Essay Online

Few people understand the importance of a ROUTINE when making a pittance…er, I meant a living…as a writer. Where do you work? How do you work? When do you work? These are all questions a selling writer fields with every interview.

Here is the usual answer: I work wherever I am, as diligently as possible, as often as possible. This is my job and I must treat it as such or I will end up eating Oreos while watching Gilmore Girls.

Here is the real answer: Whenever I can’t think of something else to do…including watching Gilmore Girls.

Therefore, in order to write, I must create a routine&ndashaka, RUT&ndashso deep, so intractable, so unforgiving that I have no choice but to write. Sucks, but it’s true. No one (except maybe people whom I despise) actually LOVE writing. I love thinking about writing. I love having written. But the act of putting words to paper is a royal pain in the butt.

Therefore, I must create an environment where a royal pain in the butt is BETTER than the alternatives. In this way, writing is much like exercise. I mean I like the results, but do I really want to lift weights or run on a treadmill? Do I really want to find a new ways to write perky, kick-butt or find the right dialogue for scary villain guy? Heck, no. But I don’t get paid unless I write.

It takes three weeks to establish a habit. Therefore, the initial creation of aforementioned RUT begins with SET A DAILY TIME to create the groove. Write at the same time every day for three weeks. Could be for twenty minutes, could be for ten hours&ndashwhatever works for you.

Though I should say RUTS are really hard to create for ten hours. That’d be like waking up one day and saying, it’s time to run a 10k or put a wall around China. Possible, but do you really want to do that? Every day for three weeks?

Step two is to CREATE A DAILY GOAL. I choose a page count goal. I don’t get to nap or get a pedicure until I’ve written seven pages. One book it took me four months to have enough time for that spa visit. By the way, I recommend starting with a small daily goal then adding up. That’s much better than the way I did it of counting how many pages I need to write daily to make my contract. Panic also works wonders as an incentive, but I digress.

Many people set a timer for their daily goal&ndash30 minutes, two hours, whatever. Unfortunately, I’ve found that a timer only times the moments when I sit in my chair. It doesn’t actually encourage written pages because there’s lovely distractions like e-mail and internet blogs. And that leads to the next step.

Step 3 &ndash REMOVE DISTRACTIONS. I write in certain cafes specifically because they don’t have internet. I know people who have taken all games off their computer. Gasp! The alternative to this is to CREATE INCENTIVES. Bribery is alive and well in my rut-creation world. Finish two pages and then get CHOCOLATE! Whatever it takes. You may not be able to fit your hips into the author photo, but heck you’ll have published books that contain a lovely head shot!

Then finally&ndashCREATE A TRIGGER. You know that fabulous moment when the words flow and everything is right with your creative world? Well, me neither, but I swear we can prepare for those moments by creating a unique trigger to reinforce a writing zone. Scent is a powerful tool. During your three weeks, burn a beeswax candle.

Pretty soon, smelling beeswax will leap you into the creative zone. Not a candle fan or afraid you’ll accidentally set a contract on fire? Coffee works fabulous for me. Smell coffee, engage brain. Taste a soy latte&ndashyes, I really do drink those&ndashit’s time for serious writing! This works in the reverse, too. Taste Oreo? Get ready for Gilmore Girls. Feel sexy lingerie…well, you get the idea.

The ugly fact is that a writer’s life must be filled with self-discipline. If you’re short on that, then either give up on having a paying career as a writer or find a way to mire yourself deep in the writing rut. And who knows, sniff some caffeine and you might just end up on the best seller’s list.

Ok, so you’re passionate about your website, you love talking about your subject and you’re excited to share your knowledge, information, and maybe your products and services with the world. But how do you share your enthusiasm with your readers without coming across like you’re making a pitch? How do you sell your products or services without ’selling’ them.

No one likes a sales pitch and as soon as a reader senses they’re being ’sold’ they’re likely to click away from your article. Yet quite often, in order to motivate your reader to be inspired enough to visit your website, you need to give them a bit of a pitch. Here’s how to motivate a reader to action, without selling them.

