Free advice and tips for authors and creative content writers, although anyone with a website or a blog would probably benefit from some of these articles.
Have you read my “about me” page? It’s probably not what you expected right? But analytics have proven that it the most often shared and visited page on my website. More than books, more than the blog, people are sharing the link to my bio! So how do you write an online bio that gets attention, and more importantly, gets people sharing?
3 Tips for writing an AMAZING online bio
Be yourself. Let your real voice shine. It’s your originality that will attract new readers and make you unforgettable. Go read my About Me page again. I revealed that I was a writer, but I did it in my own snarky way, with jokes about my age and an odd assortment of pictures.
Be innovative. If your bio looks just like a template that you just filled in the blanks for, it’s not going to inspire anyone. Find an innovative way to make yourself stand out. What is something you could add that makes people look twice? In example, the random facts section of my bio.
Be comprehensive. A good place to start is imagining how your best friend might describe you in a job interview. They might talk about your age, your skills, your origins, your hobbies, whether or not you enjoy traveling for work, those types of things are interesting to readers too!
Whatever you do, don’t just copy and paste a generic page and fill in the blanks. Push yourself a little bit and come up with a page that makes readers want to come back and read it again! If you’re just copying someone else, it won’t come across as genuine and it could hurt your relationship with your readers.
Bonus Tip: Have fun! If you have fun writing the page, chances are your readers will have fun reading it.
When you’re first starting out on Instagram, the whole platform can appear a bit daunting. You post a few pictures and wait around for those likes to show up, but what if they don’t? What do you do next? How do you find followers and increase their engagement with your posts? Never fear, my friend, let me show you five easy steps to start building up your Instagram following!
Celeste Hall on Instagram
How to Grow Your Followers on Instagram in Five Easy Steps
Step 1: Your Bio
Instagram only gives you three lines for your bio, so you need to make them count.
Use an emoji for each line, it can help really help you stand out.
You only get one link, so use it wisely. A great solution is to use linktr.ee or to link directly to a mobile friendly page where fans can find you wherever they congregate.
Step 2: Find Your Fan Base
No matter what your job or hobbies might be, there are probably people on Instagram with the same interests.
The easiest way to build your fan base is to search out the top 10 to 20 Instagram accounts in your niche and follow them.
Top accounts might not have a million followers, but the followers they have are posting comments and engaging with the creator. Those are the accounts you want to follow.
Look at what they’re posting and what fans are eagerly responding to.
Make sure you start commenting and actively participating in their comments and if your contributions are noteworthy, their fans will head over to your profile to check you out. This is your chance to shine!
Step 3: Create Quality Content
Use the ideas you’ve gained from following top creators to turn your posts into conversation starters that new fans will want to respond to.
Try to post daily, but if you can only post once a week, start with posting on Wednesdays. Demographics show that Wednesday at 11am is when Instagram is the most active, but this is a very generalized statistic. Once you have a steady flow of viewers you can check your insights and see which days you get the largest response from your target fan base.
Keep a folder on your desktop or a note on your phone and write down ideas for future posts when you run across something that you think your followers might appreciate.
Step 4: Hashtags are Still Important
The algorithm has advanced. It can now read your post or listen to your video and pull out the keywords to determine what the post is really about. For this reason, you need to be sure that your hashtags match your content so you don’t appear “spammy”.
Prioritize relevant keywords in your texts and comments which relate to your hashtags.
Step 5: Don’t Forget the Reels
After the explosion of TikTok, Instagram has started giving more weight to reels. You absolutely need to be uploading reels whenever you can.
Upload unique reels directly to Instagram, don’t try to share from your TikTok or Facebook page. Instagram wants unique content; it doesn’t want to promote competitors.
That’s it! As you gain likes and comments, Instagram will promote you more and you’ll gain more and more fans. Now get out there and start building your empire!
Mastering the art of email marketing might sound like an impossible task, but it doesn’t have to be.
