writing tips

Computer

23 Oct 2017

Well-being Ideas to Avoid Writer Burnout

Every writer, blogger, and professional who deals with language experiences periods when they struggle to create sentences. Ideas get lost and the feeling of frustration comes instead. This is a well-known practice, but the good news is that there are effective ways to avoid it.

With the advice from those who have experienced burnout, it is possible not  only to overcome it, but to avoid it altogether.

First and Foremost: Prevent instead of treat

To write and generate ideas, it is important not to let yourself burn out. There are aspects like health, inspiration, daily schedule, planning, etc. which can prevent you from falling into this trap. It is easier to keep your writing abilities keen instead of trying to treat writers block.

When that has happened, then it is hard to start writing again no matter how hard you try. Keep a few simple principles in mind to avoid an unpleasant and debilitating mental state. Let’s explore some more ideas below.

Health

When writing an exciting story, there is a risk of losing track of time in the day. You can end up sitting weeks next to your laptop and see nothing but a kitchen, a bathroom, or a bed. It impedes not only on your mental, but also your pysical state.

Exercise, walking, jogging, etc. really helps, as well as a regular eight-hours of sleep each night. Instead of thinking that you are losing your creative abilities, go for a walk, talk to people or play some sports and feel the taste of writing again.

Day schedule

It may seem trivial, but next to health problems comes sleep schedule problems. Sitting the whole night at your workplace or in your bed with a laptop can have a negative effect. One sleepless night affects days of productivity.

A person without sleep can do nothing but think about the next opportunity to sleep. Yes, it is possible to write at night and in the day after a sleepless night, but your creative side will not be at optimum level when you are tired and can end up being a waste of time.

Planning

Planning is an important part of the process. It might sound absurd when talking about writing a novel, but how can you be sure that your inspiration will come with the time you have planned for writing? With blogging and copywriting it is simple.

You realize how much time you need for one article and can plan the time of the day which best works for you, and the case is closed. With creative writing it is tricky. You can end up planning the time when you sit with the laptop and do nothing instead of working.

But if procrastination catches you, then schedule the time when you are in your zone for creativity. When you can synchronize this, creative writing will come much easier.

Stimulation

Read articles, stories, be updated with current events in the world. Subscribe to a few channels on YouTube and explore various aspects of interest like technology, development, psychology, etc.

Stimulate your thoughts and find information which resonates with your feelings and makes you feel inspired. Double the effect with researching which will stimulate plenty of views and might be useful for your writing experience.

In other words, educate and develop yourself to generate exciting ideas.

Inspiration

Whether it’s a book or copywriting tasks that you are writing, you need inspiration to express your thoughts. They are not coming from anywhere. Inspiration is something you have to keep in mind. It should be something more than watching a movie or reading a book.

You must feel yourself as if you are the hero of your favorite story. Do something you always wanted to do like ride a horse, travel to Maldives, experience a parachute, or learn to play piano. That will definitely give you experience you could describe in your works.

Your Turn

How are you personally avoiding those nasty burnouts?

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Money

3 May 2017

Scams Nearly All Freelance Writers Fall For (And How to Avoid Them)

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. I’ve heard that often, and it seems to be true especially in our field. Trying to make a living freelance writing is like wading through a minefield of people looking for a profit from your efforts to supplement your income, start a new career, get out of debt, or any other reason we start writing on the internet.

These people are scam artists and we would all do well to learn the tricks they use to waste our time and keep us from making money writing. Scams can come in all shapes and sizes, and while some of them are outright illegal, others are just predatory and unethical. Here are some common ones.

Work From Home and Make Big Money

Any time a scam artist wants to grab our attention, they know that they can hit us right in our most vulnerable areas: our homes and our wallets. Go on Craigslist or do a Google search for “freelance writing jobs” and I guarantee that within five minutes you’ll see an ad that says they’re “hiring writers, you can set your own hours, and you’ll make between five hundred and five thousand dollars a week.”