The best way to motivate your reader is to provide them with a benefit. One of the reasons tips and how to articles are so popular is that they offer a reader an immediate benefit. Ten tips to make more money today. 3 steps to looking ten years younger. The secret to retiring early. These are all examples of article headlines that promise a benefit. When your article offers content that follows through on your promise, readers are going to be hungry for more information. You’ve kept your end of the bargain in your article, they’ll trust you to provide more benefit on your website.

Tap into your readers’ desires. We all desire to be more attractive, wealthier, smarter, happier, more respected etc…when you tap into these desires in your article you immediately have your reader’s attention. How does the content of your article help solve their problems and attain their desires?

For example, if your product is an accounting software program and your article is about how to balance your checkbook, you could tap into your reader’s desire to be wealthier by keeping track of their money or tap into their desire to be respected or smarter by having their finances at the tips of their fingertips. The headline might look something like this, “Ten Tips to Give You Control Over Your Finances, and more money in your wallet.

When you tap into your reader’s desires and offer them a way to attain them, you’re a virtual hero and your readers will be excited to visit your website and learn more from you.

Don’t give your reader the whole story. Write an article about 3 ways to do something and then in the last sentence of your article tell them this isn’t the whole story. Tell your reader if they want to learn more about your article’s topic, they can visit your website and learn the whole story. Note that if you are publishing your article in an article submission site, they may not allow you to plug your website in the body of your article. If this is the case, you can plug it in your author’s resource box. However, if you’re publishing the article in an e-zine or on another website, this is a great way to draw traffic to your site.

Selling in your article copy is as easy as offering valuable content and solving people’s problems. This approach also makes it easy to write copy. Tips and how to articles are amongst the easiest types of article content to write. Get writing!

1. Don’t set yourself a writing routine or stick to it.

2. Always make sure that doing your writing is at the bottom of your list of priorities, and even when you are writing, if something else you have to do that day springs to mind, then go and do that instead.

3. If one of your friends comes round to invite you out for coffee, just go, no matter how busy you are with your writing.

4. Whenever you’re writing, answer the phone every time it rings and answer the door every time someone knocks.

5. Always feel guilty for doing your writing instead of doing what other people want you to do.

6. Don’t read any articles about writing, especially if it’s written by an expert.

7. If anyone ever tells you of a simple and profitable way to make money from your writing, don’t believe them and never try it.

8. Never take a writing course to hone your skills.

9. Don’t visit any writing sites on the internet, and never subscribe to their newsletters.

10. Don’t join any writer’s forums or participate in any online discussions.

11. Don’t get your own website to showcase your writing ability and writing services to the whole world.

12. Do everything you possibly can not to get your name known in the writing world.

13. Keep your work secret. Always put your writing away in a draw when you’ve finished and never show it to anyone &ndash especially editors and publishers.

14. Don’t enter writing competitions.

15. Don’t submit articles to paying websites.

16. Never even think about writing a book.

17. Especially don’t consider writing a profitable e-book.

18. They say you should write at least 5 article proposals or short stories every week. If you do write them, don’t mail them.

19. If a magazine or publisher offers specific guidelines for submissions, don’t follow them.

20. If an editor likes your work and publishes it, never offer to write for them again.

21. If you send in a query to an editor and don’t hear anything for a couple of weeks, start ringing them and don’t stop until they make a decision about whether or not to publish your work.

22. If one publication rejects your work, assume that it’s worthless and unsuitable for every other publication and don’t send it anywhere else.

23. Whenever you receive a rejection letter, take it personally and throw your work in the bin.

24. Never ever consider the possibility that, if your work’s written from a different angle, it could be suitable for another market and sold again.

25. And if all that doesn’t make you fail, you can always just give up writing.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why we are so addicted to magazines? What is so fascinating about it that makes us want to fork out so much more money than we have to for a newspaper, which can be said to serve the same general purpose of providing readers with up to date information? Here, we shall shed some light on this phenomenon.

Firstly, the colorful pages of a magazine strongly appeals to the reader. The excellent color contrast used in the magazine ensures that magazines are extremely easy on the eyes. The use of appropriate bright colors further stimulates the interest and grabs the attention of the reader.

