Angela Booth’s Life Stream

Writing and more...

Writing and Your Creativity: Managing Traitorous Doubt

Do you doubt yourself as a writer? 

Most writers do. Writing is a career in which you're constantly starting afresh -- you're always looking at a blank page (or computer screen.)

Doubt strikes all writers, whether experienced or new, and never goes away. However, as you become more experienced, you start to recognize doubt as simply "doubt", and you pay less attention to it. You know doubt for what it is, and give it far less weight.

How do you handle doubt?

One of my favorite Shakespearean quotes gives a clue:

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt". (Measure For Measure, Act I, Scene IV).

If you acknowledge that fear's the problem, you can work with it.

Here's an exercise I find useful. I often give it to my writing students.

Start by admitting to yourself that you're scared.

Next, complete this sentence: "What really scares me is________"

Write as much, or as little, as you please. You'll be surprised at what you write, and you'll come to understand yourself a little more. Usually, what you're scared of is the last thing you'd expect. This is because your creative self tends to be child-like (rather than childish.)

Now you can be gentle with yourself. :-) 

Although the exercise is very simple, it's powerful, and will unlock your creativity. You'll find that if you do the exercise regularly, writing becomes much more fun for you, and you'll write more. 

Confusion Is Good, but Don't Let It Paralyze You

I'm fond of saying that confusion is GOOD. If you're confused, it means that  you're out of your comfort zone.

Stepping out of your comfort zone and learning new stuff is meant to be uncomfortable.

If you're a writer you'll spend lots of time in a state of confusion (also known as creative anxiety). You're always starting a new project, and no matter how experienced you are, you'll never stop facing a blank computer screen.

If you're not aware that confusion is a highly creative state, you'll tend to let confusion paralyze you. Instead of accepting that this state is both natural, and good, you try to get out of it.

Read "Confusion is good" for an excellent exercise which prevents your confusion from paralyzing you.

Article Writing Profits

A couple of weeks ago I launched a new article writing guide, and I'm very pleased with the results that writers are getting.

One writer, Gary, said:

"...wanted to let you know how well it's working for me. I put methods 3 and 7 into use immediately, turning a couple of existing articles from "overview => subset". Now, only an hour and a quarter after downloading it I've listed 69 article titles and written 4 new article drafts."

The ability to quickly write articles is an essential Web writing skill. You need to turn out articles not only for others, but also to be able to promote yourself, and your writing services.

I love the strategies in Increase Your Article Writing Profits. They're strategies I used every day, because they make it easy to write quality articles, without stress.

 

Rewriting (for pay): beware

There's a fascinating story at Ars Technica, "Is permission needed to retweet hot news?" about the copyright law protecting hot news:

think about our third question above, the one involving rewrites. These don't implicate copyright law, since nothing is being copied excepts the facts from the original article—and copyright law famously does not extend to facts and ideas.

Read the entire story. You should be aware of what's involved when you rewrite anything.

For example, you'll often find projects on the outsourcing sites which ask for bids on "rewriting" articles, or books. This is theft, pure and simple. The project consists of  rewording someone else's work. In essence, translating it. There's no originality involved. 

I suggest to my writing students that they steer well clear of all these dubious projects. Sooner or later someone whose work has been "rewritten" in this way is going to take it badly, and it will result in a lawsuit. Since the writer who took the job is the person doing the "rewriting", the writer will be involved in the legal wrangle, like it or not.

Mind maps: my #1 productivity tool

  1. Controls information overload. Freelancers – especially writers – often have to do a fair bit of research. Information overload can be a daily problem, but when using mind maps, it’s easy to build a reference map of articles, group and regroup information as necessary.

 

via geekpreneur.com

I use mind mapping constantly. It's my #1 personal productivity tool. It's not too much of a stretch to say that mind mapping keeps me sane.

Currently, my favorite mind mapping tools is iMindMap; I've got two other commercial programs on my Mac and PC, but iMindMap wins. (Not a surprise, since it was designed by Tony Buzan, who's popularized mind mapping.)

I love iMindMap for many reasons; not least because the program makes it easy to write while you're mind mapping. The notes window opens up into a large word processing window, and turns your notes into HTML, all ready to paste into a Web page or blog post.

Read the above article to discover how mind mapping makes freelancers (especially writers) more productive.

Today's writing tip: get the writing jobs you want, today

For many years I created  mini proposals for prospective copywriting clients. They were less than one page in length, and took me around half an hour to create. I sent these unsolicited proposals to companies with which I wanted to work. This worked brilliantly, for two reasons. The first reason is that I could decide exactly what I wanted to write and when; the second reason is that I could decide  exactly how much I wanted to charge.
via copywriter.typepad.com

Looking for writing jobs? Most writers go about it in the most wrong-headed way possible. They scrounge the job boards and the Web looking for advertised jobs.

I wrote the above article to show you how to get the writing jobs you want, when you want them, charging the rates you choose.

Creating mini proposals was one of my favorite tactics.

Today's writing tip: once you've written it, you can fix it

1. Identify what's not working in a piece of writing

2. Write down reasons you think it's not working

3. Once you know the reasons, choose one major reason and develop a strategy to fix it

4. Start the fix!

via copywriter.typepad.com

Worried about a writing project? If you are, chances are that you'll procrastinate on the project. Don't. Start writing. As I wrote in the above article, no writing you do is ever wasted, and once you've written something you can fix it.

Today's writing tip: create goals and plans

.... just create a plan that you think might work, and create some tasks to get you moving toward your goals.

For example, let’s say that you wanted to write an ebook which would sell 1000 copies over six months. You’d be selling the ebook at $37, so you’d make $37,000 in that six months. You plan to write the ebook in a month, then take another month to set up a Web site, and a week to set up promotions.

via fabfreelancewriting.com

Want a great writing career? You can have it. There's never been a better time to be a writer.

Start by creating some goals, and then create a plan for each goal. Read the above article to help you to create a plan.

Important: a plan is just a PLAN. You can't know whether it works until you start working with it, and get some feedback. As you continue to get feedback, refine your plan as needed.

Today's writing tip: confused? GOOD!

Writing is a process of discovery. Therefore, whenever you feel confused at any stage of a writing project, you should feel good about it. You're exploring the parameters of a project, wandering off track, and are never quite sure where you are.

Feeling confused is a vital stage of the writing process, so much so that whenever I feel as though I'm writing by the numbers, I look for ways to jazz up a project. 

New writers tend to imagine that writing equals typing: a writer sits down, and taps out a piece from start to finish. Writing is NOT like that. :-)

As you continue your writing journey, you'll become more relaxed when you don't really know what you're writing, and when a piece seems chaotic. 

Great things come from chaos. 

Today's writing tip: write first

Here's today's writing tip. Write first.

That is, work on your most important writing project before you do anything else.

If you write part-time, that means get up early, and complete your day's writing on your project.

If you're a full-time writer, work on your most important project first.

This is especially important if you're working on a big project.

You'll find that until you realize what's happening, "big" projects tend to intimidate you, because they're hard to control. This leads to procrastination. For example, writing a book is a big, and therefore chaotic, and messy project. You need to accept this, because with a large project, you can't control it. The project will come together, but only if you work on it every day. You need to trust yourself. If you skip days, your doubts will overcome you.

Write first. :-)