What Is Copywork (and How to Use It to Establish a Daily Writing Routine)

“Copying is the highest form of flattery,” my parents would tell me whenever I was annoyed about my friends “copying” me. I didn’t believe them. (I was 8 years old at the time; can you blame me?)

But then I started college, and this “copying is flattery” came back to haunt me. My literature professors would tell me, “If you want to write like an academic, you need to read a lot of academic writing.”

So, essentially, if I wanted to do well in college literature courses, I had to figure out a way to copy these writers.Continue reading

Delegating to Avoid Burnout: An Entrepreneur’s Solution

There aren’t enough hours in a day.

Here at Craft Your Content, someone is always working. I mean that literally. After combining the hours of our team of approximately 10 members, we put in the same number of hours that are in a week. Not work hours, mind you, real human hours. 24/7.

On a closer look, Elisa Doucette, our founder, works 35 percent of those hours, followed by Managing Editor Julia Hess and I (content producer) combined at another 30 percent, and then the rest of the team at the remaining 35 percent.

While that’s still pretty top-heavy, we’re at a better place than we were in 2017 thanks to the art of delegation.

You only need to look at Elisa’s hours to know that running a business is more than a full-time job. One that you absolutely cannot do alone.

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How to Cut the Fat and Make Your Writing Lean and Mean

Raise your hand if you’re intimidated by public speaking. If you’re in public right now, maybe just agree discreetly to yourself so strangers at the next table won’t give you the side-eye.

What is it about talking to a large audience that gives so many of us pause? Is it the staring, potentially judgmental crowd? Is it the harsh lights and wailing microphone feedback? Is it the possibility that we’ll forget to wear pants?

For most people, it’s the pressure of being “on”—front and center, live, in the hot seat.

Unless the words of your speech are graven upon your soul, you’re prime for derailment at any moment.

But what if, while you were up on that stage, there was a way to freeze or rewind time, without anyone knowing but you? You could choose your words perfectly or even reverse and rescue yourself from a disastrous quagmire of word salad.

How many people would be afraid of public speaking then?

Writing for an audience is public speaking, and your backspace key is your DeLorean.

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How Hemingway Taught Me to Be a Better Writer

Ernest Hemingway’s writing hasn’t always intrigued me.

In fact, when I was a high school student and had to read A Farewell to Arms for my AP Literature and Composition class, I happily employed the use of Sparknotes summaries at least twice for sections of the book I hadn’t read.

I mean, I tried to read the whole novel … OK, maybe I could have tried harder.

Taking a lot of literature and reading classes throughout my education, Hemingway had been substantially built up. To me, Hemingway felt like a micro-deity English teachers and students told me about: He was in the sky or somewhere very distant from me, wearing a white robe with a cigar in his mouth, watching life happen below him—but I couldn’t touch him.

I couldn’t even speak to him. I just pictured him in my mind and wondered what it would be like to be in his presence.

I know it sounds a little magnified, and I wish I could say it’s an exaggeration.

Then I finally had the chance to read one of his works. And I was crestfallen.

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