In addition, magazines provide more in-depth coverage of a certain topic, as compared to newspapers. This can be attributed to the fact that newspapers cover news on a daily basis and often on a wide range of topics. Given the constraints posed by tighter datelines, it is often not possible for newspaper journalists to do extensive research on the subject matter. Moreover, the broad based coverage of newspapers also means that there is restricted column space for write-ups pertaining to any single category. In contrast, magazines are often highly focused on a single topic, which enables it to better cater to its targeted customers. With more time available for the conducting of background research, magazines are also able to offer more extensive coverage on topics that are of interest to the reader.

Also, magazine writers often write in a more conversational tone than you would normally find on newspapers. Newspapers are often bounded by its serious facades. On the other hand, magazines generally use more colorful language, which enables it to connect to the readers better. In fact, reading newspapers can be likened to a one-way dialogue, while reading magazines can be seen as a two-way conversation. Naturally, the reader would be more absorbed and engrossed in reading something that he or she can relate to and communicate with. This is the reason why many of us enjoy reading magazines more than newspapers and serves as the cornerstone to the success of magazines.

On top of these, magazines come in more user-friendly sizes, as compared to the traditional bulky newspapers. This is where the magazine again has an advantage. It is designed to fit snugly into your palms so as to facilitate easy flipping and hence reading.

Last but not least, carrying a magazine does not dirty your hands, unlike holding newspapers. Newspapers are generally printed at a very speedy rate with a mineral oil ink. As newsprint is not heated, the ink has little time to dry. Instead, this ink is absorbed by the inner fibers of the sheets of paper and does not evaporate completely. This explains why some of the ink can go onto your hands. Magazine ink does not stay on its pages because it is often completely dried during the print run and is printed on a different type of paper.

The next time you are at the news stand, maybe you will better understand why you are browsing through magazines instead of newspapers!

However, you must know how to link to your website properly to get the full benefits of linking. If you don’t link properly, they could kill your marketing efforts.

Often times, many writers make the same mistakes. They put typically try to send someone to their website directly from their article. In the resource box, they provide a raw link with the URL of the website. Below is one of the biggest mistakes that an author can make:

“If you enjoy shopping find out how you can get cash back from your online shopping. Visit us at .myayopahstore.com Click here now!”

Most often, writers will use the same generic resource box in all or their articles, no matter the topic of their writing. Unfortunately, because they use this resource box, the wrong way, they get very few benefits from their writing efforts.

Writers must understand that in order to rank high in the search engines for a keyword phrase, that the most important factor that will allow them to achieve their goal is having links from external websites using this keyword phrase linking to the writer.

If hundreds of websites say that your site is talking about Shoes, even if the keyword “shoes” is not on your site, search engines will believe the majority.

When a searcher enters “shoes”, search engines will for sure show your website. This has been proven numerous times, you can try it yourself:

Open Google.com and enter the following query: “worst president” without the quotes. Have a look at the #1 website (.whitehouse.gov/president), the text “worst president” doesn’t exist in the page at all!

This tactic is so powerful that if you spent enough efforts into it, you could redirect people looking for Wendy’s to the Mc Donald’s website!

It’s VERY EASY to create useful links. Take the example of someone promoting a website about “shopping online”.

1. The first thing to do, is to use this keyword phrase or some variations of this keyword phrase in the anchor text of your link. If you’re not familiar with HTML, it is done like that: This HTML code creates a link like: Anchor Text

2. Then in the resource box, you have to use as many related terms as you can because search engines, especially Google, take the surrounding text into account.

Take a look at the resource box below for this article. There are several links to the website using related keyword phrases. The surrounding text is also using related terms, even if they are not links, they will help the search engines and tell them what your website is talking about. Creating such resource boxes when you submit your articles to article directories will increase ten folds the benefits of your links.

Another important point is to use different resource boxes and different anchor texts each time you submit a new article. Don’t waste your writing efforts because of a poor linking strategy! Use this tactic right now and be amazed by the results.

