So tonight, instead of cooking the fabulous meal for my family I had planned, I reheated leftover pizza in a skillet on my gas stove and sat huddled around a candle for dinner. It turned out to be really fun! It felt like a mini-vacation with no devices or toys or electronic noise in the background, and the family and I truly enjoyed each other's company. We were all in the moment and it made my heart happy. An unplanned power outage has its perks.
Now, 3 hours later and still no power, the house is getting cold and I'm bored but not sleepy yet. I've decided to write a short blog about the art of writing. Since the power is out, no wifi, so this will get posted in the morning.
I've been writing since I was five, and wrote my first full length "book" when I was 10. It was about a girl who was 10 and fell in love with a boy who rode a white horse and rescued her from a swamp… loosely sounds like the plot to Shrek?
I love to write and I have some rituals around my writing. Nothing weird, I promise. I'm one of those people that can write anywhere, anytime (I'm typing this in OneNote on my phone) but I always sleep on something before publishing; I like to revise and edit with fresh eyes. Of my 25 years as a writer I've probably spent a collective sum of 3 solid years writing for work, for school and just for fun, but I'm not an author (defined by getting paid to write!) I've learned a few things, and I'd like to pass along my process to you. If you want to write your own content that is pretty good, here's some advice:
Don't write about stuff you have zero interest in or no passion for‐ it will come across in your writing and your content will feel forced and it will read boring.
Do write in a conversational tone and rhythm. This is not your masters thesis.
Read constantly. Read classic literature, tech blogs, newspapers, educational content on topics that interest you. Subscribe to industry experts' newsletters. Read a movie review, a cookbook and a magazine about knitting. Read real paper books. Spend more time reading than you do watching YouTube videos or looking at Instagram photos or binging on Netflix. Inspiration for content can come from anywhere, but the language, format, and aesthetic in which you choose to express those ideas will be developed from your study of other writers. This is a good thing. It keeps you sharp and ensures you continuously evolve as a writer. And don't worry about taking on a persona that doesn't feel true; as you expand your intellectual cache, all those writers whose work you read will mix together with your own existing writing skills and the result will be a unique voice that you'll likely didn't know you had in you. You'll fancy yourself a genius. If you keep this practice up you will only grow as a writer.
Add humor wherever it feels right. Even if the topic seems really serious. Sometimes especially because it seems serious.
Tell a story that only you can tell. This is your unique angle, even if the topic has been covered before. Weave into your content your real life stuff. This is what will get buzz amidst all the static. Also, as you're mapping out concepts to write about, ask yourself "So what?" about each topic. Is your content educating on a relevant topic? Is your story or image funny? Do you have an insiders take on something? Use this test to help gauge whether people will want to read your content.
Please, for the love of kale smoothies, PROOFREAD YOUR WORK. If you suck at spelling, syntax and grammar, have someone who does not suck edit your content before publishing. Typos are no longer tolerated in digital content and grammatical errors make you look dumb.
Fact check. If you're including data in your content, you must be able to provide citable sources. You don't need to cite them in your content like a book report, just have the sources handy in case someone challenges your work. The exception here is if you are a journalist and you're protecting the identify of someone who could be killed by the mob.
Keep your content short and relevant. I struggle with this, because I love to research and then write everything I learn about a subject. Just look at my post on website optimization… tl:dr, right? (This is short for too long, didn't read)
Know your audience. Develop buyer or user personas to help you figure out who you're trying to reach and then create content that appeals to that persona.
Have fun with your writing! Inject your personality and don't scrub clean every last shred of human emotion from the piece. Emotionally connecting with your users is the point of content marketing, so... put some emotion in it!
Sleep on it. Trust me; everything looks worse in the morning. Don't publish something you've been working on until your eyes are blurry. It will absolutely have grammatical errors, typos and sentences that don't make sense. You won't see these little devils at the end of an intense writing session because your brain will read what it wants the paper/screen to say, not what is actually written on the paper/screen.
Be careful not to revise something into a totally different piece of content. This is easy to do, and falls into the camp "the enemy of good is better." Know what you want to say, write a good story about it, call it a day.
Feel a sense of accomplishment. Hey, you just published something on the internet. This counts. And 4 other people will probably read it, so there's that. Raise a glass, toast to your brilliance, and start thinking about your next piece of content. Because you are now a content marketer, you are also now a writer and this is serious business. Just kidding!!! It's awesome that you're blogging and creating content, so give yourself a bit of praise and have fun with it.
Practice, practice, practice. Aim to write something everyday, even if it's just a few lines about the weather. Emails to clients and coworkers don’t count! Practice makes you better than you were yesterday, but not perfect. And that's all any of us can hope for anyway- better today than yesterday.
Speaking of perfection… Don’t get hung up on making something perfect before you publish. Whose version of perfect would you be using to measure it? Exactly. There's no way to know if your content is perfect or even any good, so don't let your type A tendencies prevent you from writing and publishing. I go with my gut; I can feel it when a piece is finally "there." This feeling may take time to develop, so keep practicing and when you feel it, trust it.
Happy writing, friends.
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