3 Reasons Why You Should Absolutely FALL IN LOVE With Your $0.01 Stories.
Simply put — They are extraction of our life journey and stories. Loving them is learning to give ourselves a big hug.
We live in a world of fast critique and rapid smack-you-downs. In this environment, we are made more self-aware of our insufficiencies more than anything else. Thus, we spent a lot more time wallowing than proactively reflecting on the path ahead.
We must be self-aware, yes. And we have to turn our heads backward now and then. When was the last time we appreciated how far we have come?
I am a strong proponent of self-improvement. And that means we improve ourselves today by standing on our shoulders from yesterday. It applies to all tenets of our lives, and that includes writing.
I had the opportunity to speak to many brilliant writers.
Some of them started their first month with writing income at double digits. Many had to break out of $0.00.
Me, included.
My First Story That Started Earning Was The 4th One I Had Written. It Netted Me $0.01 For The 1st Month.
I am very proud of my journey. I know I have come far.
It felt like I have packed my bags and left my rural hometown, coming to a cosmopolitan city to work. The young chap interacted with the foreign environment with his old paradigms.
I kid you not. I genuinely felt this way. And looking back, there are plenty of shit and giggle moments.
For one, I had the audacity of trying to make a living as a writer. That is the biggest joke in 2020. It was such a big joke that my mum related it to a business venture I will fold in a year.
She laughed. So did I. Well. Time will tell.
And, as anyone who has tried starting a business venture will tell you, they know their chance of success is remarkably low. That is why they worked hard to give themselves the highest possible chance of success.
I wanted to earn through writing even though I struggle with it. First, my sentences are way too long. Second, my paragraphs are way too long. Third, my stories are way too short. Fourth, my headlines were water bland.
Put all of that together, and I have a perfect recipe for failure. The first 3 stories netted me a big, fat zero.
I only managed to break out of $0.00 and move to $0.01 on my 4th story because I took steps to improve the story headlines.
I was euphoric for many reasons.
When You Are At Rock Bottom, Marginal Improvements Bring Outstanding Results.
When you are dead last in position, mini-improvements produce outsized results.
I learned about writing better as well as all areas around writing.
When I first started, I did not use Unsplash or Pixabay. I used my own images, thinking that was the way. I am such a fool. It was through daily writing and reading that brought me to download and use high-resolution, copyright-free images.
I committed more time pruning my sentences and paragraphs. I love to say it came from feedback through comments, but the reality is, there are none.
I relied on one trusty critique. Me.
I self-published my work using my desktop application and then hopped into the mobile application and reviewed my work. It made me realize long paragraphs impede the reading experience because the small screens can only have so many words in a line.
Geez, what a headache.
When time allows me to, I perform post-publication edits so my content can be better presented on mobile.
It was a pure obsession-play. However, there is no self-improvement without obsession.
That Was Then. Every $0.01 Story Written Previously Laid The Foundation for Every $1.00 Story Written Months After.
I learned to review my work and keep asking how I could improve.
It was easy at the beginning because even I could see that they were terrible products. So, I went to work, learning to write more concise introductions and conclusions, better structuring of story segments, using relevant hashtags, so on and so forth.
I never knew that I was weak at grammar. I never knew that was the key reason my stories got rejected by many publications. I owed a lot to editors who are willing to explain why they reject my stories AND point out specific paragraphs that needed re-writing.
There were many times where I wanted to fight back and curse ball. As indignant as I might be, I swallowed my pride. I needed the improvement, and pain is where I am getting it.
Therefore, I read them, made the changes, and write my Achilles Heels into memory so I would not commit them again.
In reality, these changes have enabled me to write $1.00 stories more often than $0.01 ones.
I am pleased with how far I have come.
3 Reasons To Love Your $0.01 Stories.
We do not win competitions from the get-go. We do not excel from the start.
Some can. And then, there is the majority of us who have to celebrate milestone achievements.
I review my $0.01 stories from time to time. That is because: -
- It reminds me how far I have come.
- It shows me massive improvement is possible.
- It demonstrates to me we start somewhere.
These $0.01 stories are the keys to our future because self-improvement happens when we acknowledge where we are, followed by taking one step after another.
These $0.01 stories represent my past. There is every reason to appreciate where I was and where I am now.
I love this journey. You should too.
Aldric
Maria Rattray Liam Ireland Britni Pepper Terry L. Cooper Lanu Pitan
About the Author:
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure.
Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.