Action

Part 1 – Platform Building

Whom should you follow?

This is an important question that only you can answer.

Lists

Facebook

Friend people back and put them on a list. Go to their profile page, click on “Friends” and then click on “add to another list.”

Then you can post directly to a particular list, or post publicly to all of your friends and subscribers.

Twitter

On Twitter unfollowing is an important part of your process. You will want to try out relationships and either keep or discard them.

You want those you follow to have some relation to your brand, and you want to see that they’re reciprocating rather than just spewing their message. So you look to see if they retweet others and if they have conversations with them.

Add them to one of your lists. That way you can manage your tweets more easily.

You do this by going to the little button near the “following” button on their page.

Click on “add or remove from list.”

Google+

Similarly on Google+ you can add people to circles. You go to “Find people.” Then drag and drop them in circles.

Expand Your Sphere of Influence

A great way to do this is to join groups. These are people who share your main passion, or who do business in a similar way you do.

Start a conversation about your passion and thus invite people into your world.

Or you may join a group in order to support each other or promote your projects.

Business groups can be a crucial part of building your platform.

• When you have published a book or are starting to teach a course, your business group can be a real asset in supporting you by telling their followers about your launch.
• Or they may affiliate with you to help sell your course or product. In this case, you offer them part of the cost of the course or product—often as much as fifty percent—for each of their followers who take your course or buy your product.
• They can also help with technical problems.

Part 2 – Writing – Action Verbs

Powerful verbs drive good writing.

Rather than thinking about doing, you want yourself or your characters to actually DO.

Good contemporary writing is active. It’s about you or your characters taking risks, making mistakes, and then righting them.

Look at your current piece of writing and ask yourself where you can bring the story into action.

Then fine-tune the verbs.

The verb itself tells a great deal about the person and sets the tone for the whole piece.

• If it’s fast paced, maybe you want shorter, more quick sounding verbs.
• If it’s a long, smooth moment, maybe you want longer, more flowing verbs.

Also be aware of sentence structure in relation to action. Just as you pick verbs to show the type of action that is happening, you want to write sentences that enhance the action.

• Short, clipped sentences best show action.
• Longer, more flowing sentences convey slower, more fluid motion.

A lot of this will happen in the free writing at the beginning, but you can use the knowledge of this as you fine-tune your writing.

Meaning comes not through telling about doing, but through doing.

Readers want to feel the power of someone taking steps on their own behalf, even if those steps lead them into trouble, especially if those steps do. This is because the steps also lead them out of it, and that is when beautiful realizations happen.

Goals for the Week

Further build on the second draft.

Here’s how:

1. Read through and find ways you might move yourself or characters into action.
2. Find places where you can use precise action verbs.
3. Rewrite, making those changes.
4. Platform: Categorize some of your audience members into lists.

Conclusion

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.—Rumi