When Life Kinda Sucks – WN 026

This is the Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner. Episode 26, When Life Kind Of Sucks. Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host Sarah Werner, and I know that the title of today’s episode is kind of cheeky, Why Life Kind Of Sucks Sometimes, but it’s true. You’ve had your bad days, maybe you’ve had your bad weeks, or maybe you’re at a point where you’ve had a lot of bad days in a row, or a lot of bad weeks in a row.

So I’m talking less about those days when you spill a mug of hot coffee on your new white linen pants, or you come home to find that your dog has torn apart your bathroom again. Those are kind of circumstantial, and that stuff just happens sometimes because life isn’t perfect and that’s okay. You go home and change your pants or you put the bathroom back together and you move on.

But then there are those bad days that are symptomatic of something not right with life. And that could be anything from dealing with an illness, day in and day out for yourself, or a loved one. It could be the worsening pressure of a situation that you’re in and you would rather not be in; something hanging over your head and getting in the way of you enjoying your life.

It could be that you’re bored at work, or you hate your job and you feel trapped, and every minute that you’re sitting at that desk or doing whatever it is you do at that job, you just want to throw something out the window.

Or maybe there’s a person in your life who is toxic, who is sucking up all of your joy and energy and leaving you feeling like a weathered husk, or maybe it is, but hopefully not all of the above. And you get home from work or school, and you sit down to write, and you’re just so overwhelmed with how terrible everything is that you just can’t bear to write.

Or maybe you don’t have the energy to write, or maybe you are too exhausted or in pain to write, or you don’t have time to write because you’ve taken on too much work, or your heart is simply not in it because your spirit is just so consumed by this very bad day, this bad week, the series of bad weeks that you just can’t seem to shake.

People sometimes say that, “Writers are sensitive people.” And you know what? Maybe we are, maybe we’re just a little bit more emotional or maybe we’re just a little bit more poised to take things personally. Or maybe we’re that much more insightful, where we can see things that other people can’t see and sometimes those things kind of get to us. Whatever the reason, and if it’s true for you, no matter if you are comfortable admitting it or not. Yeah, maybe we can be kind of sensitive sometimes, but that’s not a bad thing.

In fact, I think that sensitivity can be one of our writers greatest strengths. Your depth of feeling, your intuition, your sensitivity to the words and actions of others all work together to help you understand how people work, and why, and what motivates them. And in turn, it makes you that much better at spinning a story, and being true to human emotion and motive, and adding a power and depth into your story that others might not be capable of.

However, just as it can work very much in your favor, that sensitivity can also work against you. It’s easy to become consumed by things or to let things consume us. It’s easy for things outside of our control, or seemingly outside of our control, to take that control away from us, to focus our lives on how terrible everything is instead of letting us remember that we’re empowered to change things.

Now I’m not saying that it’s possible to be deliriously happy every minute of every day; that’s ridiculous. Life is just naturally a mixture of good and bad, ups and downs, all that stuff. But what I’m saying is when you are mired in a bad day, in a series of bad days, in a bad week, or a bad year it is still possible and, in fact, I think it is still healthy and a very good thing to create during that time. To write, to paint, to draw, to build model dinosaurs; whatever it is that you do, whatever it is that you’re drawn to do.

I don’t think it comes as a particular surprise to find that there is a correlation between creativity and depression. And in some ways, as someone who considers themselves to be creative, it can be affirming. But as some of you may be familiar with, it can also be incredibly debilitating.

Depression is one of those things that is, I think, a lot more common than anyone likes to admit. But at the same time, I think it’s also incredibly misunderstood. There seems to be a kind of all or nothing mentality around it, or maybe there are just different camps that think wildly different things.

I know that people of my parent’s generation, often see it as something shameful, like, “Oh, you don’t have full control over your emotions.” Or, “There’s a lot harder things in life to deal with than your own sadness so just suck it up.” Depression is seen as a sort of failure of the will or touchy/feely hippie nonsense, and that’s simply not true.

