From Idea to Stage in 10 Weeks | Issue 5 | The Writing is Always the Priority

Documenting the process of planning, writing, editing, and staging a short play in just 10 weeks

Hello

I'm now two weeks behind schedule with these articles about my experience planning, writing, editing, and staging a short play in just 10 weeks.

Sincere apologies!

Please take that as a good sign, though. Things have been going really well with my play and the writing programme overall. I’ve spent the last few weeks working hard on my story and learning more about writing for the theatre, and I’m very happy with how it’s coming along.

I’m so glad I made the decision to challenge myself with this writing programme, as I think this may be one of the best stories I’ve written to date.

Falling behind with these articles also gives me a good opportunity to raise something I've wanted to talk about for a while and have been thinking about a lot recently.

And I think this is becoming increasingly important for all writers, so now feels like a good time.

Writers and Artists Shouldn’t Let Social Media Become a Higher Priority than their Craft

If you’re a fiction writer, or any kind of creative artist, please remember that your craft should always be your top priority.

Doing the actual work regularly and consistently is more important than any other tasks related to that work.

Please don’t allow yourself to begin prioritising things like social media and online brand building over the actual art itself.

** Quick caveat: If you’re lucky enough to already make a living from fiction writing, or your plan is to make a full-time living from social media, this won’t apply as much to you.

This is becoming a bigger pitfall that I see more and more writers falling into, as social media platforms gain more prominence and influence in our lives.

I'm connected with several thousand fiction writers online, ironically through social media, and it’s clear to me that a lot of them are spending way more time on their Instagram profile or Substack than they are on their actual writing.

And, just to be clear, this isn’t a criticism, or a judgement, or an attack on those people. This is more an observation of the effect that social media platforms are having on some of us, often subconsciously, and the addictive nature of how their algorithms work.

It’s also a reminder of how easy it is for this to happen to you without really noticing, even for highly dedicated writers.

As a prime example, even right now, technically, I’m doing it myself.

I’m writing this article for Substack, but I could be doing more work on my play or writing a poem instead.

Why am I doing it then?

Partly because I’ve committed to communicating with you on a regular basis via these articles, and if I don’t keep that up you might lose interest and unsubscribe.

Granted, I do also learn and improve as a writer in a variety of other ways by writing these articles, so they are worthwhile. However, if I started sacrificing significant time for my craft to spend more time on Substack, then it would be a problem.

So I think it’s really important for us as writers to regularly remind ourselves, and remind each other, that our priority isn't to write about our writing on the Internet.

Our priorities are to practise our craft, write fiction, and tell the best stories we possibly can.

And I fully understand that you’ll probably need to build an online audience these days at some stage, to give yourself a better chance of reaching people with your writing, or potentially even to make some money from it. I completely get that.

But when it comes to prioritisation between the two, the key point is that you should always try to spend more time on your craft than on social media.

Going back to the point about me being a bit behind with these articles — over the past two weeks, I’ve had the same decision to make twice.

I could either keep up my weekly publishing “streak” (that Substack is so eager to remind you about maintaining, to maximise your time on the platform) and risk falling behind with my play, which I only have 10 weeks to produce…

Alternatively, I could miss a week or two of Substack articles and focus on writing the best play I possibly could.

Which is more important? Writing about writing a play, or writing the actual play?

I have absolutely no regrets about choosing the latter, because the writing is the whole point.

Yes, I did feel guilty and stressed about falling behind with these articles, but is that guilt deserved, or is it just a result of the false pressure that social media algorithms create for us? I’m not sure. It’s probably a bit of both.

What I am sure of is that writing fiction is the goal, the task, and the outcome. It’s the priority, the passion, and the thing that brings real fulfilment.

As touched on earlier, social media can be useful in a variety of ways. I love connecting with other writers, learning, networking, etc. And, of course, it’s crucial for building your brand as an author and, ultimately, selling books.

However, happily repeating myself, it should never take significant time away from your craft.

If you’re a fiction writer, please continue prioritising the actual writing over everything else. If that means you have less time to spend on social media, and your audience growth suffers a bit, so be it.

After all, there’s a lot less value in having that audience if you’ve got no writing to share with them, or if your writing is bad because you’ve been neglecting your craft in favour of sharpening your reel editing skills.

The art, the craft, the real work — that must always be the priority.

Unfortunately, this is probably going to get worse in the coming years, because social media companies are leaning hard into the fact that more and more people want to use their platforms to gain attention at scale.