If you’ve been online for any amount of time, you’ve probably found yourself signed in to at least one email list. You might not even remember how you managed to opt into that list, but the emails started arriving on a regular schedule and quickly filled up your inbox.
You know how frustrating it can be to get swamped by unwanted emails.
Don’t do that to your followers.
Now, how do you create an email list that people actually WANT to sign up for and read? That’s what I’m going to teach you here.
Mastering the Art of Email Marketing
There are a lot of ways to encourage your followers to sign up for your email list.
You could add an opt-in form on your contact page. Collect emails at an event. Add a signup button to your social media page. Build a personalized page on your website explaining the benefits of signing up with a form to fill out if they agree. And so many more ways.
The most important first step, is that they chose to sign up. Don’t ever send unsolicited emails or you may quickly find yourself automatically dropped into the spam folder and blocked from future contact.
Whatever method you use, the key to successful email marketing is to create emails that your followers want to open and read.
Sent With Love
The first thing you need to focus on is who your target audience is.
Why did they sign up for your email? What problem can you solve for them?
If you’re a writer, they may want to know when your next book is going to be released or what you are currently working on. That’s great! But how do you keep their interest up if your next book isn’t coming out until next year? What if you’re taking a brief hiatus from writing? You don’t want them to move on to the next author and forget about you, right?
It’s okay, you can still provide them with quality entertainment in the meantime. You can keep their interest and keep their attention, even without having an immediate solution to their problem, and here’s how.
Just like Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, email is another form of a conversation you can have with your fans.
Something I’ve learned from having a 9 year old in the house, is that people love to peek into the private lives of other people. They want to know what’s going on behind doors. Reality TV shows are ridiculously popular because people are naturally curious about what other people are doing.
So, leverage this in your emails.
Share with them a story from your past and how it led you to become a writer.
Share how you almost lost your home because the books didn’t just fly off the shelf and you were terrified that you’d never make it.
Share how excited you were when that first book sold and how you celebrated that achievement.
You’re a writer, write them a story.
Now the best emails will be a sequence of events which eventually come to a resolution, being the publication of the promised book. So if you can reference the book in your emails each time, it will keep that book fresh on their minds.
For example:
The first email could be about the events or experiences which first inspired you to write the book.
The second email could be about the events or experiences which inspired the characters in the book.
The third email might be a story about your car being repossessed but by golly the characters in your book just had a huge breakthrough and they might just find the Jewel of the Nile this time!
The fourth email might be a short story about a funny dream you had about the characters and how you might try to work it into the book.
The fifth email might be funny story about what you did for you birthday, Christmas, or Thanksgiving, with a snippet from your book as a sneak peak gift for your readers.
There are endless possibilities, but the most important thing you can do is make every email an engaging story of its own. Readers love to read, so turn your emails into short serial stories they can read about you and your work.
The keyword there is short. Don’t send novel length emails. Just short moments of humor and insights to touch base with them. Something short and sweet that you might laugh at with a friend over a quick telephone call.
Keep your readers engaged doing what they love most, reading quality stories.
Answer back when you can. Or offer further details and discussion on your blog, or your social platforms.
If they love your voice and you do your job well, they will come back again and again for another funny story and a peak into your life.
And when your book comes out, they’ll already be in love with your writing style, so of course they’ll be eager to buy it!
Imposter syndrome isn’t something your family doctor can cure. It is a psychological phenomenon in which a person doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments. They may even have a fear of being exposed as a fraud. It happens to self-published authors all the time and has even shut done careers which might have achieved golden futures.
If you find yourself asking, “What gives me a right to call myself a writer?” or “Why would anyone buy my books, I’m a nobody!”, you’re probably suffering from a touch of imposter syndrome. The truth is, every famous artist had to start at the beginning, just like you. You’ll never know how great you might be if you don’t try.