I went years and years battling depression, fending off advice from very kind and well meaning people who would say, “Oh, you’re sad all the time, well just feel happier. Get outside, meet people.” And I know it was very well meant and very kindly meant, but it’s also kind of similar to telling a cancer patient, “Well just stop having cancer.”

Sometimes the chemicals in our brain make us feel a certain way, and often we’re helpless to react against it. I went 10 years dealing with depression without seeking help and my writing suffered because I didn’t care about writing. I didn’t even sit down to write every day, I just sort of lost interest in it.

And I had seen the movie Garden State in which Zach Braff’s character is so over-medicated, and so protected from the world by a medicine that he doesn’t understand how to connect with people and feel joy, and I didn’t have work that to be me. But the lows kept getting lower and finally someone noticed that I wasn’t doing so well.

And the person who noticed was not someone who I thought would notice. It was a very busy and important person who I know did not have time to deal with a needy, depressed person like myself. But he said, “I know it’s a weeknight but come on let’s go grab a beer and talk this out.” And so I found myself in a dive bar not far from my house where we went through a couple beers, and he told me that he had been on antidepressants for years.

And he had struck me as this like super fun, easygoing, super awesome personality kind of guy and it just floored me to know that yeah, he dealt with depression too and he was just really good at covering it up. And he said that he thought I was very good at covering up, but he knew what to look for.

And he’s one of the first people who told me that getting help didn’t mean that I’d need to like change who I was. And it wasn’t admitting that I was a failure because it’s not my fault, and it’s not your fault if this is something that you struggle with.

So the very next day I made an appointment just with a family doctor and I said, “Hi, I’d like to make an appointment. I think that I might be depressed.” And I just lost it. I just broke down crying on the phone. I had never said that out loud and it felt so good to give it words to admit it.

So I went in and I got a prescription, and we talked over side effects and kind of allayed any of my fears. And now I have been on antidepressants for two years and I’ve noticed a difference; it’s not a huge difference. I thought it would be like, “Oh, I’m happy all the time now because I’m on happy pills.” But what it does is it sort of evens things out and the lows aren’t as low, and that’s good for me.

So if you struggle with depression, with feeling worthwhile, with drumming up the energy to do things that you used to love to do, you’re not helpless. Make a call to your doctor or an appointment with a therapist or a counselor; it’s amazing how much it can help.

Other things are maybe a little bit more difficult to deal with. Not to trivialize depression because it is by no means trivial, but it is treatable. But if it’s something else that’s got you down, if it’s a marriage that’s not working out the way that you thought it would, if you have a family member who is sick, if you are sick how do you respond to that?

I feel like I got off relatively easy, medical-wise, compared to a lot of people that I’ve talked to. I had very severe scoliosis. Scoliosis is a curvature of the spine and it can be either in an S shape or a C shape. And mine was in an S shape, and the base of my spine had turned completely around so it was facing outward.

And the degree, the curvature of my spine, which is usually about 0 to 15 degrees in most people, the curve of my spine was in, I think, the upper 60 degrees. The top part of my spine was growing into my heart and my lungs, and the doctor said, “This is getting steadily worse. We need to operate.”

And they said what they were going to do was a full spinal fusion. So right from the base of my neck down to about my waist, 17 inches, my spine would be fused together into one big bone using bone grafted from my hip and braced with a metal rod on either side of my spine to keep it straight and keep it growing in one big straight piece.

Those metal rods would be connected to my spine through a series of sort of metal wires laid across … Like imagine train tracks. The two rods on either side of my spine are the tracks, and then the little metal things supporting it would go around my spine like railroad ties. So there was really no other option I was too far gone to have a brace, and surgery was the only answer.

At the time, I was a 16 year old girl and I said, “Okay, I can handle this. I’ll just bring lots of books with me, and I’ll bring my writing materials. And while I’m in the hospital recovering, I’ll just use the time to write and reflect.”

If you’ve ever been hospitalized, you’re probably laughing at me right now at how naive I was. I spent a week in the hospital after that surgery learning how to walk again with a new spine, essentially, sleeping heavily, yelling at my siblings because I had a bad reaction to the morphine and I turned into a terrible monster person.

