Member-only story
Who’s Got Time to Write?
metrics, stats, SEOs, monetization, and marketing, oh my!
Back in the Olden Days circa 1970s, a person simply sat down at the typewriter or used pencil and paper and wrote whatever was on their mind. Sure, it could be aggravating to retype when it came time for rewriting to improve the quality, but it was all there in black and white. There was the added bonus of a lovely sense of accomplishment as you pulled the freshly typed page out of the typewriter with a jaunty snap: “Look what I wrote!”
Alas, I can no longer just sit down and write, the way writers used to do before we were all taken over by computers. Now I have to worry about SEOs. Yes, this sort of thing comes after the first draft, but it’s still a time-consuming distraction. I have to devote much of my brain to understanding what an SEO is (search engine optimization), what it’s used for, and how best to casually insert it into my writing, like a silent fart at a cocktail party.
If I have to insert different words into my writing, isn’t that changing my writing? And if it’s changing my writing why should I bother rewriting? What good were all the words I’ve written and books I’ve read and classes I’ve taken and workshops…