Help For Imposter Syndrome
5 Helpful Facts About Imposter Syndrome
You Are Worthy
One of the best ways to overcome imposter syndrome is to recognize why you’re feeling that way. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Finishing a book takes hours, weeks, months, and even years of hard work! If you’re a copywriter or a content marketer, you’ve put hours into researching, struggling over the headline and hooks. Every word that goes onto the page is sweated over, reconsidered, checked for spelling, grammar, and understanding. Writing is hard. It takes time. If you’ve put time and effort into your writing, you deserve to be recognized for that work.
We All Struggle Sometimes
If you struggle to see your own value, talking about it can help. Every new author I’ve talked to has gone through a bout of Imposter Syndrome from time to time. None of us are immune and it isn’t a condition restricted to authors. Talking about it can help, as Neil Gaiman (author of The Sandman and American Gods) confirms when he wrote:
“And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.”
You Deserve Success
When we’re struggling with imposter syndrome, we have a tendency to brush off our successes. It’s important for you to accept positive feedback and see yourself in a more positive light. Accomplishments don’t have to feel big to have a big impact on your view of yourself. Reward yourself for the little things too. Give yourself a mental pat on the back for publishing your paper, your book, or your most recent article, even if nobody is reading it. Then start working on the next one!
Nobody is Perfect
Don’t lower your standards, but make sure that you aren’t setting the bar so high that you can’t reach it. Do the best that you can do and then do it some more. Keep an open mind, and keep learning along the way, and you will ultimately be moving toward the success that you’re seeking.
We All Make Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, it’s important to be gentle with yourself, especially as a writer. I have opened up books belonging to the top selling authors on the market and found typos. It happens to everyone! Forgive yourself for mistakes. Make those little changes along the way and just keep moving forward. Don’t let a bad review or a mistake stop your progress.
If your 9 to 5 job is anything like mine, it can be quite stressful at times, but even if you’re a full-time writer you may occasionally find yourself overwhelmed by all the tasks on your plate. With all the writing, editing, social content creation, marketing, ledger keeping, production issues regarding covers, audio, and so forth, there sometimes aren’t enough hours in the day.
Keep Calm and Keep Writing
5 Great Ways to Keep Calm and Keep Writing
Keep Your Eyes on the Finish Line Focus on the goal and just work on one thing at a time to reach that goal. Multitasking is a great skill to have, but there are times when you need to chop out all distractions and focus on your deadlines. Put away all the other manuscripts, turn off the ringer on your phone, lock yourself in your office and focus on that one thing that must be done right now.
Keep Breathing Slow, deep breathing improves oxygen saturation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces anxiety. If you start to feel overwhelmed, take a minute to close your eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths. Slowly breathe in through your nose for the count of four, feeling your lungs and chest expand. Then exhale out your nose for another slow count of four.
Keep Laughing They say that laughter is the best medicine. Studies have shown that laughter reduces the amount of stress hormones in your body and increases the feel-good endorphins. Laughter has also been proven to connect people. If you’re having a stressful day at work, sharing a funny meme or story might help reduce that stress a little. For writers, reading a funny story might work. If you’re feeling especially creative, try working a funny moment into your manuscript so you can offer your reader a good laugh too!
Keep Realistic Expectations Set realistic expectations for yourself. Be aware of how much you are actually capable of writing within any given time and don’t expect to best those records. Also, be aware of writer’s block and give yourself some slack if you’re having difficulty coming up with the right words. If you often struggle with writer’s block, give yourself extra time to reach your goals. The important thing is to own your truth and not expect more than you know you can realistically produce.
Keep Communications Open (talk and listen) Research shows that a quick ten-minute chat on a light-hearted or social topic can boost executive function, the type of mental agility which helps us solve problems. A great work strategy might be to take a quick break once an hour to answer a quick chat or share a joke with a friend. Just make sure that you keep these breaks short and sweet, so you don’t cut into your deadline goals and cause yourself additional stress.