If there was one thing I didn’t feel like doing it was writing. My writing materials stayed in the bag that I had brought them in that whole week. And even for the rest of that summer, I didn’t write like I thought I would. I was tired and I was healing, I was dealing with the way that my body had betrayed me.

And actually two years later, the rods got infected and I had to have them taken out. And so I was back in the hospital getting another spinal surgery and the bones of my spine had grown over the metal wires like the railroad ties part, and they had a chip that out and the whole thing was just a disaster.

And that second time, I did not bring my writing materials with me, I didn’t even bring any books with me. It can be hard to write when you’re not well, and it can be hard to even want to write when you’re not well; your focus is elsewhere. And for this and for all other sort of extended issues: a failing marriage, an unhappy home, hospitalization, or illness.

I know I’ve said this before, but I want to reiterate it because it’s so important, “To give yourself the time you need to heal.” If that healing involves writing, that is great. I know a lot of people who take strength from journaling and from chronicling what they’re going through and that’s awesome.

But if you are simply too sick, or too tired, or to distressed to write then I want to tell you that it’s okay. And it’s okay because sometimes life comes at us and seasons like winter, spring, summer, fall. Seasons come, but they also go, times pass and change. And so if you need a season to heal, to rest, to deal with something, then it’s okay to take that season to do that. It’s okay to say, “This is my healing season, and the next season that begins will be my writing season.”

I think that a lot of the time if we are ambitious and wanting to write … So if you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you want to write every day; that’s one of the things that I talk about. But sometimes that can build pressure. And so you say, “Oh, I didn’t write today, so I’ll need to write twice as much tomorrow.” And then the next day passes and you still haven’t written any. Said, “Okay, I’m going to have to fit three days worth of writing in tomorrow. Okay, I can do that.” And soon it’s snowballs and it becomes impossible to reach that word count that you’ve set for yourself. And so if you need time, give yourself time.

What I do during the seasons that I am not fit to write, or if I am otherwise distracted and not at my writing best, what I’ll do is I’ll keep a little notebook in my purse or in my pocket; you should always have a notebook with you. And then as the ideas come to you, because they will every once in a while, jot them down so that you don’t lose them. Keep yourself reminded that you are a writer, and that this is just a season that will pass like all other seasons.

The next thing I want to talk about that can contribute to life being kind of sucky is toxic people. Now I have this worldview where all people matter, and all people have dignity, and are worthy of friendship and love; I do truly believe that. But … And you knew there was a but coming, some people can introduce a harmful element or a toxic element into your life. So yes, they’re still probably deep down good people with good intentions, and they’re still worthwhile people, but that doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to befriend, or babysit, or provide for them.

In this case, I’m talking about the friend who relies on you a little too much, or the co-worker who gossips with you, or to you, or about you and makes your world feel small and mean. Maybe this is the boss or manager who doesn’t understand you, who micromanages you and makes your life a living hell day in and day out. Maybe this person is a family member, or someone who you otherwise can’t escape.

Now this is a podcast about writing and so I can’t offer you maybe the solutions that you’re looking for on how to deal with, or break up with, or otherwise remove toxic presences from your life. For that, I suggest you see a counselor or talk to another manager at work or even read a book. There are a lot of great books out there about dealing with difficult people and dealing with toxic relationships in your life.

But what got me thinking about this actually was in the sort of initial pages of a book I was reading. I’m sure you’ve seen this before and you can even find it at the end of movies in the credits. But inside the first couple pages of a book, it will say, “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.”

I read that and I said, “Really?” I mean, I know that that disclaimer is there to keep anyone from getting sued and I understand that, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I think that sometimes, consciously or unconsciously, we write people into our works; fiction and nonfiction, poetry, screenplay. Those bad guys, those villains, those antagonists, think often they come from somewhere, I think that sometimes they come from people we know.

