Every Author Needs This Skill… But Most Avoid It
The dust in the refugee camp always clung to everything. I remember finger-drawing the dust off the tent we lived in because I just needed a surface to doodle.
I remember the day we went to the UN tent for aid supplies and food. We stood in line under the hot sun, my father holding my hand. Aid workers handed out rice, flour, oil, and for the kids, small boxes of colored pencils and sketchbooks.
I wish I had a picture of that colored pencil box. However, I do have this photo of my old man and me in that very camp.
My dad couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t wait to feed my enthusiasm for drawing, so he could teach me.
That night, he handed me one pencil from the box. Just one.
He didn't want me to waste it in case we wouldn't get more supplies for months.
“One color,” he said. “That’s all you need today.”
It was red.
“If you can learn everything about red,” he told me, “you can learn any color.”
So I drew everything in our tent, outside, the rocks, people, cartoons, whatever was around, red. The next week, maybe blue. Then green. Always one color at a time.
Those little boxes didn’t last long. Eventually, I was wearing down old pens and pencils for months on endless college-ruled notebooks, half-beaten and torn from the journey.
He watched me shade darker, press lighter, layer strokes for depth. Every day, one pencil.
What I didn’t know then was that he was teaching me repetition.
Focus. Mastery.
By the time I was six, I could read light and shadow without thinking. I understood color before I knew the term because I had lived inside one thing until I truly knew it.
The Lie We Hear About Quality
We’re told quality over quantity. And yes, when you’re choosing between two things, pick the better one.
But here’s the truth. You don’t get to quality without first going through quantity.
Great qualities, skill, discipline, and eloquence come from testing, patience, and repetition.
We love quality when we see it, but we forget the sheer volume it takes to get there.
The Same Goes for Author Marketing
Most authors want the one viral post, the perfect podcast interview, the debut book that launches them into the stratosphere.
But that’s not how it works. It’s the reps. The hours. The craft that forces you to improve.
And the best part? In the early days, almost no one is paying attention. Your first posts, your first videos, your first book, most people won’t see them. That’s your advantage.
My first 100 YouTube videos? Awful. My first 100 LinkedIn posts? Forgettable. But I kept going. That’s how you get better.
Dr. Gabor Maté’s 20-Year “Overnight” Success
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Dr. Gabor Maté. His work on trauma, addiction, and ADHD is everywhere now. But his first book Scattered Minds debut in 1999. It didn’t hit the New York Times bestseller list until more than 20 years after it came out.
He stayed the course.
Taught. Wrote more books.
Spoke anywhere he could. Kept showing up.
Now, as the world is finally ready to have these conversations, his work is more relevant than ever. He’s the definition of practicing your craft until the world catches up.
When Reps Pay Off: Caroline Meline
This week’s guest on the Rising Author Experience is 82-year-old Caroline Meline PhD, author of The Constant Dieter.
When we first met, she said, “How are you going to help me? Who wants to listen to me? I’m an old lady.”
But she loved her book and the work behind it. She had overcome binge eating and wanted to share a different approach, one that could save people years of quiet suffering.
We got to work, I knew if more people could see what she was trying to do, they would potentially listen, engage, and purchase her book and even hire her to speak.
We got clear on her offers, what she wants to do, and how she wants to use her book.
We built her website. Set up her Substack. I taught her LinkedIn and showed her it wasn’t just about the book. It was about being engaging, connecting and being interested in others who may need her work. Clinics, schools, wellness centers and so on that have tons of patience who struggle with the very thing she had overcome.
She saw that using LinkedIn and her profile was no longer a burden, but rather an opportunity.
Caroline didn’t shy away from the work. She wrote. Posted. Connected. And her writing is now finding the people who need it most.
Here's a recent email she sent me from someone who messaged her and found her on Substack!
Why Repetition Wins
Nike has been saying “Just Do It” for decades. It sticks not because it’s clever, but because they haven’t stopped saying it.
The same is true for you.
As an author, you have to learn to commit and marry the content thing you want to create for the next five, ten, or twenty years and show up daily, weekly, or however often it takes. Yes, your show, your newsletter, your whatever. It needs to have quantity. Your quality will come from that.
Consistency will make you shine.
People respect what’s hard, and showing up relentlessly is hard. That’s why they’ll read your work, come to your talks, and admire your effort.
And for the people who don’t? F*** ‘em. Your work wasn’t for them anyway.
That Red Pencil
When my father handed me that single red pencil in the camp, I thought he was just teaching me how to draw. He wasn’t.
He was teaching me how to master one thing at a time. To stay with it until it reveals its depth. To work with intention, even when it’s hard.
That’s still how I approach everything, my writing, my business, my relationships. I focus on mastering one thing, putting in the reps, until the quality takes care of itself.
Quantity isn’t the enemy of quality. It’s the road to it.
When You’re Ready, Here’s How I Can Help If you’re tired of the spaghetti-posting hustle and want a plan that actually fits you:
Power Pack Pro → Clarify your brand, build your site, define your positioning Power Pack Boost → Weekly content strategy, video scripts, lead systems, platform growth Power Pack Ultra → Done-for-you content engine, podcast-ready video, full visibility support
DM me or reply to this email. We’ll build something real. Something that works, because it’s based on who you really are.
-Hussein
