the craft. the harvest.

We all want to be in a season of harvest. But the reality is, it may take us a few tries to get there. There is no magic wand and it will take continuing to put one foot in front of the other. Most of us will get so caught up in the battle in our heads, that we may never see the full fruit of our labor.

I started blogging in 2008. That is ten plus years of writing experience! I’ve thankfully gotten a lot better in that amount of time which certainly should be the case.

It’s easy to look at where someone else is and think you’ll never get there. But the reality is, you have no idea how consistently they have worked in order to be in a season of harvest. There are many days where I went straight from working my full-time job to working on my business and blog for weeks and weeks at a time. Continually producing a harvest comes with a lot of hard work and deciding that your writing is indeed a priority for you.

So over the last three weeks, we found the seed, put it in the ground, cultivated it, and now comes reaping the harvest.

Again, What would it mean for you to be a writer in bloom?

I say this because sure when you are farming there is a certain quality of crop that you should be producing. The vegetable should only come out one way. But in writing, there are so many things that can manifest. To be a writer in bloom can mean:

Selling your first book
Self-publishing your own book
Getting a byline in a major publication
Launching your blog
Blogging consistently
Being brave enough to write honestly and transparently

The list goes on. But you have to have a direction. It doesn’t mean that it won’t change from time to time, but that core will be what you come back to in times where it’s so much easier to be distracted than to stay focused.

Dedication and Discipline

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11.

No one likes discipline. I think that’s important to get out of the way. But we have figured out that everything that we’ve ever wanted is on the other side of that. There is no way to be successful in anything without the discipline to get there.

Getting to the harvest will take your dedication and your discipline.

“I didn’t feel like writing.”

“I was too tired.”

“I wanted to go out.”

“I wasn’t feeling inspired.”

These are all things that we say that keep us from writing great and impactful work. We have to make the time. We have to sometimes push ourselves to do the work. Of course, with discernment as sometimes, you will just need to give yourself some time. But we know the difference. We know when we are being lazy and when we need to give ourselves a break to refill and rest.

What does discipline and dedication to writing look like for you?

We focused on a particular theme for this project, but where can you go from here? It’s so important to keep your goal in mind here. What’s most important for you? Is it posting consistently? Pitching the publication that you’ve been thinking about? Or finally, writing that book proposal?

You have to keep going. What type of schedule can you set for yourself to continue creating content?

Building confidence involves consistency. The more we work at something, the better we get. That is the most simple equation when it comes to this type of thing. The better we get, the less we worry about what other people may think or whether we’re good enough.

Branching Out

This is sometimes the hardest part for writers. Typically, we’re a little more introverted, but the reality here is, no one is going to know about your work if you don’t tell them that it’s there.

This involves trying to get picked up by other outlets. Doing interviews. Promoting your stories and articles and blog posts.

How do we get past the feelings of narcissism and imposter syndrome?

Always remembering that our work is bigger than us. So it’s not about saying “me, me, me,” but it’s about sharing our gift and our insight on whatever topic that we may choose. In the midst of our important work, we cannot deny the fact that there are tactics to getting our work noticed. So, I want to share some ways that I was able to really help amplify what I was doing.

Posting consistently. This single-handedly helped me raise my monthly visits. I remember my goal just being to get 100 visitors in a single day. And I reached that after being consistent for at least 4-6 months in captivating content that engaged my audience. My work on my blog also led me to the opportunity to write for Essence.com. This gave me the confidence to start on my freelancing journey.

I finished. I released my first self-published book in 2013. And it wasn’t that I felt like the book would be my magnum opus. It was the fact that I had an idea, I developed a plan, I executed and saw it through to the finish. Sometimes we get so stuck in perfection that we never finish. Finish something. I promise it will give you so much confidence in your future endeavors.

Pick a social outlet and get active. You don’t have to have every social media known to man. But you need to find one you like and start engaging. For me it was Twitter. I started talking more. I engaged with people. I began keeping lists of editors to pitch to. I participated in Twitter chats. All of this helped get more eyes on my work.

Connecting with my peers. At the same time that I was creating my work, I was developing relationships with other writers and bloggers as well. Community is very important. This gives you the opportunity to learn from one another, seek wisdom and advice, and share in the common struggles of building an audience from the ground up. It’s not always about what you can get from that person, but just realizing that having a support system helps you grow in ways that you never could have imagined.

I want you to look at the things that I’ve done and figure out what works for you! One thing I have learned is that it’s all about taking the principle of the strategy and not necessarily replicating what we’ve been told. We have to learn from one another and then we also have to figure out how to innovate.

Let yourself be seen. Allow your words to spread like leaves in autumn. And hold on for the wild adventure of where they’ll take you.

List the tangible ways that you will commit to branching out in your writing.

Knowing When to Shift

There is something to be said for those that know exactly when to pivot. I watch others that I admire and the one thing that they seem to have in common is knowing exactly how long to ride the wave. Many of us either quit too soon or hold on too long. This timing can be extremely important when it comes to the harvest season.

Don’t miss your moment. Have you ever had an idea and then not too long after you see someone else who was better at execution with the same idea? That’s because the work has a purpose and it doesn’t necessarily matter who gets it done, as much as it just gets done. Tell your story. And know and understand the best ways to do it.

At a certain point, I could no longer keep up with my posting schedule of four times a week. But I did it for an extended period of time and then I had to pivot. Your writing should always serve your main goal. You should never become a slave to it. I am in the space of another pivot where I am creating content for a lot more things than just my blog. It’s important that as my mission grows, my platform grows with it.

In your journey, listen and be sensitive to the moments when you have to shift. Whether that’s a blog re-design or shelving book #2 to work on book #3. This is key to ensuring that you are set up to be the most successful in your work.

Replanting

The key here is not to get so caught up in the harvest that we don’t also remember the importance of replanting.

What’s next? After this is finished, what will you commit to completing next?

See our success is not based on our ability to simply get “there,” it is the ability to repeat that success over and over again.

A farmer doesn’t just reap a harvest and say, okay, I am done for life. They have to buckle down and get ready for the next season of planting and sowing and cultivating the crop. This is really only the beginning. A bold beginning to step into everything that you say you want.

It’s never going to be easy to bear our stories to the world, but taking the first step is admirable.