Do you want to know how to slide into their DMs without being creepy? With how much time I’ve been spending on TikTok lately, this topic was bound to come up sooner or later! All my spicy content creator friends will agree that we have probably seen or heard it all when it comes to creepy DMs that fly in out of the blue. For whatever reason, there are always a few fans who think that spicy content creators would appreciate unrequested, not-safe-for-work photographs or comments. Please don’t be one of those people!
Don’t Be Creepy!
How To Slide Into Their DMs Without Being Creepy
Keep it Simple
Realize that we are probably answering your DMs during a quick break or down time between projects. Most content creators work ten to twelve hours a day, including weekends, to keep up with all the demands on our time. We probably don’t have time to read a twenty-page declaration of your love. Keep it short, sweet, and safe for work! You can mention similar interests based on their recent post on social media or their website bio. Maybe ask a question or share a thought about something they’ve writing.
Be Thoughtful
The best way to keep a conversation going is to talk about interests you might have in common but keep this to topics that might come up in a job interview. For example, if you both love reading spicy romance novels, do NOT go asking them about their favorite positions, or anything else that might be inappropriate for a job interview. Instead, ask them who their favorite authors are. Or something which might gain a few laughs, like whether they prefer covers that have the top portion of the head chopped off so you can imagine what they hero or heroine looks like. This is a real thing! Go look at some covers and see what I mean! Topics like this can inspire some fun conversations. These are the types of conversations that create friendships which can later become something more.
Use Spellcheck
If you frequently have people on Facebook correcting your grammar or spelling, it would probably help if you typed everything out in a word document first and checked it for grammar or spelling errors. This is especially true of the person you’re talking to is an author or content creator. Most of us have years of training in reading, writing, and editing English. There are people out there who are physically or mentally triggered by a text or DM that is riddled with errors.
Be Available
When you reach out to anyone online, whether it is through a dating app, social media, or their personal website or blog, you are stepping up for more than just a conversation. You have probably spent at least a few minutes, hours, or even days researching them to see if they’re someone you’d like to have a conversation with. Then, once you’ve sent that DM, you’re giving that person an opportunity to spend at least an equal amount of time researching if you’re someone they would like to talk to. This means you need to give them something to research. If you don’t have a completed profile, I can almost guarantee that you’ll never get a response. A profile with just a picture and a name is the equivalent of a face leering at us from a windowless van. To put it bluntly, you look like you are hiding something. The more you appear to be hiding, the more you’ll look like you might kidnap and “unalive” someone if they get too close. Making yourself more available online can be hard, but if you want to connect with people, you’ll have to try.
A Blank Profile Page = Creepy White Van Vibes What are you hiding???
Finally, Be Respectful
Always, always, always treat people with respect and kindness. Your life isn’t all sunshine and happiness, and neither is theirs. They might be going through some things and just not have time or the emotional strength to answer back to every message they get. We never really know what’s going on in someone else’s life, just like they don’t know what’s going on in your life. So be kind and be respectful. If they don’t follow you back, that’s their choice. Don’t start spamming messages to change their mind or you’re guaranteed to get blocked and probably reported. The same is true if they don’t respond to messages. If you really want to show your support, make thoughtful comments on their posts and just be available for a later conversation. Once they see that you’re respectful and friendly, they may start replying to your comments and future DMs. If they don’t, that’s okay too, you’re learning skills that will make you more valuable to the next person.
Content writing can be challenging, but there are steps you can take to stand out among the hundreds, if not thousands of writers entering the market every year. I was browsing through Facebook today and saw an advertisement pop up for a software application that was being marketed as a one-stop solution for content writing. Curious, I stopped to read the ad and then skimmed through some of the comments underneath. Within moments I was laughing at the witty responses from actual content writers responding to this perceived challenger in their industry. The truth is, no piece of software can cheat the system. You can’t have a meaningful conversation with a machine that has no feelings and no empathy for your situation. A good content writer will always win. So how do you become a good content writer? Well, following the steps below is a good place to start!