It’s getting harder to stand out online, so what do people do? Often, they increase the quantity of their posting (rather than the quality).

People are now posting on social media several times every day to try to be seen and heard, and the social media algorithms are taking advantage of that. They don’t just prioritise people who post more regularly, they actively bury posts from people who lack consistency or fail to maintain a high volume.

Of course they're doing that, because they want people to be spending as much time on their platforms as possible. Why wouldn’t they?

That’s bad news for people like us, who are writing in our spare time, and who also only have our spare time to use these platforms to find an audience for our work.

If you're not posting on social media on a daily basis, the algorithms will significantly limit your reach. This is their attempt to pressure you to be more active, and in many cases they’re succeeding.

Resisting that isn’t easy, but hopefully an article like this will be a bit helpful with that.

And, as I’ve touched on already, there is definitely room for social media in our writers’ lives. I’m not suggesting you boycott social media entirely. It’s very useful, and I appreciate some people do really love using it.

But it’s also addictive, and it’s evolving to get better at forcing us to continually increase our usage.

So, like with most things, there’s a balance to be found, and prioritisation is crucial.

Be Honest with Yourself

I think every writer needs to be honest with themselves about this to find the right balance.

Do you love the challenge, and struggle, and grind of writing, or do you just want to be perceived as a writer online?

Do you genuinely prefer posting on social media to writing, or do you do it because it’s easier and delivers immediate reward for your efforts?

I think that last point is why so many writers — particularly younger and newer writers — are falling into this trap, because writing is a lot more challenging than most people expect.

For 99% of people, there's no immediate gratification or reward from writing fiction in your spare time. If you're writing a novel, you may not be ready to show it to anyone for two or three years. If you're writing short stories, it might take 10 or 15 stories before you get published in a journal. That could take two years, or even more than that.

Writing good fiction that people want to read is hard. There’s a lot of rejection, a lot of unpaid time spent working on projects that will never be successful, and — crucially — a lot of solitary self-motivation required.

Conversely, if you go on Instagram and you make a short video about writing, and you make it look really nice, you can get 300 people telling you how great you are within an hour.

That’s fine. But is that really what writing’s about?

No, it isn’t. Not for me, anyway.

While writing these Substack articles is very valuable, both to stay connected with you as a reader, and also to help me process my ideas in more depth, I can’t let it take significant time away from my fiction writing.

I really hope this helps provide a similar reminder to you.

Yes, everyone is under immense pressure and addictive influences to be highly active on social media, and everyone has their own reasons for using it. If you enjoy it, keep doing it.

But if you’re a writer, don’t let that take valuable time away from your craft.

Where Are We This Week?

I want to continue sharing where I am when I write and publish these articles, as I do spend a lot of time working in places that are actually quite cool, or quite interesting, or sometimes both.

It’s taken me a couple of weeks to write and edit this article. When I started it, I was working in The Marlborough at the top of Richmond Hill (again, drinking coffee, not beer).

The Marlborough has an enormous beer garden that’s amazing in the summer. I’d highly recommend a visit.

I’d love to hear from other writers who go out to work in interesting places.

Do you have anywhere you go to get some work done when you need a break from the home-office?

What Have I Been Reading?

I went to see a stunning performance of Birdsong at the Richmond Theatre earlier this month, as research and inspiration for writing my play.

It was a really useful exercise, as it gave me a lot of ideas for my own play. There were so many clever little touches that added to the live performance.

For example, at key moments in the story, they play the sound of actual birdsong over the scene, which adds so much to the experience.

I’ve used this idea in my own play, in which a river is a strong motif. I’ll be playing the sound of a river flowing over a couple of key moments in my play.

Birdsong is an incredible story that has a special place in my memory, as I studied it at A-Level. It really stuck with me for some reason. It was an excellent show. I’d highly recommend getting tickets, as it’s currently on tour across the UK with plenty of dates left into next year.

Can you recommend any other good adaptations of novels into plays?!

This Week’s Sunset of the Week

I was fortunate enough to go for a long walk around Battersea Park on a Saturday a few weeks ago when it just happened to be one of the nicest days for a very long time. It was a beautiful sunset over the pond.

This Week’s Song on Repeat

Since my friends and I secured Oasis tickets in the summer, I’ve been enjoying a bit of a 90s Brit-Pop renaissance in my flat.

Who’s your favourite British band from the 90s?

Thank you for reading!