Category Archives: writing tips

Get Back to Your Writing Goals for Fall: 10 Tips for Boosting Your Writing Productivity

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photo credit: sxc.hu John Price

School is back in session, the summer is coming to an end, and this is the time of year when we kick off the flip-flops, slip on the pumps and get back to business. If you’re a writer and you still have school-aged children at home, summer can wreak havoc on your writing schedule. Your daily word-count goals eventually go out of the window as you become occupied with keeping your kids, fed, entertained and occupied.

If you are, like me, all ready to dive back in and make your writing a priority again, it’s time to set some new priorities and guidelines for your writing practice. Here are ten tips to inspire you to crank up your writing productivity and get back on track to achieving your goals:

1. Set Daily Goals
Whether you set a daily word count goal or a page count goal, decide what you can realistically accomplish at first and set this as your goal. Now, I’m all for stretch goals that make you sweat, but for now let’s just set a goal that you can keep consistently. After a few weeks you can revisit it and see if maybe it’s time to expand that goal a bit to challenge yourself.

2. Set aside a writing space
If you don’t already have a private writing space where you can go in and close the door when it’s time to write, set aside a space in your home where you can write every day. This is important in establishing the habit of writing to be able to go to the same spot each day and write. After awhile you’re going to want a change of scenery, and that is fine. Maybe there’s a coffee shop nearby that has wifi and good soy chai, or maybe there’s a spot in your local library where you can sit at a table near an electrical outlet and write uninterrupted. Regardless of those places that you get away to to write, you need your comfortable, inspiring home base writing spot.

3. Make an appointment with yourself every day to write
Open up the calendar on your phone and set a daily appointment with an alarm for your writing session. If you have a paper calendar on your wall, mark off the days you sit down to write and your word or page count. Draw an, “X” through those days when you don’t show up and write at all. If you start seeing too many X’s on your calendar, it might be time to re-visit your commitment to your writing practice.

4. Write first thing in the morning every morning
For those people who can’t seem to find any room in their calendar to write, getting up an hour earlier in the morning solves that dilemma. Unless your work schedule doesn’t allow for it, writing first thing in the morning virtually guarantees that you will not be disturbed. An added bonus is that wonderful feeling of accomplishment that you get when you close the book on your daily word count. When you get your creative work done first thing in the morning it can energize and inspire the remainder of your day.

5. Find an Accountability Partner
Join a writing forum and make a connection with another writer who is willing to be an accountability partner for you. You don’t need this person to be your BFF, all you need is for them to agree to ask you about where you are on your writing goals, and you can do the same for them. If you are having trouble working with a peer and want to hire a coach instead, a writing coach will hold you accountable for the goals you have set for yourself, and reflect back to you when you start coming up with excuses about why you aren’t writing.

6. Get inspired & stay inspired
Do you ever feel blocked when you sit down to write? Most writers deal with writer’s block in one form or another. The best way to handle this is to prevent it. Take the time to give some thought to what inspires your creativity and keep yourself steeped in these things at all times. When you get down to the root of it, writer’s block is really just fear, or resistance, which you will have to let go of if you want to be a writer and get your work done.

Take out a piece of paper and make a list of the things that inspire you to write. Here are some of mine:

  • Attending poetry readings
  • Visiting art museums
  • Walking in the park
  • Reading poetry
  • Listening to interviews with authors
  • Painting
  • Free writing

Make your own list. Buy a book or two of writing prompts. I have one that’s got 365 days of writing prompts. There’s no rule that says you’ve got to use the prompt for that day. Just find a prompt and use it as a jumping-off point.

7. Gather your tools
Aside from your pen and notebook, or laptop, there are some other writer’s tools that might be helpful to you as you seek to establish and maintain a daily, productive writing practice:

  • Smart phone apps:

Evernote: I would not want to be without my evernote. It’s a website clipping utility that lets you store and categorize things you find online along with notes, photos and other bits of information from your daily life. Snap a photo with your phone and save it in Evernote. You can save clips of blog posts and other research. This is a great tool and it’s free.

Voice recorder
If you are walking along and a bit of inspiration strikes, pull out your phone and speak it into the voice recorder and listen to it later.

Dragon dictation
This handy app will transcribe what you say and then you can email the text to yourself.