Bots make terrible content writers
6 Important Steps for Better Content Writing
1 Keep Reading
The best teacher is experience, right? Before we ever become writers, we are first readers. We read what others have written and then we write our own stories. If you want to write quality content, you need to be out there reading quality content. Find other writers in your niche and read what they’re writing about. A quick search of your field in Google should offer up hundreds if not thousands of opportunities for you to see quality content writing in action. Save snippets of your favorite articles for later, especially the headlines that made you want to click and read more. What are they doing that you found so appealing? Pay attention to their voice and style, how it speaks to you or to a problem you have that they might solve. Study their beginning stories and their closing paragraphs.
2 Take Notes
When we’re writing articles, we will generally have a specific topic that we’re writing about. Depending on your audience, this might be something extremely broad, like ‘How to Publish a Book’. Or it might be something extremely niche, like ‘What to do if your cat chewed off that tiny red mouse button in the center of your old Dell Laptop computer’. One way to approach each project, is to do a little research. Let the internet be your best friend. Do some searches, make some notes. Find out which keywords bring up the best information and which ones are the most searched for. Jot down references and any quotes from industry leaders that you’d like to use. Make a list of things you’d like to cover. Once you’ve got material to work with, you can go back through and sort it into easily consumable bites for your readers.
3 Learn Your Keywords
These days, content marketing is largely online. Yes, we may still be asked to create mailers or flyers to reach low- tech or no-tech communities, but smart phones have brought most of today’s shoppers onto the internet. For that reason, every writer should learn at least the basics of search engine optimization (SEO), a term to describe how well Google can find your page or article online. There are new pages and articles being created every day, so if you want yours to be found, then keywords are important. Learn the niche keywords for your industry and your article within that industry. Think of how you do a search on the internet. You search for “blue dog collar” or “wireless mouse and keyboard set”. These are keyword phrases. Use targeted keywords in the body of your text and in the header, whenever possible. If you’re writing articles for someone else, be sure they have a list of those keyword phrases so they can include them in their site’s meta data.
4 Attention Grabbing Headlines
Just like reading can make you a better writer, paying attention to what makes you stop and read articles can teach you how to right good headlines. When someone types their keyword search into Google, a list of pages and articles will show up. If you want people to find you in that list, then your title needs to stand out and grab their attention. Make sure it targets the exact way that you can solve their problem. For example: “How I made $139,233 writing 1 article each day for 1 year”. Be specific. Target what they’re looking for and how you can solve their problem.
5. Your First Paragraph Counts
Use your keywords and make that first paragraph count. Give them a reason to keep reading. Using the headline from above, you could continue with something like, “In 2018 I was a dead broke author on the verge of becoming homeless. After taking a content marketing course and learning the secrets I’ve listed below, I managed to make $81,612 with my website in the first three months, which snowballed into an income that has saved my home and allowed me to finally feel secure in my career choice.” Obviously, you’ll want to write a paragraph that targets your audience and your industry, this is just an example. Show them how you can help them and why they should keep reading your article. In most cases, you have less than 10 seconds to gain their attention and make them want to read more, so make this first paragraph count.
6 Be Honest and Be Yourself
This could be broken down into two steps, but they are both pretty much the same thing. You need to be your true self. Be honest about who you are. Show empathy for their situation and that you want to help, but don’t mislead them. If you’ve got a sense of humor, let it shine. Be human. Share a little of your back story and your reason for wanting to share this information. Go back and read that first paragraph again and see how it incorporated a reflection of where the author was coming from. Let your unique voice and experiences help readers relate to you as a writer so they don’t feel like they’re just reading something that has been written by a robot. If you’re writing about something that you don’t have a personal relationship to, you can still create an emotional response by infusing humor and talking to the readers as you would talk to a close friend. Keep the tone inviting, warm, and open for further conversation.
