As we have all heard time and again (and it’s very, very true),
writing articles for ezines/newsletters and ebooks is a great
way to increase your exposure, brand your name, establish
yourself as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), increase your
subscriber/optin base and ultimately, increase that so-longed
for amount of cash in your bank account.
For some people writing comes easy, others have gone to
school and studied how to write. What about you?
To be honest, in my case, it kind of comes and goes. As you may
already know from my blog, I not only write articles and
ebooks on a variety of business related matters, but I also
like to write fictional stories with a hint of a Dungeons and
Dragons quality (mind you, even those stories have an under-
lying message hidden away – have you found it yet?)
I definitely am not a trained writer (I have even been chewed
out by some very well educated readers about my style) and
I write from the heart and soul. My focus is to try and get the
message across, that’s all that matters to me.
There are some awesome writers and copywriters out there
that create some incredible manuals, wildly entertaining
stories and order-pulling sales pages. I am not one of them.
But I hope to be one day and the only way I know how is to
keep writing and asking all of my readers for their opinions.
As they love to say, practice makes perfect.
But, I know that the writing sometimes comes very hard and
can almost drive you insane because you are suffering from
information overload, or are just plain stuck.
So what can you do when that happens?
A variety of things that I hope will help you too, have saved
my bacon in the past on countless occassions.
First off, I need to clear my mind, so I can totally focus on
what I am doing. There are tons of ways to do this and I am
not going to give you this massive list, but in my case,
a walk out in the forest, or my headphones and some
tunes (depending on my mood) can work wonders.
The next part that always is just waiting to attack me, like
that big mutt behind the fence waiting for the mailman, is
the outline and direction.
Here I use a couple of different methods to bite the big mutt
back as hard as I can.
If I am writing one of my fictional stories, I try to envision the outcome, the end, and then reverse engineer to the beginning.
By knowing the desired ending of the book or story, I can
figure out what had to happen to get to that point, then I fill in the blanks until I am at the introduction.
Sometimes I just start writing, it doesn’t matter what direction
it takes, I can always work other segments in later that tie
everything back together.
Another thing that helps me quite often, especially with
business related articles and ebooks is good, old-fashioned
brainstorming. I take out a piece of paper and write down
everything and anything I can think of that relates to the topic
(I even did it for this article).
It doesn’t matter if I think it’s relevant or valuable or not. Don’t think about what you are writing down, just do it.
Then I sit back after a nice cup of coffee and read through the
list a few times, making little notes on the side of the main
points I see tucked away all over the page.
Finally, I just add the remaining keywords under the main
topic that they belong.
Bingo, my outline is complete. Not only do I have my chapters
ready, even my sub points are in place.
The only last thing before I start letting the creative juices flow is that I try to order them into a logical sequence of some
type. Depending on what I am writing, I might make it more
intriguing to draw the reader in deeper, I might align it to be
more sequential and logical, so it has a smooth flow to it.
The choice is really yours. There are tons of options and
many writers have their own ‘thing’ that helps them get past
the hurdles that all of us come across (and I mean all of us).
From here, it’s bound to be a lot easier to write your story,
article or ebook. All the foundation and legwork is already
done, in place and finished.
Well, there you have it and I hope my past experiences can
help you on your path to success.
Here’s to your success,
Xavier
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