Category Archives for Articles
How To Read as a Writer
If you fall down the right wiki-hole in the tinfoil hat-wearing corners of the internet, you’ll learn that “it was aliens” is a rational origin for much of modern technology. Whether it came as gifts from our interstellar allies or was reverse-engineered from crashed saucers, no one at Area 51 is returning my calls to confirm.
But in a big way, reading another author’s work is the same as discovering a UFO from another galaxy and digging out its secrets.
Some philosophers say each person is a world, so it would follow that each message they send out is a vessel from that world. So how do we as writers who want to upgrade our own abilities brush away the dirt and damp forest leaves, find a seam for our crowbars, and pry open a panel of alien metal to reach the glowing sprockets and humming diodes inside?
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The 2 Most Effective Practices for Professional Writers
After writing full time for four years, I’d still modestly consider myself a rookie writer. But just by advertising my articles on LinkedIn and Twitter—where I have a half decent following—occasionally younger, more inexperienced writers get in touch with me and ask me this question:
“How do I become a successful writer and get clients?”
It’s quite funny, actually; I remember torturing writer and writing coach Elna Cain with similar questions in the past.
“Elna, how can I become a better writer?”
“Elna, how can I earn money writing full time?”
“Elna, where can I bag myself clients regularly?”
Her answer was pretty clear, and that was to keep practicing my writing—practice even when I’m not working on a project—write even when I have no clients—and when I’m not writing … read.
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How Chess Improved My Writing, and Why Knitting (or Another Hobby) Can Help Yours
Just in case you’re panicking, let me assuage your fears right away: No, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to play chess or knit. In fact, when it comes to knitting, to me it appears as something only slightly less complicated than quantum mechanics.
The crux of the matter—and the reason this post is important to any writer looking to improve their craft—is how a seemingly irrelevant activity or hobby can help you with your writing.
In my case, that unexpected source was chess. For someone else, it might be knitting, gardening, playing guitar, or crafting origami.
As I have mentioned in the past about sensory writing exercises, before an author writes about anything at all, they first need to experience the world around them.
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The Uniform Effect: The First Small But Important Step I Took In Becoming A Business Writer
2015 was a huge year in my life. I decided to pack in the 9-to-5 day job and become a home-based, full-time writer. Was I excited? Absolutely. Elated. My own boss—what’s not to like?
I had been writing at home on a bit-part basis here and there for extra income prior to leaving my full-time office job.
Getting clients and plenty of projects to work on was becoming gradually easier with experience, so I knew the ins and outs of throwing together a draft, blog post, search engine optimization product description, and resume. That was about it.
Working my own hours in my pajamas sounded, in theory, extremely appealing at the beginning, but actually that’s where it all went wrong for me. It would become my Achilles’ heel; my kryptonite, so to speak.
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