Writing restaurant reviews can be fun! Have you discovered the most amazing new restaurant and want to leave them an equally amazing review? Maybe you’re traveling and you want to help your fellow travelers discover that charming little gem of a diner you happened to stumble across. There are a lot of reasons you might want to leave a review, but it won’t help anyone if it doesn’t grab attention and get bumped up by people who appreciate your suggestion.
Writing Restaurant Reviews
My 3 Best Tips for Writing Restaurant Reviews
1. Give Them a Good Appetizer
Let your readers know right away if the review will be worth reading. Think of one descriptive word which might encompass your entire visit. Something like “amazing” might be a little too vague, but “delicious!” or “authentic!” are great words. Now use that word to write your title, or the first line of your review if the review site doesn’t support titles. “Wow! This is real authentic Japanese ramen!”
2. Give Them a Little Background
In one or two lines, give them a little background on how you ended up in this restaurant. You might want to include whether you were in a group or on a date with your special person or even what time of day or night you visited. “My boyfriend and I just got in from a long flight and didn’t know the area very well. This place was open late, so we didn’t have high expectations, but boy were we surprised!”
3. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Here’s where you will describe the food, the service, and the atmosphere or feel of the place. Make sure you’re not just saying that the food was great, but that you describe why. Give an example of why the service was good or bad. Describe notable things about the decoration or the atmosphere inside. “I had the Shoyu Ramen, and it came in a large bowl, absolutely loaded with toppings. The broth was richly seasoned, the meat was tender and delicious, and the noodles were perfectly cooked, not mushy or clumped together. The waitress was so sweet and kept our glasses full the entire meal, we never had to ask for anything. I loved the traditional Japanese décor and the warm, welcoming ‘irasshaimase!’ as we entered. This was such a memorable experience. I highly recommend you visit!”
The goal is to keep the review brief but still cover all the important details in a way that people can relate to. The meat was tender, not chewy. The noodles were cooked well, not mushy. The waitress was attentive. Think of things that matter to you when you’re dining out and that will give you an idea of what people want to know, but don’t get too longwinded because nobody has time to read an entire novel of a review when they’re hungry.
Bonus Tips:
Take pictures! Almost everyone has a camera on their phone now. Take a few snapshots of your meals and the restaurant.
The best Japanese Ramen Shop I’ve ever visited!
Also, be fair, we’ve all had to suffer through that new waitress who is just learning the job and bungles up the drink order. You can mention that the waitress mixed up your drink order but remember that by the time your review is read, she will likely have skilled up. Don’t let her mistake influence what you tell others, they may get a totally different version of her.
Writing something like, “Worst Restaurant Ever” might make you feel a little better in the moment, but it doesn’t offer anyone any insight as to why. It really speaks more about your temper than it does the restaurant. If you need to leave a bad review warning people off, give your reasons why. If you want an example, ask me about a restaurant I visited in Nazca, Peru and the wretched days which followed. 🤢
Lastly, check your spelling and grammar! If you’re in doubt, copy and paste the whole review into a Word doc and run an editing check on it. If your review is full of spelling or grammatical errors, people might skip past your reviews or misunderstand it completely.
As a writer, it’s important to work smarter and not harder. Creating entire worlds is hard enough, so here are 5 great time management tips for writers!
As a writer you could easily spend every waking moment trying to move your career forward. You could spend hours writing, editing, tearing your hair out over the perfect submission letter, or working on any one of million other things piling up on your desk right now.
Two old clocks and a cuckoo
Here are 5 time management tips for Writers!
Discover when you are the most productive.
When do you feel like your physical and mental energy levels are at their highest? Do you feel wide awake in the morning, but start to drag around noon? Do you feel sluggish during the day, but get a fresh burst of energy in the evening? I’ve noticed that my favorite time of day is early in the morning before my daughter wakes up for school. I love waking up before the sun and focusing my full attention to the project without distractions.
Learn how to prioritize into high-value and low-value tasks.