This is always — ALWAYS — a scam. No legitimate company or website will ever promise you a specific amount of money, and they will never tell you that it’s easy. Which brings us to our next scam…

One Simple System

There will be a video. There will be animation that pretends to be hand drawn. There will be a man telling you about how he quit his job and worked tirelessly for two years and ended up making over six-figures. Then he will say, “I realized my system was too powerful not to share with the public.”

He will then ask you to either A.) Pay money for some course that “guarantees” income, or B.) Ask you to sign up for an email list, a free book, or any other way to ultimately try and sell you something. The only system that actually exists is the one that you create for yourself.

Free Samplers

Often times, on shadier freelance writing sites, a client will ask for a “sample” of your work about a very specific thing. They will then never contact you and use your free sample as content. These scams are based on the premise that we are all so desperate for work that we will do anything to get it.

For example, I was once asked to write 350 words on the restaurants in a specific neighborhood. I did just that and I never heard back from them, but I did find my 350 words that I sent them published on a content mill website under another person’s name!

Always make sure that you read the fine print and don’t give away any publishing rights that you don’t want to give away. Even with tiny blurbs, it’s your writing and if anyone deserves to make money on it, it’s you.

Cheapskates

When we start out trying to make a career out of writing, we don’t really know what our time and words are worth. When someone offers a job paying $.02 per word, we think that we’d be fools not to take it because even though it’s not much, at least it’s something and it will get our name out there. Needless to say, these are scams, although they are legal.

Here’s the truth: This won’t get your name out there. Scam artists are always trying to promise the world through “exposure” or “portfolio building.” These are code words for cheapskates. If you want to be a travel writer, for instance, don’t waste your time composing 1,000 words about something you don’t care about for a mere $20 (especially for a content mill).

Instead, simply write a blog post about travel! People that are willing to pay real money want to see that you can write about their ideal topics. They appreciate your knowledge about these subjects. A free blog post about something you want to write about long-term is worth much more as a portfolio piece than anything these cheapskates will ask you to write about.

Weirdos

Sometimes scams will come with a very strange request, and might ask you to do something out of the ordinary. A prospect once offered to send me money to deposit into my bank account, merely to prove I was a real person. Very strange request. I subsequently asked them for more information, but they never sent it.

A few weeks later I received a letter in the mail, inside was a very obviously faked money order from this “client” of mine. I called the FBI’s internet scam department and reported them. I was told that this is a very common scam, although i’m not sure how it was supposed to work because (thankfully) I did not follow through.

Takeaway: If It seems weird, it just might be. Always do your research before engaging in odd deals and see if any other freelancers have run into similar situations.

There are a million different ways people are trying to scam you. Freelance writing is hard work. There are no simple answers and no get-rich-quick schemes. You can do it, though; if you work hard and keep an eye out for scams and dishonesty, the world of writing is a great and wonderful place.

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new-york-times-newspaper-1159719_1280

30 Dec 2016

The Challenges of Managing a Team of Writers

For the vast majority of writers, their craft is a solitary thing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an escape, but more often than not, it will be a way to stop, listen to one’s own voice and then try to put it on paper.

However, when you try to make a living writing, you sometimes end up as part of a team of writers who are employed by an organization of some kind. Sure, you are still writing your own thing, but you are not alone.

The author of this article had the pleasure of working in such a setup. Moreover, he got to manage a team of writers. And you can rest assured that this kind of work comes with a bag full of challenges that soon take over your life.

So, just in case some of you have to manage a team of writers one day, here are a few things to keep in mind.

So Much Passion

Usually when people talk about team management and project management in business, passion is considered a good thing. It is the thing that drives the team forward and that ensures that everything sparks and continues sparking.

When you manage a team of writers, this sparking can turn into a firestorm in a matter of seconds.

Simply put, writers feel a whole lot of passion for their work, even if they themselves do not think it. The team this article is based on wrote copy for a company that operated in a very boring industry and the copy being written was not exactly soul-changing.

Still, writers felt so strongly about seemingly unimportant matters that it definitely became too much at times and it required quite a bit of tact and defusing technique.

In short, passionate writers who will not back down easily are the first challenge to keep in mind if you plan on taking a job as a writing team manager.

