It’s September and I’ve resolved to dedicate one hour a day to writing. Just now I’m brainstorming. Would you like to look over my shoulder?
First of all, I should point out that these days intelligent marketeers are saying the most effective way to sell anything is to write interesting articles on your topic of interest, and to make them available to others’ websites.
Lucky me! I enjoy writing! I just need to discipline myself to actually get to it. So I’ve cancelled another project to clear space in my schedule to work at my writing. I’ve always known I could be prolific - now I’m going to prove it.
A few years ago I wrote an article on how to write mini-articles for exactly this purpose. You can learn more about these patterns in that article in my Sharing Library on my site.
Today I’m getting more specific. I think the ones I will focus on are;
Problem-solving articles, both the full articles and short fillers that allow me to soft-sell my site and products. Personal experience, both the testimonial and inspirational types. Devotional, Bible study one-pagers.
I’ve never been known for my humor, though I do laugh at a good, clean joke. (Some people think I’m funny because I talk so fast, but I avoid sarcasm and foolish puns, so I’m known more for being a smiling serious person). Therefore, I’m not sure I should even try to write a humorous article, but thematic? Sure, I could try those too.
Supposing that you also would like to carve out some serious writing time, I’ll go on to brainstorm how I should actually spend that hour.
I have small booklets with article ideas scattered in various drawers. I need to gather them all in one place here, and provide a way to keep jotting down more ideas at other times of the day. That will eliminate the matter of getting ideas during this hour. Otherwise I can see my mind seizing up with writers’ block most of the time.
It won’t hurt to plant booklets or small cards and pens in all my purses and coat pockets, and to put some by my bed, and by my dining table, and in the bathroom.
Once before, I see in my notes, I made up an agenda for such an hour;
DAY 1 - brainstorm and research keywords DAY 2 - write one article and edit/polish another. DAY 3 - post articles on article sites (& offer to ezines?)
But as I recall, that didn’t work so well. The rhythm of writing on a daily basis didn’t develop. That’s why I’m thinking it would be better to sneak in the brainstorming ahead of time. I may need to allow a bit of time to research the keywords I want to include in an article when I am hoping it will be a soft sell, or pre-sell for a certain product or web site. But I hope to spend that fast-zipping-by hour in writing as much as possible.
There is value in letting an article cool for a few days and coming back later to edit and polish or improve it. So I think I will save all first-time articles in a draft folder, and only move them to one that is ready for publication once I’ve had time to do that polishing edit and spell-check. Hmm… I guess I could do that whenever I feel too dull to write a new article, but sometimes I’ll be needing an article and will just have to take time to do that then and there. Or should I schedule time for editing?
Hey, maybe Friday morning will be when I polish up whatever I wrote the earlier four days, and see to the posting of them. Of course, since I have several blogs, some of my articles will be for them, and may be used right away. Still, it would be smart to have one day to assess and to file and record what I got written.
If I should freelance them and get paid, I will for sure need to keep track of which was submitted where, and when, and whether I sold all rights, or just first rights, and retained all others. Okay, I better start a simple database. (Here’s hoping that doesn’t get to be a headache!)
I do want to work in some variety, but I’ve had people subscribing to and hinting they want me to start producing my daily devotionals again. I have some series written. I just need to polish them, so perhaps I’ll give a couple of weeks to preparing those first. Since I can slip an ad into my P.S. those can be subtle marketing tools too.
Now, if I could just brainstorm up a regular time slot to work on my next novel again! Well, if the article writing flourishes I should be able to buy myself some time for that too.
Have you got a writing time, place and plan? Have you got any tips or advice to offer? Does my plan look feasible?