8. Join a writing group
Writing is a solitary activity, so it’s good sometimes to interact with other writers who are on the same path. You can find an accountability partner, or just enjoy the support of being around other writers, getting their feedback and offering your expertise where you can.

9. Reward yourself at the milestones
Don’t just keep your nose to the grindstone, day in and day out. Every few weeks reward yourself when you achieve certain milestones. Buy that book everyone is talking about, or maybe a fancy pen, or a leather bound writing journal. Find small ways to encourage yourself and keep you motivated to stay on task. Of course, we know that at the heart of it, writing should be its own reward, but the promise of a fun prize can help you to push yourself towards your goals.

10. Encourage another writer
Encouragement is like food to the soul of a writer. Was it Mark Twain who said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” So often the negative, discouraging words that we have heard ring more loudly in our ears than the compliments we have received about our work. A solid, constructive compliment from another writer means more than you can imagine to someone who has been struggling to gain the confidence to write and put their work out there. Take the time to encourage someone else and you might be surprised how good it makes you feel. I can’t really say that this will directly boost your productivity as a writer, but it will make you feel good as a human being, which can only be helpful to your writing endeavors.

*Bonus Tip*
Try meditation before you sit down to write

If you don’t have a regular writing practice, this might sound a bit strange, but taking the time–five to twenty minutes or so in silent or guided meditation before you start writing can do wonders for your productivity–not just for your writing but for your whole day. Meditation quiets and calms the mind, it centers you and gives you precious moments of silence where you can connect to your Source, or just bask in the blissful, peaceful silence. Meditation has countless mental and physical health benefits, but for the writer, it can help create a lovely space in which to begin your writing each day. There’s a free, MeditationFest coming up next week where you can listen to and be inspired by some meditation masters and grab some free, guided meditation audios.

I hope you found these tips useful. Please feel free to share your favorite productivity tips, your favorite writing tools, or some encouragement in the comments. Most of all, I hope that you find a way to commit to a regular, daily writing practice.

If you found these writing tips useful, please take a moment and subscribe to our newsletter where you’ll get lots of tips and valuable information about Freelance writing, online marketing and personal development.

 

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Writing Tips–7 Tips to Kick-Start Your Summer Writing Projects

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Summer Fun |

photo credit: Just Jefa

Welcome to the dog days of summer. On the east coast of the U.S. it’s been a sizzlingly hot summer with heat wave after heat wave keeping people indoors to escape the 90 degrees plus temperatures. But writers must write everyday despite the distractions of the oppressive heat, kids coming in and out of the house, and vacation travel. I’m a writer, so I can tell you first hand that it can be challenging to stick to a daily writing schedule when everyone around me is in fun, vaction mode. I realized that if I’m going through these challenges, there must be other writers out there who are finding it hard to keep their butt in their chairs and write during summer break. To help both of us out, I’ve come up with a list of seven creative tips that you can try to see if they help you boost your writing production this summer:

1. Connect some fun rewards to your daily word count goals. It’s like a drinking game, but instead of doing shots you’ll be writing pages. Let’s say your daily writing goal is 2,000 words. Set up a small reward for every 500 words you write. You know yourself, so you know what rewards will motivate you to be as productive as possible. Make it fun and keep it light. (Avoid using food as a reward because then I’ll have to write an article about weight loss for writers. . .)

2. Keep your writer’s notebook handy wherever you go. Make it a point to take notes and make observations wherever you go. Capture snippets of dialogue that you heard when you were eavesdropping on a nearby conversation, take notes about historic places you visit, write about new foods that you try, or new people that you meet. Take it all in because you never know what will inspire your next story or article.

3. Participate in a writing challenge or contest
National Novel Writing Month is still a few months away, but there are many other opportunities to participate in a writing challenge or contest. Here’s a few links to some summer creative writing contests:

  • be-a-better-writer.com/creative-writing-contests.html
  • wow-womenonwriting.com/contest.php
  • bookrix.com/precontest.html

4. Find a writing partner
Having a writing partner can help both of you to boost your productivity. Enlist the support of a writing buddy and share your goals with each other. Not only will this inspire you to stick to your goals, you’ll feel good about helpin your friend reach her goals.

