Sharing your writing serves three purposes. First, sharing provides accountability. If you write, you may or may not share what you write, but if you’re sharing your writing, you’re definitely writing something!
Second, when you share your writing, you get valuable feedback. What makes sense, and what doesn’t? What do people resonate with? What questions do people have? What interesting connections do they draw?
Lastly, when you share your writing, you get a particular kind of feedback or reaction: an audience. If you’re writing your philosophical ideas down, that may or may not be important to you; but if you’re writing for anything that involves promotion or marketing, having readers is one of the main points of writing anything in the first place!
The easiest way to start sharing your writing is to make it small. Even if you’re working on a multi-volume masterpiece of a book, starting small makes sharing easier. Typically, modern authors will share ideas related to or excerpts from their books on blogs. This is a great method, which I totally recommend, but there’s a way that's even small and easier.
Twitter, for all its highs and lows, merits and demerits, is an important tool in every writer’s toolbox. Its built in character limit ensures concision and compression, and its real time nature allows you to receive feedback - not only in the form of complete responses, but also in terms of whether people like your ideas and want to share them. If your tweets receive silence, you have work to do; if your tweets spread wildly and widely, then you’re onto something. Either way, it’s good to find that out early.
If you don’t already have a Twitter account, sign up for one today. (And say hi! I’m @tasshinfogleman.) It’s usually good to attach your account to your name, but if you’d like, you can remain anonymous or pseudonymous. Just start tweeting!
What's next?