The Muffin | Cathy C. Hall Writes

I gave myself the gift of time, taking off a couple days for Thanksgiving. So I took care of writing business early. One of those tasks included a post at the Muffin.

Isn’t it nice to be able to schedule work to post at a later date? That’s a big part of the tool I wrote about over at the Muffin in “A Social Media Tip Worth Dancing About.”

If you have books coming out–traditionally to self-published and everything in between–you’ll want to take a look at this tip about Thunderclap. Seriously, it will blow your mind.

And even if you don’t have a book coming out, you may have another project in your church or school or community that would benefit from a Thunderclap campaign. ‘Course you won’t know about all the time and effort you’re saving yourself if you don’t zip over there and give it a quick read.

A little time now could save you a lot of time later!

Have you ever noticed that the writing process includes a ton of road metaphors?

While writing my last post for The Muffin, I literally came up with a dozen phrases I could’ve used. It was a good reminder for me, that writing is a journey. Sometimes, yes, it can be a short little trip from idea to words on a page to publication. But more often, it takes time to produce, to polish, to sell.

Lots of time. Lots of words. And in this world of hurry-up and multi-tasking, time is something of a premium. Still, if you want premium publication, I think you have to be prepared to put in the time, and to give yourself time. It can take a while, The Publication Path, First to Last Draft, as my friend and author, Heather Montgomery shared at a recent writer’s workshop.

Maybe this holiday season, you can give yourself the gift of time: time to think, time to write, and time to appreciate the journey. Because as the song goes, “the road is long, with many a winding turn, that leads us to who knows where. Who knows where?”

But when you get there, oh, boy. It’s worth it. (Just ask any writer.)