Category Archives for Writing
6 Profound Benefits of a Morning Writing Routine (and How to Build One Yourself)
Some say you should write when you feel inspired. Others believe you should write every day of the week, whether you feel like it or not. Some prefer morning pages while others work best at night.
There are a lot of arguments on the best time to write.
I count myself as an early-bird writer. I do most of my writing in the morning, right after having breakfast. It’s when I find myself least distracted and come up with the best ideas. Once in a while, I still write at night when I can’t help putting the words down. But the result is never as good as the morning pages.
Continue reading
3 Reasons Writers Should Value Consistency Over Quantity
When you first take the plunge and decide to write as a career—or at least a side hustle—you start by asking yourself several questions. What is a semicolon, anyway? How much money can I expect to make? How much should I be writing?
I started taking writing seriously as my career three years ago. That meant writing every day. See, when I was starting out, one of my mentors lent me a copy of On Writing by Stephen King, a prolific writer and renowned proponent of writing every day. I took this book as my bible and ran with it. For a long time, that meant my method was to write 2,000 words a day, every day, including weekends and holidays. One year, I even wrote on Christmas—Mom wasn’t a fan.
I was able to keep up that routine long enough to finish a novel, but after that, I faltered. My daily word count went up and down, and sometimes I spent months without writing anything.
Is this starting to sound familiar? Have you gone from prolific one day to completely exhausted and beaten down the next? Maybe you’re still finishing a piece that you started, but it doesn’t feel quite good enough.
Continue reading
What Cycling Across Canada Taught Me About Writing
I biked across Canada in the summer of 2017.
I had just finished my master’s degree, which was a very challenging experience—and not in a good way.
As I was finishing my thesis, I decided I needed to do something to recover. I wanted to do something difficult, but not in an intellectual or academic way. I didn’t want to rely on other people for my success. I wanted to get out of my head and into my body.
So I bought a bike and started pedaling.
Between June and September, I cycled 7,400 kilometers (about 4,600 miles) from Victoria, British Columbia to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Then, about a year ago, I started a freelance writing business. Riding 7,400 kilometers across the country seems like a very different endeavor than creating a sustainable freelance writing business, but a lot of the things I learned from my journey have helped me with my writing business.
I hope these lessons can help you, too.
Continue reading
6 Ways To Gain More Knowledge as a Professional Writer
If you’ve made up your mind to push all forms of learning to a very distant future because you’re too busy growing your business as a professional writer, you need to quickly have a rethink.
Because the world we live in moves fast and changes rapidly, your current skills and knowledge can become obsolete and irrelevant at any time, and that can happen sooner than you’d expect.
And if you’re caught unaware, making a living from your writing can become impossible, since you won’t be able to provide value or meet the needs of your target audience with obsolete knowledge and information.
But guess what?
To avoid this big mistake, you don’t have to go back to school for years at a time or take a whole week or even a day away from your business.
Instead, you can take deliberate steps to gain more knowledge and improve yourself on a regular basis while still growing your business.
Eager to find out how to do this successfully?
Then keep reading to discover six ways you can gain more knowledge daily as a professional writer.
Continue reading