…it’s not the fact that only a small % of us will ever actually make it as professional writers.

…it’s not even the fact that the Twilight series was published.

Nope.

The scariest thing about writing is that every sentence that you write for an audience is a battle in its own right.

Because every sentence that you write is fighting for your audience’s attention, to get them to read the next one.

As you well know, we live in a time of constant distraction. The humble writer has to compete with Tinder alerts, PPI sales calls and Call of Duty deathmatches.

Never has the written word faced such a challenge. How many people do you know who genuinely find it easy to read long articles, or finish books these days?

This is especially applicable if you’re writing content for marketing. In ‘feeds’ full of other shareable content every word you write is a warrior of its own, fighting to slay the other posts around it so it can reel the ‘scroller’ in.

If you’re writing a book or a story, I guess you have a little more leeway – as your readership will have (most likely!) paid for what you’ve done.

And, when you’ve paid money for something, you want to give it the chance to prove that it was worth your money. I mean, no one wants to look like they make bad financial decisions do they?

Heaven forbid.

But, even then, too many pedestrian sentences and too little flair will soon turn your fans away.

So, there’s the thought for today. Every sentence that you write should promote the fact that it’s worth the reader’s while to read on.

You’re only as good as your last sentence.