5. Scout out some new writing locations
Don’t stay in your house staring at the same wall all of the time. Get out and find some alternative spots to write. Find a park bench, sit on the grass and write, find a table in the library, a coffee shop that’s not too loud, or your car. I heard from another writer that she would take her laptop to her car to write in order to escape the chaos and noise in the house. Sometimes a new location will spark new energy and creativity to your work. At the very least it will keep you from getting bored with your writing desk at home.

6. Take a writing class
Take a writing class from your local university or community college. You can also take an online writing class or workshop. Either way, taking a class is a great way to force yourself to write, and you get the advantage of having the instructor’s feedback on your work.

7. Be accountable for your writing goals
How often do we set goals and then after a few days blow them off? What if you had someone who would hold your feet to the proverbial fire and expect that you are going to do what you said you would do? A writing coach can do that for you, or an accountability partner can also fulfill that role.

*Bonus Tip: Use the summer to inspire your writing
Whether it’s the wildfires in the west, drought in the midwest, the heatwaves, interesting news stories, a visit to a new, or exotic location for summer vacation, let the summer season inspire your work in some way.

If you think you might benefit from working with a writing coach, please feel free to contact me. I am putting together a writing productivity program that will kick off this fall. If you are interested in really accomplishing your writing goals, send me an email and we can make that happen.

Please leave a comment with your favorite tip for kick-starting a summer writing project.

Evelyn Bourne is a writer, blogger, spiritual coach and artist. Evelyn is a heart-centered writer who is passionate about her craft. She loves showing business people how fresh, relevant content can elevate their brand and increase sales. The proud mother of three daughters, Evelyn is also a vegetarian, fine chocolate loving Yogini.
Find her on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook

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Guest Post: Making Marketing Writing Easier

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By Robert Middleton

One of my favorite marketing sayings is, “Writing is to marketing
strength as pumping iron is to muscle strength.”

So, if you want stronger, more effective marketing, you need to
write. There’s really nothing else that has that impact. But
writing, for most people, is a real struggle. That is, it’s not a
pleasant task. In fact, it can be downright stressful.

Let’s look at what makes it that way:

1. You don’t have a method or structure for writing that works.
You’re not sure what to say and how to put it all together so that
it has impact and makes prospects respond.

2. You are intimidated by your English teacher and all the formal
rules of writing. So your writing comes across as stilted or overly
formal, not connecting with your audience.

3. You are afraid that other people will judge you for your writing,
so you hold back, not wanting to make a fool of yourself. What if
your writing makes you look unprofessional or ignorant, or worse,
it comes across as hype?

All of those are realities I’ll address in a minute, but first, what if
writing wasn’t such a stressful chore, then what?

1. You’d have a tool immediately available to you to communicate
about your business with impact. Your prospective clients would
get the information they needed to make a decision and they’d
be motivated to contact you to find our more.

2. You’d build business relationships quickly. After all, when
people first hear about your business and want to know more,
you’d have that information readily available in an easy to
understand and digestible format. Good writing connects you to
your prospects in a way nothing else can.

3. Confidence with writing would enable you to do other
marketing activities much more easily as well. Presentations,
audio, and video programs all start with writing. Once you’ve
nailed down the formula for writing, none of these things would
be a mystery anymore; you’d know exactly where to start.

Let me give you the two most important tips that could transform
your writing.

1. The place to start is with “conversational writing.”

One of my guest bloggers, Diana Kightlinger, covered that about
a month ago in some depth, so I won’t dwell on that here. Read it
if you missed it; it’s great:

http://actionplan.com/blog/258-conversational-writing

2. Use Marketing Syntax in all your marketing writing.

This is simply the order in which you organize your writing. And if
you take a look at this article, you’ll find I’m following marketing
syntax to the letter. Here are the steps in marketing syntax that
work for articles, blog posts, web pages, presentations, sales
letters, etc.

a) Start with a clear topic or issue in a paragraph or two.
Immediately make it very clear what you are writing about or
people will tune out fast. This may be either a problem that your
prospects face or a solution you’ve discovered. Sometimes a bit of
both.

So if you’ve discovered a way to help your clients get more
“employee engagement” which will increase productivity and
retention, let your readers know that right away.

b) Follow that with some issues, concerns, or problems regarding
this topic. This gets you and the reader on the same page:

“Have you ever experienced times when your employees are
disengaged and can’t seen to move steadily towards your
company’s most important goals? Perhaps some of these
symptoms are familiar?”