Pressure From Two Sides

Managing a team of writers as part of a company comes with certain expectations from outside (above) the team. Companies operate in very simple terms and they have no time or understanding for the intricacies of the written word.

On the other hand, you have writers who want to be left alone to write and who do not want to be pressured. They are often pushing back, just for the sake of it.

Before you know it, this combination causes friction and you can guess who feels the brunt of it. Yes, you do.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to do some project management software comparison and find a solution that best suits your need. This way, you can assign work to your writers and ensure that everything is done in due time. Using such software will also allow you to show the higher ups what is going on and where things stand.

Lax Discipline

Writers are rarely perfectly disciplined. It is not in their nature. If they were perfectly disciplined, they would be accountants or something like that. Sure, some of them are disciplined writers, as in they get the writing done. But they do not make the most disciplined employees.

For the most part, you get over it. You get over the fact they haven’t put in the necessary paperwork or notified the people who had to be notified. You get over the fact that you are blasting emails and texts Sunday at 9 p.m., just to make sure your writers don’t get in trouble.

Sometimes, however, it can be a bit disheartening. There are some situations which could really have been avoided if anyone but you stopped to think for a moment. At those times, you feel like the biggest fool in the world for taking on a task like this.

Instead of a Closing Word

But then, after all is said and done, after half a dozen pre-infarction events and just as many telling offs from the higher ups, your writing team treats you to the best piece of writing that was ever done in the industry.

And you feel great.

You remember why you love writing, why you love writers and why managing a team of writers is not the worst thing in the world.

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smiley-1738747_1280

31 Oct 2016

The Importance Of Tone When Guest Blogging

Over the last few years, there were quite a few articles that spoke about the death of guest blogging and earning links at other people’s and company’s blogs. Once the hype wore out, and the smoke cleared, we were left with a different kind of reality – one where guest blogging still gets the job done.

If done properly, that is.

The New Guest Blogging

Before we get to the importance of tone in guest blogging, I feel I should say a thing or two about the “new” guest blogging, i.e. the kind of guest blogging that produces quality over quantity and that will not be smitten down the first time Google people take a better look at their algorithms.

This kind of guest blogging requires hard work, real connections with people and producing content that will not be just a 500-word rehash of something someone wrote a billion times already.

I like to think that this article of mine is a good example of what this “new” guest blogging is about – finding an already fantastic blog on a certain subject, working long and hard on finding a novel idea for an article and writing an article that would be of interest to the readers of the blog, but also other types of readers.

Or maybe I am overestimating what I had done here.

Basically, it comes down to respect. You respect the people you reach out to, you respect their readers and you respect yourself.

This will help you build real relationships and everything else will come naturally.

The Interpersonal Tone

Online communication etiquette is still in its infancy and we can all agree that people are all over the place when we are talking tone, approach and even spelling. Some people are overly polite to the point that they sound like automated emails while others think all online communication should be done in emojis and gifs.

If you want to be a successful guest blogger, you will want to hit the right tone when talking to people. This is perhaps best explained with a few examples.

For instance, you want to contribute an article on cybersecurity for a website where only experts in the field come to share their insights. These are all (for the most part) very serious people who do very serious work and who take this particular website very seriously. You do not open your first email with Yo, guyz!

You acknowledge their expertise and how they see their website. You find a respectful tone.

Conversely, if you are looking to contribute to a fashion/video game blog run by a hyper 16-old girl, you will be keeping things as simple and conversational as possible. If you are not 16 or around that age, you will also not force being cool and whatnot.

The Tone of Writing

All of the aforementioned can be translated to your writing. This time, however, you also have the readers to think about. All websites have their own readers and they know what to expect on such a website. There are plenty of websites where super-smart and educated people contribute on some very serious subjects, but which are still fun and even funny.

All websites have their own tone, or perhaps more tones than one (in the case where there are more regular contributors). Still, by spending half an hour reading their stuff, you will get the hang of it.

Of course, this does not mean you should not give your own flavor to the content you are contributing. You should never neuter your writing just because it might be slightly different from what usually gets published on the website. If the owner or the editor feels like your writing might be somewhat too different, they will tell you. Then, you will compromise.

