Finding your own creative process

It has taken me some years and a lot of tweaking to work out my own ‘creative’ process when it comes to writing. Tweaking seems to be, rather unfortunately, a big part of it. Depending on what I’m writing – poetry, a novel or the all-important paid stuff like online copywriting, the process seems to change, sometimes daily.

Finding the right ‘writing’ process for your own work is often trial and error and from reading blogs, forums, interviews and books, it seems that there are probably as many writing processes as there are writers. I also find that reading these helps massively when it comes to new ways of working.

Online copywriting in particular, where deadlines come rather soon than you would sometimes like, needs a lot of preparation on the part of the writer – being able to ‘hit the ground running’ helps. Whatever your writing process, it can be worth considering that there is less writing to writing than you might imagine.

Wasting time

The temptation can be, when facing a short deadline and a lot of work, to get to the computer and start writing. That is, after all, what you are being paid for. But research and, well, “thinking time” can be far more important.

A couple of weeks ago I spent the best part of a day mooching around in front of the computer, reading up on a subject I didn’t know enough about to produce the 10 articles I had due in the following couple of days. I felt hugely guilty about this, for most of the day, and ended up leaving the office to start on household chores with a sense that I had achieved very little indeed. Despite my best intentions, I did pretty much the same the following day. Finding myself now lacking much writing time, I had to admit I felt that rising sense of panic that many writers who spend a lot of time watching deadlines rushing towards them at a terrifying speed, will well understand. However, despite my ‘wasted’ browsing time, I found the articles slipping effortlessly onto the paper –well the screen. I worked out that I’d spent 90% of my time researching and 10% writing.

Sleep on it

The rest of that week was an easy one, working on subjects I knew enough about to make a good start on quickly and easily. However, the first part of the week got me thinking about how to approach more ‘difficult’ commissions. In the past I’ve certainly been over-keen to get on with the writing, and perhaps not put as much research or simple thinking time into them.

Perhaps the worst mistake I’ve made is to write and research at the same time – a waste of time really as you often end up coming up with a completely new angle and having to scrap half the work you’ve already completed. Research time, browsing, reading and getting your head round a subject – even a familiar one – is always time well spent. If you’ve the time to sleep on the research as well, all the better, it’s surprising the way ideas will form themselves overnight – taking a lot of the hard brain work out of a project!

Trial and error

Of course, this is not the only way to approach writing, most of us find our own best methods through trial and error and everyone has their own methods, but our brains are good at soaking up information and coming up with the ideas later. If you are new to online writing, especially copywriting, and haven’t tried this method – give it a go and you may be surprised at just how much more efficient and productive it can be. Happy writing!

Image: the trial

by Courtney Ramirez

Successful content writing is about two things – using the right keywords and creating engaging content. And the second part is where research can really stump you. There are dozens of ways to find the right keywords and in many cases your client is providing them. But where do you go to find great research to create engaging, compelling and (most importantly) accurate content?

The truth is – it can be hard. With websites like ehow.com and other content farms paying writers a pittance to produce keyword rich content, even the simplest of keyword searches can produce poorly written, barely researched and inaccurate information. It’s gotten to the point where the first page of Google is completely unreliable for some keyword terms.

In addition, it can often be hard to get information from the right perspective that fits your client’s needs and individual perspective. Take global warming for instance. If you’re working on an article from a client that is coming from a conservative point of view, how are you going to find the right resources that support that view?

Fortunately, there’s a new search engine that has solved both of these problems for me, and I hope you get a lot of mileage out of it as well. It’s called Blekko.com and despite the funny name (it reminds me of trying to give my kids medicine) it has some great features that make it an excellent research tool for writers who care about accuracy and perspective.

Blekko.com is good for search for two specific reasons. First, it is being heralded as the world’s first “spam free” search engine. The team at Blekko actively works to eliminate spam from their results. In fact, they have completely banned a list of 20 sites from their search engine results that are considered to be content farms (see the list). This reduces my search time significantly because I don’t have to wade through dozens of results from AnswerBag and other similar sites. If you see a site in the listing that isn’t appropriate, you can click the “spam” link and it will be removed from your personal search results.

On top of this, Blekko categorizes results with what it calls “slashtags” – these take a little getting used to but are really helpful when you get the hang of it. A slashtag is a way of classifying information within the search. So for our “global warming” search, we’d use “global warming/conservative” and Blekko pulls up a list of results from websites with a conservative point of view. The same goes for /liberal or /ecofriendly.

Slashtags can also help you organize information by date, which is critical if your content is related to a specific event and you need to get the latest. Other slashtags can be used to narrow down your results to specific websites (like /youtube if you want to see videos on the topic).