After a full day of work, family and life, you fall into bed exhausted. Mentally ticking off your to-do list, you cycle through shopping lists, phone calls, appointments, feeling good about what you have gotten done, until you get to the thing you really want to do. You lay there, bathed in regret &ndash why didn’t you get your writing done today? You vow to do it tomorrow. You will make time for your novel or that article you know would sell. You consider angles, write a few lines in your head, and fired up with enthusiasm for your writing, you fall asleep. The next day continues on much like the one before and you live the life of an unfulfilled writer, all because you do not do the simple work of making time to write.

The task of finding and dedicating time for your writing can be daunting. Many people who want to write identify this as the number one challenge &ndash finding time. How can you give yourself more time when there are a limited number of hours in the day plus housework, family, a job, and other personal or professional obligations to fulfill? You can’t create more hours in your day but you can restructure the ones you have to make more time for your writing. As a writer and a coach for writers, I have identified some of the reasons behind the challenge and offer some ways to get around the lack of time excuse.

Often the “lack of time” is really a mask for writing fears. The work of writing, while satisfying, can be difficult to make time for. We put it off to do the easier things, the things we know how to do. Think about the things you do when you are procrastinating getting to the writing. Do you clean, cook, or exercise? Do you spend your valuable writing time reading or watching TV? The act of writing challenges us to dive into ourselves and come out with something tangible. This is not easy. Notice when you are resisting and when you really do not have time to write.

There are a limited number of hours in the day, but often we give away our passion and power by forgetting that we can always choose what to do with our time. I can hear you saying, “Well, I have my job, and then I have my family, and kids, and all these other obligations.” Your roles become more powerful than you are because you believe you have no choice in the matter. Certainly dinner needs to be served. Certainly you have other commitments that you need to honor. But who decided that your writing wasn’t as important as everything else? What would life be like if your passions had a place in the schedule as well? What difference would it make to the people in your life if you staked a claim for your writing? Hmmm…

With the help of a perspective shift, you may realize that your writing is important, too. Perhaps in your mind it has been important, but you haven’t taken that extra step to actually make space for it. Without space, your writing becomes a burden on your back, something you want to do but can’t. You then become a victim of your life. No fun.

Look at the following ways to restructure your time both internally and externally. Then try out a few of them and see what works for you.

Get in the habit of writing in short bursts of time. Give yourself ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes to write and then learn how to make the most of those bursts of writing. This means sidestepping the wandering or procrastination that distract you from writing.

Wake up early. Set your alarm twenty minutes early and give yourself that time to write. If the thought of getting up earlier makes you cringe, try giving yourself time at the end of the day.

Do you watch TV? Give it up and give yourself more time to write. Many people use TV as a way to zone out and relax at the end of the day, but isn’t there a better way to relax and be entertained? Yes! Use your writing to relax. Which leads me to…

Reframe the way you think about writing. Of course the art of writing is work, but if you think of it as drudgery and something that requires a lot of you, you are missing out on the rejuvenating aspects of the practice.

Whenever you do get a chance to write, take a minute when you are finished and write down three words that describe how you feel after writing. Use these words as a lure to get you to the page when you feel tired or uninspired.

Take part of your lunchtime to write. Or, use your allotted coffee or smoke breaks to slip away from work and scribble a few lines.

The real issue is often time management. We may have enough time but do not use it in a way that honors our priorities. What are your priorities? If you are not showing up for your writing, maybe it isn’t a priority. What else is going on in your life that is more compelling than writing? Take a moment now to jot down where you spend your time. What do you notice about your priorities?

Once you have a clear picture of where your time goes, how do you feel about it? Does the way you spend your time reflect what is important to you? Work and other obligations seem more fixed and indeed they may be for now, but where else can you make decisions to get writing into your life?

Perhaps your topic or project isn’t seductive enough. I have been working on the same project for years now, and there were times when I just wasn’t interested. I gave myself a break, knowing that I would come back to it. Now I have an angle on it that is compelling and fun and I am more eager to make time for it. How can you approach your project in a way that would entice you to make time for it? How do you find a writing project that earns your time and attention?

