“Making Content Is Hard…”

Damn right it is.

Why is content creation so hard? Whether you’re making YouTube videos, writing books or articles, filming movies or TV shows, doing research for scientific journals, or a number of other things, creating content is pretty darn difficult. And that’s not counting all the other difficult things you’ve got to do.

To be fair, a portion of the difficulty that comes with content creation is usually that it comes last on the list: after you’ve run the errands and done the shopping, worked your shift and put away your boots, after you close up shop for the night and put the toddlers to bed–only then is content creation an option.

So now we have two layers of difficulty: content creation on its own is tough, time-intensive, and demanding of specific skills. On top of that, the only way for most of the people in the world to churn it out requires working after all the more pressing tasks have been finished. But there’s a third layer.

We’ve all encountered it: you’re typing away at your document or you’re hammering away at that YouTube video, but you happen to glance at your hotbar and behold the Minecraft tooltip. Instantly, your mind is flooded with promises you’ve made to a buddy hop on and help him build a castle in the Nether. You glance between the tooltip and the document before pressing the minimize button and booting up Minecraft, promising yourself to come back later.

Two hours later, it’s Midnight and you have to be up for work in seven or eight hours. You had a lot of sun–but you’ve only written a few hundred words. Depending on who you are, you’d either shrug that off with an excuse or lose sleep over it, but either way you’re headed to bed. Work’s done for the night.

Can you really blame yourself? After all, arriving home at 9:45 – 10:00ish is a solid day of work, especially if you were up at seven and at work by eight. If you’re not dog-tired by then, you probably feel entitled to an hour or two of gaming, watching TV, or Facebook, or something. Why bust your hump even further for a few extra hundred words?

So yeah, content creation is hard, in more ways than one: you have to resist distraction, make time to work, and then you can begin to hone your craft. So when I say that content creation is hard, I mean it’s hard to find time to create content, it’s hard to focus on creating content, and the actual process of making that content is hard.

But what are you?

If you’re reading this article, you’re most certainly a human being of one kind or another. You might have something else to do, somewhere else to be. Maybe you’re finished up with your work as early as 2:00 or so–perhaps it was a lighter day or something. But you still probably didn’t read this article when it came out, though. In that case, you’re probably reading it in a leisured setting: somewhere where you can put your feet up and relax…and, hopefully, be entertained by my ramblings.

If that’s the case, then you’re entertaining yourself with your spare time. Those or minutes you’re not spending editing videos, filming a webseries, writing a book, or typing out an article. Now, odds are you’re a regular Joe or Jane: but your average Joe or Jane is not The Act Man, Viva La Dirt League, Brandon Sanderson, or Paul Tassi.

You wanna know how all these people started out? They had a job like you do, they worked it like you do. They made the same United States dollars and spent them on groceries from Wal-Mart or Aldi just like you do. But after all that, after the groceries have been bought, the children put to bed, the shop closed down–a new person would emerge. The content creator would rise from the depth and possess the worn-out 9-5 worker–and a holy transformation would take place.

That’s what separates those who succeed from those who fail: they’re ordinary men and women by day, content creators in the spare hours when responsibility leaves them to themselves. They took the statement “making content is hard”, laughed at it, and tossed it out the window. Then they took two hours a day to hone their craft until eventually—well, now we know their names because of it.

Content creators (especially writers, my dear audience) go the extra mile. And the extra mile is hard. But they’re willing to go for it, all for the sake of content. That’s why we know about people like Brandon Sanderson and Paul Tassi. (a little more obscure perhaps, but still two individuals who have made names for themselves)

Will you make your name remembered?

Be sure to check out my latest novel, Book 1 in the Praetors of Lost Magic Series, and our Publications page. Plus, I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to check out the Resources tab. It’s full of super helpful material and I promise it will help you out. Until then, writers!