I think that if we’re talking about dealing with toxic people from a writerly standpoint, then we can talk about writing about them. Author Anne Lamott has a quote that I’d like to share with you. And that is, “You own everything that happens to you, tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

Now I’m certainly not suggesting that this person in your life who’s bothering you should be taken as an example in your novel and stabbed to death with a rusty spoon; I am not saying that. Although I do know many writers who have done something very much like that and so it is not unprecedented. But if this person or this group of people in your life is keeping you from writing, or adding fear, or pressure, or stress to your life in a way that prevents you from writing, then that’s a problem.

I’ve said before that I made the decision a long time ago to live my life for other people, but you have to live your life for yourself too. And sometimes that means getting a little assertive and saying, “Yes.” To yourself and to your talents and your gifts. Saying, “Yes, I’m going to write because of or despite this person’s presence in my life, because I’m a writer and that’s what I do.”

In addition to toxic people, I know a lot of people who are in toxic jobs. Jobs that squash their creativity, or wear them out, or surround them with terrible people, or terrible situations day in and day out. Yet often we feel obligated to stay at these jobs for the paycheck or because we feel like we simply don’t have any other options; I’ve had jobs like this.

In fact the older I get the more I realize how terrible a lot of jobs out there are, and how awful a lot of working conditions are, and how ruthless the machine of business can be. I’ve talked with people who are not allowed to take notes or doodle at their desk while they’re working, who has to stand on their feet for 8, 10, 12 hours, who are not allowed to talk or converse, who are forced to listen through terrible soulless music through the overhead speakers, who are made to wear clothing every day that is, by purpose or design, uncomfortable.

I think in many cases the workplace has become a place where we’re not allowed to be human, or we’re not allowed to live, or have lives outside of exactly what we’re being paid to do. I mean in some respects, I understand that. Obviously you can’t have an employee who’s wearing sweat pants and is laying on the floor talking to friends on cell phone; I mean, who does that? But I get that there’s rules in place for a reason.

But I also don’t understand, a lot of the times, why so many freedoms are taken away from workers in a workplace, from people in a workplace. One of my first jobs was at essentially a cubicle farm. Rows and rows of Styrofoam cubicles, all that sort of mild beige color, overhead just rows and rows of fluorescent lights.

I worked downtown Chicago in the Citibank Building and our company spanned two floors. And when I started with that, job I felt so glamorous and big city. But as it went on, I grew more and more incredulous and I didn’t necessarily mind the work. And, in fact, I expected to be working and to get paid for my work.

What I’m talking about is more the environment, the environment was toxic. It almost felt like it was purposely designed to dehumanize or to make us feel small and petty. And within that atmosphere, people acted small and petty. There was open animosity, and hatred, and gossip. There were comments that were made that were unthinking or, perhaps, intentionally cruel or insensitive. There was just a whole lot of tearing down and not a lot of building up.

And I went home every day from that job, and I said, “Is this what I’m going to have to do for my adult life for the next 40 to 60 years?” I don’t like that and even more so, I don’t want that. I don’t want to go through cruelty and being torn down every day of my life until I retire. At which point I will probably be too uncomfortable, and in pain, and old to do much of anything that I want to do. And I know to that point several people would say, “You know what? Suck it up Sarah, that’s life, it’s hard, and it’s not fun, and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

But on the other hand, I believe that life is what you make it. And that can mean a number of things for you. It can mean simply changing your attitude at work and choosing to see the good; however sparse and scarce it may be. It might be changing jobs to try and find something better, or it might be trying to eke out a living outside of the normal bonds and constraints of modern day employment.

I’m situated in this sort of uncomfortable position between being a gen-Xer and being a millennial. And I know to a lot of people if I say the word, “Millennial.” You’ll immediately start thinking bad things about me that I’m lazy and entitled, but I don’t think I’m lazy and entitled. You know I work a full-time eight hour plus a day job, and I volunteer, I’m the president of my church and I do this podcast in whatever spare time is left; so don’t judge us too harshly.

I think it also means that I have embraced the millennial mindset, though, that if you are deeply unhappy in your work situation, you have the power to change your work situation. I want to caution you that none of this is change that you will see immediately. None of it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to push this button and everything is going to be magically wonderful.” That’s not how it works, rather it’s a change that will take time.