A high-value task for a writer might be sitting down and churning out at least fifteen minutes a day of writing. Maybe that’s a paragraph. Maybe that’s a page. If you have deadlines, you’ll have to determine how much writing a day is necessary to meet that deadline and then you must sit down and actually do it. Low-value tasks for a writer might include responding to emails or social media comments, posting content to promote published books, or just doing research on locations for world creation. Once you have your priorities, you can plan your high-value tasks for your most productive, high-energy hours and the low-value tasks for your sluggish hours.
Plan how your ideal workday would look.
If you’re anything like me, you probably collect blank notebooks in drawers, cupboards, and stacked haphazardly on your desk. Well, here’s your chance to use one! Sit down on work out a schedule for your high-value tasks, low-value tasks, meals, breaks, and whatever else you might need to do on the daily. The goal is to visualize your time and discover any obstacles, such as those thirty minutes you might be spending in the school pick-up lane each day.
Create a daily to do list or plan.
Use what you’ve learned from step three to create your daily to-do list. You can set yourself up for success by identifying your most important tasks and getting them done during your high-energy times and pushing off the low-value tasks to periods of time when you’re not able to devote your full attention to the work. It can be motivating to check items off your list and see yourself accomplishing those daily tasks. You may find additional things that need to be done and add them to your list along the way. Keeping your list updated will help you create a better schedule over time.
Give yourself a break!
Studies have shown that we need to take breaks, especially after periods of deep concentration or focus. A great way to break up your day would be to set aside no more than 60-90 minutes for high-value tasks, with at least 10 to 15-minute breaks in between for snacking, walking, or just watering your houseplants. Set yourself a timer and write for an hour each day, then give yourself a break and maybe work on a quick low-value task before going back to writing again!
Do you have some time management tips that you think might help other authors? Please share them in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
Writer’s block can feel like monumental problem when you’ve got it. It helps to know that it is one of the most common afflictions writers have struggled over throughout history. Songwriters, composers, and other artistic types are not immune either. There is a great debate on what causes writer’s block, but physical illness, depression, a rocky relationship, and financial stress might have a hand in it. In theory, anything that stresses your mind, could stall your creativity. The good news is that we can beat writer’s block if we can remove the stress or manage our response to that stress.
Tips to Beat Writer’s Block
Here are my Top 3 Tips to Beat Writer’s Block
Find Your Moment of Zen
Cutting out distractions can help you get in the zone. If there is a time of day when you’re less likely to be disturbed, set that aside for writing. It helps if this time is during a period in which you have high energy and not after you’ve worked all day. For me, this is early in the mornings before anyone else is awake. My mind is rested and it’s quiet in my office. Find your moment of Zen.
Daydreamers Welcome
If you’re siting in front of a white screen and can’t find the right words, close your eyes. Think about what first inspired you to write the story. The characters, or the plot, or whatever it was. Now daydream yourself into that storyline. Imagine how you would respond to the situation. Let the scene play out for a bit so you can see the larger picture and get a better feel for the characters or the environment, then describe the experience in story form. When I was studying the strategy of content marketing, we learned to use something similar to understand how customers view our content. So, take a look at things from another point of view and see if that helps to open up your block.
Start with the Basics
If you’re struggling with how to start the story, or how to get the characters from point A to point B, take a deep breath and simplify the situation. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Start with a basic outline. Character is unhappy in this situation. She runs away. She meets a dog. They travel together. They are chased by bad guys. And so forth. Start writing down a possible pathway for your story to flow and then add more too it as the creative juices start flowing.
Whatever you do, make sure that you keep trying. Keep giving yourself time to work and think and plan out your story, because nobody ever beat their writer’s block by avoiding their work. Work for an hour, up to 90 minutes at a time, then take a fifteen-minute break and go for a walk to get your blood pumping and clear your thoughts. Then come back and work for another hour, writing outlines or bullet points, or whatever method you use to keep pushing forward. Write a description of the character. Write a description of the environment. Just keep forward momentum and you’ll eventually break through that block. Good luck! I know you can do it!
