Category Archives for Articles
7 Quick Tweaks That Could Make All the Difference to Your Blog Posts
You’ve finished your blog post—finally. You type the final few words, breathe a sigh of relief, and hit “publish.”
You might be making a big mistake.
I know how tempting it can be to hurry blog posts out into the world—especially when you’re busy and just getting the post written at all is a huge achievement.
Don’t worry: I’m not going to suggest that you spend hours trying to perfect your post (I’m a firm believer in “published is better than perfect”).
Instead, I have seven quick tweaks that could make all the difference to your post—and to the results you’ll get.
The Art of Giving Up: When to Walk Away From a Writing Project
What was the most recent thing you’ve wanted to achieve really, really badly in your writing career? I mean something that you would persevere with even if it meant sacrificing a good portion of your time.
For me, it was publishing a book. Actually, two books. Both of which have been in the works for at least two years now.
Other than those, I have at least a hundred documents of writing material I speculated would make for some pretty decent stories at their conception.
There are thousands of these stories in my head, and the task of narrowing down the selection to just one or two or even six is a daunting one. Some stories resonate more than others at certain times, and others may be interesting to pursue for only a few months or weeks.
How do you know when a project is good—that a project is worth pursuing?
That your project is worth putting in the extra hour a day just to ensure it advances at all?
3 Creative Networking Methods Writers Need To Try
“Networking” is a red-letter word for many writers. Often, it invokes the image of a writers’ conference or cocktail event, with strangers standing around eating hors d’oeuvres and making small talk—which is a scenario many introverted writers want to run from (after all, there are reasons we work from home, right?).
But networking comes in all shapes and sizes, which is good, because it’s an essential ingredient for the success of any professional writing career.
The idea of networking is simple: You create and sustain as many relationships as you can in the hopes you’ll get some work from these relationships down the road. And it’s really not as scary as it sounds—networking is as simple as making friends!
Is It Really Procrastination? The Perks of Writing Under Pressure
I like to play with fire when it comes to writing on a deadline. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a serial procrastinator, waiting until the last minute something is due before finishing it. Sometimes I don’t even start until the night before.
I’ve always been told how much easier it is to not procrastinate and that I would be prouder of my writing if I just took more time on it.
However, recently I was able to put that idea to the test. In a writing class last quarter, I was working on an original comedy script. At first, I tried writing my pages for the week in advance. I’m not a naturally comedic person, so I was conscious of the challenges I would face in the class.
These challenges presented themselves to me quite quickly. I wasn’t funny, the structure of my episode wasn’t working, and I was struggling to find the voices of my characters. At first, I thought comedy just “wasn’t my thing.” And then, one fateful week, I got really busy.