But if you start now, as opposed to putting it off forever, that time will come a lot more quickly. If it takes a year, then if you start now, at this time next year hopefully things will be better. So what do I mean by effecting change in the workplace? I mean you can’t change people around you; I’ve tried that. I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. You can’t change people without a significant investment in them on your part.

And some of the most miserable people to work with are the most stubborn and the most set in and mired in their misery. They like it there and they don’t want to come out. And in fact, they want to reach out and grab your hand and pull you into their misery with them. I have worked with these people. And yes, sometimes they win, sometimes they pull you down into that terrible spiraling place, a place that you don’t know how to get out of.

And sometimes they can start to change you before you can start to change them; I’ve had this happen. Some of my most unhappy years in work were years where I was being told by co-workers that I was worthless, that I could never be as good as they were. And by one very religiously zealous co-worker that I was going to burn in hell. I had a co-worker tell me I was going to burn in hell. I mean that stuff can really mess with your mind, and it can have a huge effect on your life outside of work and on your writing.

If you’re going through something like this, I would encourage you to use your writing as an anchor. Keep a daily journal, it doesn’t have to be the, “Dear diary today I had toast for breakfast, and then I went and showered, and then I went to work and I wore my red shoes and blah, blah, blah.” It doesn’t have to be like that.

Use your writing to keep yourself centered. And what I mean by that is use your writing to remind yourself every day of who you are. Remind yourself every day that you have worth beyond what your co-workers, or your boss, or whoever can tell you. You are an amazing, and creative, and powerful individual and no one can take that away from you.

You have worth, and you have dignity, and you have a talent. So keep a journal and everyday start that journal with something affirming. For example, if your name is Sarah Werner write, “I am Sarah Werner, and I am a writer and this is what I’m thinking today, this is what I’m doing, and this is what I’m going to do, and this is how I’m going to change this mess that I am in right now. I’m going to start taking on freelance projects on the side and building my name up in the freelance writing world. I’m going to take an acting class after work once a week, so that I can better understand how to step into the shoes of another character.

I’m going to use some of that vacation that I’ve been saving up to take a writing retreat, a personal retreat, or a trip to the conference for writers. I’m going to write in this journal over breakfast, or over my lunch break, or even in secret when I finish up a project and I have a couple minutes before I need to return to my ‘real work.’ I’m going to make time to stay true to myself and true to what I love and nobody is going to take that away, nobody is going to change me.”

That’s one of the main reasons that I tell people to write every day; it is important. And not just because it keeps you sharp and skilled as a writer, it serves as a daily affirmation that you are doing what you were created to do. And I think that we could all use a little more affirmation in our lives.

So whether you are dealing with illness, depression, a toxic presence in your life, a job that makes you want to throw yourself out of the window, do what you need to do to stay yourself to preserve yourself. Whether that is writing every day or taking a season away from writing to heal. And then giving yourself permission to keep calling yourself a writer, and to one day return to writing, and turn your life back into exactly what you want it to be.

I received an email from a podcast listener, Andrew, and he had a question for me that I think will maybe resonate with you or maybe kind of speak to something that you’re dealing with right now. His question is about branding online and web stuff which, some of you may know if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, that’s what I do for my day job. I’m a content strategist with an agency that makes websites, and does online marketing, and all sorts of stuff. So this is Andrew’s email.

“Hi Sarah. I hope you don’t mind a quick question. I want to set up a blog of some sort for my poetry, but I want to do so under a pseudonym. Some of the language and content and the poetry I write would be unfortunately offensive to my employers and family who are all very conservative Christian in their tastes.

But without this initial basis of friends and family who read and share my work, how do I go about building a readership? It’s like dropping a brand new person onto the face of the earth and asking them to make friends. I imagine that SEO will end up being part of the solution, but I wondered if you had any insights on how to get my work out there without using my personal social media channels? Thank you so much for your time and your dedication and producing right now. It’s a weekly breath of fresh air for me.”

Andrew first of all, thank you for your kind words. You are awesome and I love that you got in touch with me. Writing under a pseudonym does have its benefits. You can kind of keep people from reading things that are very personal to you and that can be advantageous if you have sort of a delicate political, or religious, or what have you situation on your hands.