Play with an entirely new perspective. Let go of the idea of you as a writer. Perhaps now that you are clear about how you spend your time you are happy with it. Maybe you have realized that you really don’t want to make the effort to write at this point after all. How free would you feel if you let yourself off the hook for having the writing urge and not having the time to indulge it?

Try a tool I use with my clients. Imagine giving up writing, and the idea of writing. I call it ‘taking away the bone.’ Think of a dog with a bone. Imagine trying to grab the bone from the dog’s mouth. The dog will hang onto that bone for dear life. If the thought of losing your writing urge makes you want to grab onto it even tighter, it could be a signal that you need to do what it takes to make writing a priority in your life. Commit to yourself as a writer, get clear about your writing projects, and let it happen.

What’s the first step to becoming a writer? You’d think it would be “write”, but it’s not. In speaking to other writers and from what I know of my own journey to becoming a writer, I’ve come to realize that the biggest obstacle for new writers is that they don’t think of themselves as writers. They have trouble developing the belief that they are writers and yet it’s something you have to do. When you haven’t developed that belief, that conviction, it becomes a source of sabotage–you don’t value your work enough to give it the time and the space it needs. How do you come to think of yourself as a writer, especially when you’re not earning a paycheck as a writer? Here are a few tips:

What Happens When You Write?

If you want to be a writer, I’m assuming you feel you have something to say and a strong desire to say it. You may not know how you’re going to say it or in what form (poetry, novel, essay, etc.) but you know something is there. Okay, you pick up your pencil or pen or you sit down to your computer or typewriter. Write something. Whatever you write, just make sure your heart is in it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be neat. It does have to be expressive.

Next, as painful as it may be, you have to show this writing to someone. It can be a friend, it can be a family member. Then, pay attention to what happens. Did the person reading your work cry, laugh or get angry? If so, you did that! It means you can have an effect with your writing. It’s worth something. You have to keep going!

A teenager recently wrote to me concerned because she’s writing fiction and she’s worried her mother will read it and get upset because she thinks it’s stuff the teenager really did. On the one hand, that is a bummer to have to explain yourself to your mother, but on the other hand–wow, that means the young lady’s work is believeable and effective. That kind of feedback is hard to ignore. It’s powerful motivation to keep you going–if you take the time to notice and honor that it’s happening. I once had a writer say to me, “I don’t know if my stuff is any good. I just know that when people read it, they cry.” I told her you can’t get a message any clearer than that kind of response. Now she just has to listen to it.

Cultivate Silence

If you’re having trouble thinking about what it is you have to say, it may help you to spend some time each day in silence. Some writers pray. Some meditate. The idea is to get used to clearing your brain space and tuning in to your inner voice. You’ll also be more aware of those little scraps of possibility floating around in your head that can later grow into big ideas.

What Do You Want to Write? Experiment!

It’s okay if you don’t know what you want to write about. It may take a long time journaling for you to see what keeps coming up for you. And it may take longer to find the form that fits you best. I went from poetry to essays to long-form letter writing before I settled on fiction. It took me years to do that. It doesn’t mean I won’t do anything else in those genres, but what I’m doing right now just fits. I encourage you to experiment until you find the form that suits your writing best.

Continually Remind Yourself You Are a Writer

As you develop your belief that you’re a writer, it’s helpful to set up reminders that will jog you back to that brain space that you need to be in to write. When you sit down to write it’s easy to get distracted and starting thinking about doing laundry or what’s for dinner. You’ll want to have something either on your desk or on the wall in front of you that reminds you to get back to work and that you are a writer.

It might be your list of values that remind you that writing is a part of who you are. It may be simple words such as CREATE or INSPIRE. Isabel Allende, who writes beautiful, historical novels will sit in her office with photos around her, old photos of people who essentially represent her characters so she’s surrounded by them. That puts her back into the brain space of her book because she is sitting in their world; these people are all around her.

What world do you need to be in? The journey you take to get there will be one of many you’ll take as a writer. I hope these ideas will help you take those first steps. What you write–and where you go from here–is entirely up to you. Bon Voyage.