are interested in your work--is to publish as she is publishing, by which I mean a lot. She's not the only writer there who publishes several times a week and more. The writer I'm talking about has gathered 2.7 thousand followers in eight months. I've gathered 470 in four years. 

Almost every time I've published something on Medium, I've attracted a few new followers. When I get boosted, I attract more than a few. So, yes, publishing is how you build readership there. If you're thinking in terms of time management in that particular situation, you need to manage your time so you can do that.

Shift Your Focus To Short Form Work, Gail

Now, over the last four years I was working on a book, so that took a lot of time that I wasn't using for other kinds of writing. I've also wasted a lot of time querying agents about my book-length work. Both those things are over for now, and I will be focusing my time specifically on short-form work. So, yes, I will be writing more of it. That's what time management will be about for me for the immediate future.

Not short-form work just for Medium, though. I have two short stories out for consideration at other places right now. I'm working on something I'm going to submit elsewhere, too. I'm not a rapid writer, anyway. I came up with the idea for You Are an Introverted Parent, came up with an angle/voice for it, wrote it, and submitted it in just under a week. That is the speed of light for me. Between that more methodical, orderly, and obsessed with detail mindset (someone else said that about me) and submitting some work to other places, I'm never going to be publishing even weekly at Medium, forget about doing any more than that.

Writing differently than other people who publish there is no reason not to publish there, too.

Shifting Your Writing Focus Is Still Using Your Time For Writing

I frequently...by which I mean often...see people posting on Xitter in absolute despair because they can't find an agent or publisher for their book-length manuscript. They are considering quitting writing, because at this point in time they can't publish one particular type of writing. It's as if they don't even consider any other kind of writing. The book is all. The book is the dream, and if they can't achieve their dream, they're done.

They don't think about shifting their focus.