I completely understand wanting to keep what you’re writing, what comes out of your most deeply personal self, to yourself or at least away from your family who might judge you in ways that you’re not ready to deal with yet. And for anyone who’s listening and is not 100% sure what a pseudonym is; essentially it’s a pen name.

So when Samuel Clemens wrote and published, he went under the pseudonym Mark Twain. This is actually something that a lot of writers do for various reasons. But I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head, to use a cliché, in your concern that it is exactly like dropping a new person on the face of the earth and expecting them to generate a following immediately.

So before I give you any advice on how to gain a readership or a following, I think what I’d like you to do is identify what do you want to accomplish. In this case, I think it’s fairly straightforward you want to build a readership. But I would challenge you to think about what you want out of that readership, because that can affect how you go about building it.

So at the end of the day, what’s your goal? Is it just to have people go to your website and say, “Oh, what a nice poem.” And then leave? Or are you looking to build up, essentially, a tribe of followers … Sorry my cat is out in the hallway like throwing himself against the door because he wants to come in and snuggle with me. Sorry dude, I’m almost done recording.

Or is it your intention to build up a readership that will eventually purchase your book, or take a class that you’re teaching about writing poetry, or sign up to receive email newsletters from you that will then you know go a little bit further and building up your tribe, that will then later buy your book, and go to your conferences, and watch you speak. I mean there’s a lot of different stuff you can do here.

So I think I would challenge you first of all think ahead, think far, far ahead and sort of write down what you really want out of your readership. I think for a lot of writers, this is a ready made group of people who are clamoring for the book that you’re going to eventually publish; and that’s awesome.

I also have a background in marketing, and marketing has some really uncomfortable realities that go along with it. And part of that is there’s not a huge market for people who want to buy poetry. I know it sucks, but you should not stop writing poetry because of this. I think poetry is one of the most important things that we can write as a human race.

So we’re kind of working under the assumption for this case that you’re going to build a website and once a week you’re going to post a new column to it. And then at the end of, I don’t know, a year, or nine months, or 15, 16 months or so you’re going to collect your favorite palms out of that website and release a book, perhaps with a few new additional poems to people who have dedicated themselves to reading your poetry online. That’s just one scenario that could possibly happen.

And so what we’re doing is talking about getting readers to go to your website in the first place to not only read your poetry, but to be interested in reading your poetry. And on top of that, you’re losing all of the natural clout that your real name brings to the table. So here are my suggestions to you.

First of all begin building clout under your pseudonym, and that will take a lot of hard work. You are probably going to need to publish a poem, or two, or 20 under your new pseudonym in a journal of merit if you can; I know that’s a huge step. There’s a couple other things you can do.

So I work in digital advertising, and marketing, and website building and so you mentioned SEO in your email. And so SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. And, essentially, what that means is you’re doing something behind the scenes of your website to, when people perform a search on a search engine such as Google or Bing or whatever it is that you use, what you’re doing is optimizing your content so that the search engine spider that’s crawling your website sort of latches on to what you have to offer and pulls it to the top of the search results.

This is very tricky and there are like a million different factors in SEO, and maybe that will be its own podcast episode later on. But things that you can do to your advantage when you are posting poems on your websites is to update consistently. So make sure you have a new poem up there every Monday, or twice a week, or 10 times a week or whatever it is that you set; set a schedule and stick to it. Search engines such as Google pay attention to fresh, new content on your website and so that’s a great way to get yourself noticed by search engines and people.

But I think before we even start talking about search engines, take another step back. Who’s searching for poetry online? It might not be a ton of people, so that’s why I kind of suggest publishing. So, essentially, instead of asking people to come find you, you are sending your poetry out to them.

Another thing that you can do is … And I don’t know how passionate you are about making this reality, but there are very inexpensive advertising options available through Facebook and through the Google AdWords platform. But, essentially, with either of these ad platforms, you can kind of go in and set a daily budget. So I’m willing to spend $4 a day to draw in people who might be interested in reading my poetry. So there are some options if you want to pay for that, and that is absolutely legitimate, you just have to make sure you have your targeting set up correctly.