Still, the tone is something you will probably not miss if you are at all careful and considerate.

The best way to approach this is to talk to the editors and the blog owners beforehand and see what they have to say about this. They will gladly share their expectations and some great examples. They want your content to be great too.

Closing Word

In the end, it all comes down to being respectful to people and not rushing things. Spend some time with the blog you intend to write for; read some articles; read comments.

Ask questions.

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man-691422_1280

10 Sep 2016

How to Write Mobile

It has been a few years since the web went mobile in the truest sense of the word. It was back in 2014 that comScore came forward with research which showed the number of mobile web users surpassed desktop web users.

It has been a few years and the world has gone even more mobile, with desktop users becoming a rare breed more rapidly than ever before.

This has affected anyone who has any connection to the online world, writers included. It does not matter if you are running a small but popular blog or if you decided to become an app builder reseller, you need to know how to keep your mobile readers engaged.

So, how do you do it?

Learn Mobile’s Idiosyncrasies

In order to even begin to write great content for mobile, it is essential that you learn mobile’s traits and quirks that make it so different from the desktop ecosystem. The majority of these are influenced by the way people use their mobile devices.

For one, people often read stuff on their phones when they are on the move and when distractions abound. Their attention spans are shorter and they are more likely to get distracted by their environment.

Furthermore, the actual physiology of reading differs from desktop to mobile. According to research from Briggsby, mobile readers spend more than 80 percent of their eye-time on the top two thirds of the page, meaning that the lower third gets barely any attention. According to this same research, the eye of the mobile reader is naturally drawn towards images, instead of text.

The question that begs the answer now is how to take advantage of this knowledge.

Start from the Top

Like with all content, the title is the first thing your potential readers will see and in the case of mobile, it needs to be even more succinct and aggressive than usual (and we all know usual is already plenty aggressive).

The title of this particular article is the perfect example (intentionally so) of a mobile-friendly title. It’s a title that would fit the screen of your Nokia 3310, if need be. It is a title that explains what you are about to read in 4 words and 16 letters. It may not be the most accurate or the most grammatically flawless title in the world, but it is 16 letters long. 20 characters with spaces.

Super-short titles make them more visible, especially in the sea of possibilities. Depending on the platform, super short titles might actually end up being written in a larger font because it’s possible.

Keep your Paragraphs Short

Mobile scrolling is a movement that has already become as natural as licking your finger when reading newspaper. It may vary depending on the length of the person’s finger or the amount of caffeine they imbued before their mobile reading, but for the most part, mobile scrolling can be predicted.

Because of this, a paragraph has to fit on one screen, which may sound limiting. It is. However, it is something you need to work with. If a reader needs to do precise scrolling because there is another line or two to finish the paragraph, they will get annoyed. Maybe not consciously so, but they will get annoyed.

Keep your Copy Succinct

There is a reason why haiku became a worldwide phenomenon. This reason is the simplicity and the focused nature of a haiku. There is much beauty in simplicity and in being as direct and succinct as possible.

It is also difficult, do not be fooled. As John Cooper Clarke puts it:

“To convey one’s mood in 17 syllables is very diffic”

In the world of writing, you really learn this when you start writing for mobile. If you can say something in six words, you do not tell it in twelve. If a word does not contribute to a sentence, you throw it out. Think of it as barebones writing.

Putting Your Message in the Right Place

Depending on what you are writing for mobile, your message can be more or less essential. For instance, if you are simply writing a guest post, your message will be the thing you want your readers to remember once they finish your article. If you are writing copy or something for a paying client, you are probably already thinking in “calls of action”. They are your message and you need to know where to put them.

Like we mentioned, there are places where the readers’ eyes will naturally go, such as top of the screen and around pictures. This is where you need to put your message. This is a simple matter of numbers and statistics. It will not guarantee success 100%, but you will definitely increase your chances of getting the messages across.

Closing Word

In short, if you want to write great mobile content, you need to exercise the sensitive art of brevity. Also, think about mobile content that you like to read and imagine yourself reading the content you are writing. If you’re not sure about it, give it another do-over.