That draws prospects right in. Everyone likes to discuss what’s not
working; they can relate to it perfectly.

c) Then talk about what it could be like. You don’t have to go
overboard here, however your possible outcomes should be both
compelling and believable. This creates desire in the reader to
know how to get from where they are to where you’re pointing:

“Not only is it possible to get your employees engaged, once they
become engaged the power of peer pressure will get their fellow
employees engaged as well, often increasing productivity
dramatically.

d) Next, you list a number of points of HOW you actually get
those results. This could be anywhere from three to five points,
depending on the medium. You are giving away specific, hands-on
and how-to information your readers crave.

As you see, this is exactly how I’ve outlined this article. It’s very
easy once you have this structure of Marketing Syntax. Let me
review it again:

1. Get attention with a relevant problem or solution.

2. Get interest by discussing issues they can easily relate to.

3. Increase desire by explaining how things could be.

4. Provide fulfillment by giving away some practical ideas.

5. Make a clear call-to-action.

Suggest a simple action the reader could take to turn your ideas
into results for themselves. This might be a link to your website
or a certain service, or perhaps a meeting to find out more.

The call-to-action depends on the context of the written
communication. So here’s my call to action for this article:

If you found these ideas useful, you might like to learn more
about marketing syntax, effective marketing writing, and a whole
lot more, that would help you attract more of your ideal clients
with less struggle.

I’d like to give you a free hard-copy of my new book, “Marketing
Ball – Lessons on Attracting Clients from the Marketing Coach.”

It’s yours at no cost or obligation if you try out a month of the
Marketing Club which contains a wealth of programs, courses,
expert interviews, coaching calls, client tracking software, and a
whole lot more to help you grow your business.

If you’re already a member of the Marketing Club, I’ll send you a
copy of the book if you upgrade your membership to quarterly,
yearly or lifetime.

Just click on this link to find out more:

http://actionplan.com/fasttrack

Cheers, Robert Middleton

This post was written by Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit
Robert’s web site at www.actionplan.com for additional
marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional
service businesses.

 

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Guest Post: 3 Ways to Speed Up Your Blog Time & Still Write Quality Content

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photo credit: istock photo

Do you use blog writing to attract business? Do you wonder how you can double your blog output and still have a life? Do you worry about whether your blogs offer quality content that your target readers will love, so they will subscribe? Know the biggest benefit to strategic blog marketing means that Google will like your blogs. Each time you write a blog post, you build your website traffic.

I can relate. When I started a blog over 6 years ago, I got discouraged because of little audience response and little traffic increase. Against my better judgment, I quit. Now, after four years of using a WordPress blog, I realize I just needed to multiply my posts so Google would notice me and I’d get more targeted subscribers. As a writing coach, I already knew what I could do. I just needed to do it. You can relate, yes?

I recommend you post at least two times a week and share your blog URLs on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

For your best results, here’s my proven top 3 Ways to create quality blog posts faster.

One. Write a Title of One Specific Question to One Specific Audience and Answer it.

You may be marketing a book or your service. Your target audiences want their questions answered. Questions are one of the best ways to write a blog title. To find out where your audiences are now, you can poll your audience with a survey by email or on one of the social media platforms. Simply ask them to state their biggest challenge or problem.

They may have many questions. That’s great. You can leverage each blog post by a complete answer to their question. For example, book writers ask, “How can I write my book fast and sell it faster too?” Of the nine pre-marketing answers given to this in a book chapter of my “Write your eBook or Other Book – Fast!” I simply address one at a time in nine different blog posts. For example,”Do you know your Target Audience for your Book? This one blog post became 1000 words. That number is good for some audiences, but the sweet spot for blog length is around 500-800 words and many will want shorter lengths.

Two. Rewrite Similar Content for a Different Audience.

Many authors have multiple audiences, so to bring more sales, they need to write different blogs aimed at the needs of different audiences. For instance, one client who is a coach for eating disorders, now writes blogs for her three audiences – bingers, bulimics, and anorexics, because you can binge, but not necessarily be a bulimic or anorexic. She’s writing specific tips for each one. This approach will multiply her numbers and keep her audiences coming to her website, where she offers her other programs and new books we’re working on. Many general book titles will benefit from this approach.

Know your article’s purpose and specific audience and narrow your slant or focus your information just for them. They will feel as though you speak directly to them and get engaged with your post, leaving comments and clicking the links to your site where they can get more of you.