Finally, there’s something else that you alluded to, and that was social media. And I think that, in addition to publishing, this can really be a boon to you. So I would advise a couple things. First do not waste your time on a Facebook page. We see very, very little return on the investment of the time that you put in.

So it’s something like if you have … If your page ends up with an audience of like 100 followers, then only, I think it’s less than two percent, of those people will actually see anything that you post. Just a little depressing, but that’s true. The only reason I would advise setting up a Facebook page is in case you want to do Facebook advertising later, because you do have to have a Facebook page for yourself as a poet or what have you under that pseudonym to advertise later. There’s a train going by I don’t know if you can hear it.

I would suggest setting up a new profile on Twitter under your pseudonym or your pen name. And then what I would do is don’t spam people, but be a little aggressive in following other poets and finding them online, looking at who they follow and following those people. And making sure that you are, again, not spamming but updating your Twitter feed regularly. Probably between five and 10 times a day with quotes from poets, or links to poems that you really like online, making sure that you’re respectful of copyright and all that stuff. But really showing that you are interested in truly becoming a part of the poetic community on Twitter. Twitter is great for building communities and so I would definitely advise that you do that.

Make sure that whenever you’re posting on Twitter, that at least half the time you are driving people back to your website so they can read your poems, and make sure that you’re taking a giving and not selling attitude. And so what I mean by that is, make sure that your tweets are friendly, and fun, and engaging without being like, “Hey buy my poetry. Hey buy my poetry.” Because that turns off people really quickly; give and don’t take from the Twitter community.

As for other types of social media, I would say probably no to Snapchat, no to Pinterest, maybe to Instagram depending on what kind of readers you want to attract, and maybe to Google Plus. I have not seen a lot of great engagement or success from the Google Plus platform. But if you want to be out there, you might as well claim your page for your pseudonym and just see what happens. But don’t put a ton of time into building up that side of the platform.

So to recap. Publish if you can, become part of the poetry community on Twitter. You can do advertising on Facebook, and the Google AdWords and Bing platforms if you want to go that route. You can try some SEO tricks once your website is set up; I’m kind of assuming that your website is not yet built. But we can talk more about SEO in another episode because there’s a ton of information there that you’ll need to know, unless you know it already and I’m just being a dork and assuming that you don’t. Please don’t be offended if that is the case. And finally, make sure that you are posting fresh, new content to your website on a regular basis.

So that was a huge information dump, and if you have any more questions, or if any other listeners out there have any questions, I would love to have a separate podcast episode about that. So look for that in the future, otherwise feel free to email me questions at any time.

You can reach me at hello@sarahwerner.com, that’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Or you can go to my website and navigate to the contact page. There you’ll find a little form that asks for your email address and a short message, or maybe a long message, whatever you feel like writing to me. You can definitely get in touch with me that way. All of those emails go straight to my inbox and so I will see them immediately even if I don’t respond right away.

So I would like to thank lots of people for making today’s episode a possibility and a reality. Several of those people are my Patreon supporters. Patreon is a free to use third party donation platform. I want to give out special thanks to official cool cat Sean Locke, official bookworm Rebecca Werner, official red dude Andrew Coons, as well as Dave Booda of the Darken the Page podcast, which is a really great podcast that’s kind of similar but different to this one.

He interviews writers and talks to them about the creative process in a really fun, friendly, and informational way. And so I encourage you to check out the Darken the Page podcast available on iTunes and darkenthepage.com.

And I also want to thank all of my financial supporters for their very generous donations. Without you guys I probably would not be able to afford two podcasts; so thank you so much. Thank you also for listening to this podcast. Even just by listening, you are allowing me this possibility to do this thing that I love and that is talk your ear off about writing. And so, I love this opportunity that you have granted me, and I hope that I am helping you do what you need to do to further yourself as a writer; so thank you.

And with that, this has been the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m Sarah Werner and despite all of that bad stuff that’s going on right now in your life, you are a writer and I want you to remember that.