 

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Magazines

26 Apr 2015

Magazine Writing Tips for New Freelance Writers, Part 3: Write a Selling Article

This post is the third in a three-part series that offers magazine writing tips for freelancers new to writing for magazines. The first covered identifying an article topic and a magazine market and the second covered writing a query letter.

You have a contract from a magazine to write an article. Congratulations! Let’s get started.

Writing articles is a skill that will improve with practice. To get you started, let’s look at a basic article structure called the BEST formula, taken from How To Write And Sell Articles by Jane Duncan.
B—Bait

E—Explanation

S—Step

T—Termination

“B” For Bait

The bait is also called the hook or the lede. It’s an intriguing beginning for your article that tells readers why they should care and stop their busy lives to read the article. If readers don’t like the bait, they’re not going to read the rest of the article.

Pick up six different magazines. Look at the baits, the first couple of paragraphs, in each article in the magazines. All the baits will be different. In your article, you need to use a hook that is appropriate for your article and speaks to the readership of the magazine you’re writing for.

You may want to write the bait after writing the rest of the article, leaving a small note “Insert Intro” at the beginning of your first draft as a memo to create the bait when you’ve finished the second draft. If you wrote an accepted article proposal, you might be able to use the bait that you used in that query for your first article draft. In the second draft, you can change the lede if you come up with something better.

“E” For Explanation

Explain the article’s subject, or thesis. If you’re writing about software, you could briefly explain what the software does or why it’s important. If you’re writing a personality profile, explain why the profile is worth reading. Some articles won’t require an explanation because it’ll be in the article’s headline and bait.

“S” For Step(s)

The steps are your argument. They can be individual anecdotes or pieces of evidence. If you’re writing about software, the steps might include what it does, its benefits, and ways of using it. For a profile, the steps could be your subject’s career, his family life, the details of how she ran for office, information about how he won the golf championship, what others say about her, and so on. The number of steps will depend on the length of the article.

“T” For Termination

Bring the article to a close. For the software article, the ending could be how many people have bought the program, when the next version will be available, or where the reader can buy it. For a personality profile, the ending could be a final quote from the subject.

A circular ending, where you to refer to the bait or explanation, is usually an easy and satisfying way to end an article. 

Write the First Draft

For some articles, much of your first draft will simply consist of questions you need to ask your sources or facts you need to look up. That’s fine. Work from news stories you found online, press releases, clippings, and memory. It’s only a first draft—it’s a working document that’s a long way from the completed article.

Write long in the first draft, so you can afford to cut your article during the second draft. Going over the word count in the first draft frees you up. You can toss in everything, without worrying much about structure. Just keep writing. You can cut later.

Revise Your First Draft

  1. Check that your story has kept to the structure and has provided the information you promised the editor in your article query. Get rid of any material that wanders off-topic.
  2. Research. You’ll notice that for your first draft, you simply wrote the article, without worrying about interviews or other research. If you leave your research until you’ve completed a first draft, you’re much better prepared for your interviews, because you know what kind of material you need for the article.
  3. Conduct your interviews.
  4. Look up all facts to make sure they’re accurate. Check the spelling of place names and double-check the spelling of the names of your interview subjects. People will forgive most things but not misspelling their names or getting their titles wrong.

Write Your Second Draft

In the second draft, include your research but don’t include it all. Be discriminating. Just because a fact was hard to find doesn’t mean you need to put it into the article.

Revise your second draft. Check your word choices, spelling, and grammar. Edit for length. When the article is as good as you can make it at this stage, send it to your editor by the deadline.

Note: Send your fact-checking document, with complete names, addresses, and phone numbers of your sources to the editor with your article. Your editor will appreciate your consideration. And, it covers your rear end.

Your editor’s requests for revision: If your editor asks for revisions, relax and make the suggested revisions in a timely manner. The editor wants to help you create the best possible article for the magazine’s readers.

Next Steps

  1. Write a first draft of an article.
  2. Research the article.
  3. Write the second draft.
  4. Revise and edit the second draft.
  5. Send the completed article to your editor by the deadline.
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