Three. Write a 500-Word tip blog post.

No matter what your topic is, your audience loves tips. This shortest “how to” blog post with numbered tips is the most popular of all.

*To create around 500 words, you need to…
*Choose a title that works for tips.
*Outline your topic.
*Write a one-two sentence hook or introduction.
*Include four to six sub points in outline form.
*Write each paragraph to support each sub point.
*Write only two or three short sentences for each paragraph.
*Create three to five paragraphs from each heading.
*Finish with a one or two sentence conclusion.

This kind of blog post blueprint will not only shorten your time, but will create consistent, organized, and easy to read blogs.

Now that you know three blog writing strategies that will keep your audience coming back for more quality content, will you share your latest blog writing challenges and successes with us?

25 year Book Coach, Judy Cullins helps you in business to write a “best seller” and build your brand with a short book to sell all the books and get all the clients you need. To double your blog writing, ask Judy about her blog coaching at bookcoaching.com/blog-editing.php

 

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Blogging Tips: How to Blog Your Way to Writing a Book

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I’ve been blogging for many years, and looking over my blog archives I’ve often figured that there was enough content there for a book. I’m a freelance writer, so much of my writing time and energy is devoted to writing for my clients. I’m also a single mom with three kids and I run a business from my home, so I had lots of excuses for not finding time to write a book.

There are countless benefits of being a published author. Whenever I introduce myself as a writer, people almost always ask if I’ve published a book. I have grown weary of making excuses for why I haven’t published a book, so last year I decided to use my blog to help me come up with the content for a book. I gave myself a focused challenge and I write a post every day for a month. I then took those thirty blog posts and expanded them and added additional content. Now I have got an almost completed manuscript for a book based on the content of my blogging challenge.

This morning I came across this article, 7 Things You Must Do Before Writing Your Book, which is full of great tips for those who are thinking about writing a book. The author, Ofili, writes about the power of blogging to help you get your book written, ” I put myself on a strict and disciplined regimen of writing at least one 1500 article every month. I did this unfailingly starting January of 2011 and at the end of the year, I had 20+ quality articles chapters and over 25,000+ words in my book.” The secret is to commit to a focused writing schedule and be consistent.

There are a few benefits of blogging your book. One of those benefits, as Ofili mentions in his post, is the opportunity for instant feedback from your readers. Another benefit is that you are establishing a platform, building an audience for the book and getting your name and writing out there in the world. The best benefit, I believe, is the responsibility to your readers to blog consistently. Once you hook your readers in with what you are writing, they are going to want to stay in the loop and find out what happens.

Bloggers who want to become authors should go ahead and give it a whirl. Choose the topic of your book and focus your blog posts around that theme. Tell your readers what you are doing and get their support and encouragement. The positive comments I received when I did my blogging challenge really motivated me to stick with it no matter what.

Now that my manuscript is almost finished I am researching publishing options. It will launch first as an ebook, so you will be the first to hear about it when it drops. Keep on writing.

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Writing Tips and Tools: ProWritingAid.com

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I stumbled across this writing tool when they started following me on Twitter. I checked out the website and gave it a try. There’s a blank field on the main page of the website where you can paste your written copy and then click the ‘analyze,’ button. The pro writing aid software analyzes your writing and gives you suggestions for revisions in categories such as:

  •  Overused words
  • Sentence variation
  • Clichés & Redundancies
  • Repeated words & phrases

The pro writing aid tool also analyses sentence length, clichés and the pacing of your writing. If you are going to hand your writing over to a human editor, you might want to first pop it into this free tool and make the suggested corrections that you agree with and then see what your editor has to say.

I tried it with an article I wrote this morning, and I found the edits useful. It pointed out to me how much I overuse certain words, it revealed my penchant for beginning sentences with conjunctions and prepositions, and it showed how I could improve the pacing or my work. I also tend to write long, rambling sentences. Long sentences are fine as long as you vary the length of all the sentences in that piece of writing. Every single word should carry its own weight.

I often coach beginning writers about the importance of separating the creative process of writing from the mechanical process of editing and revising. After you have written something, set it aside for awhile and then run it through prowritingaid.com to help improve the finished product.

While it’s never going to replace a human editor, prowritingaid.com is a handy, free tool that you can use to run your writing through to clean it up and catch common errors.

 

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