Finally, Blekko makes search easier for me because I can create a customized list of my own slashtags with websites and resources that I prefer to use. While I haven’t used this feature as much, I look forward to exploring it more.

There’s a lot of bad content online – so it’s important to choose your sources wisely for creating the original and engaging content that your clients are looking for. Give Blekko a try and it might make your writing process easier. Be sure to watch the intro video and you’ll be using slashtags like a pro in no time.

Courtney Ramirez is owner and head copywriter at Six Degrees Content, where she blogs about content marketing and connecting with search engines and readers. Follow her on Twitter @CourtneyRamirez or @6DegreesContent.

Have you turned into an Einstein since you've been writing?

Last week, I started my post by saying that I love both words and knowledge, before going on to talk about my adoration for certain words.

Since that post, I’ve been thinking about the knowledge part in more detail.

I’m fairly intelligent.  I always performed well at school, like to consider myself to be relatively worldly wise and enjoy being able to hold a conversation with most people on at least some topic of mutual interest, whether that’s sport or politics.

Since I started writing for a living a few years ago, however, I’ve found that not only has my love for knowledge and learning increased substantially, but my actual knowledge has grown tremendously.

Something that I consider to be a positive by-product of the writing process, it dawned on my a while ago that due to the different clients I’ve worked with, I’ve gained somewhat of a vast knowledge of a number of different topics.

Putting my primary writing knowledge and experience to one side, a few years ago I couldn’t tell you the first thing about home swimming pools – today I could tell you how to build one yourself, as well as what you needed to do to maintain it regularly.

I also feel like I’ve been on a crash course on Forex.  Before I was a writer, I tried to get into it, but it all seemed a little over my head.  As soon as I started working with a client who wanted some specific Forex articles, boom, within a matter of weeks I could have held my own easily on any number of Forex conversations.

When I was first starting out as a writer, I used to take on whatever work I could get, irrelevant of the topics.  It did take its time, as the research involved often meant I’d have to spend just as long trawling the internet for information as I did writing the piece, but it was fun.

I’ve tended to stick to what I know lately – small businesses and online development, primarily – but I do have one client who provides the opportunity to work on an array of different topics and it’s this variety that I love.

A lot of my work skills have come from my 9 to 5, but I’ve gained a lot from being a freelance writer – other than the continual development of my writing – most notably an increased adoration for knowledge, including a will and determination to constantly want to increase my understanding of a variety of different topics.

Some writers say it’s better to specialise in one or two areas, focusing your work around what you know, whilst others argue the flip-side, asking just why someone should stick to where their experience is –  if they feel confident they can write on a topic after some research, why not go for it?

In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure which side of the fence I sit on.  I just know that I love writing about small business and how to develop them, but my love for expanding my knowledge will always be there and only seems to be getting stronger.

As a writer, putting your writing skills to one side, what have you gained from writing?  Do you feel you have an understanding of an array of different topics?  Do you enjoy working with new clients who have varied topics to increase your knowledge or do you find it a chore, preferring to stick to what you know?

Image:  Père Ubu (Flickr)

Google Tools for Writers

I sing the praises of Google’s Google Alerts tool regularly. It definitely makes my job as a freelance writer and a professional easier.

What is it? Google will let Google account holders set up an instant or periodic notification system that tells you via email about certain keywords appearing online with links.

Here’s how I use it in my writing career:

Tracking a Name

By setting a Google Alert for a name, particularly my name, I can see when websites mention that name or when articles get indexed.

My Websites

I have set an alert for some of my more focused website addresses. This way, I can see references to the site on other pages as well as see when I’m getting indexed and this helps me track my search engine rankings. I find this much faster than combing through my site statistics.  (I still do that but this way I see quick alerts daily or even instantly)

Writing Job Alerts

If I want to know about newly listed writing jobs in general or about specific types of writing jobs, I can set an alert for Google to tell me about new listings.  This could help me uncover opportunities pretty quickly and delivers job postings to my email box rather than my having to dig for them through job boards.

Writing Project Research

I set alerts for topics and keyword phrases that I have regular assignments for.  With many clients in different industries who rely on me to write with authority and knowledge about their industry, Google Alerts helps me do that in a way that saves me on research time. I can set file folders up in Gmail to save information to read later and that way I don’t miss important news or information about a topic.

My Articles

At times I’ve set alerts for article titles of mine  or articles I write for customers that I wanted to track online. I once found an instance of plagiarism that I was able to deal with swiftly thanks to Google Alerts.

Alerts can be set and turned off as and when you need them. Google has some great tools for writers. I also use Trends, Adwords, Google Docs, and am starting to dabble with Google Buzz. What’s your favourite Google tool?

Here’s a fitting photo, since we are in the midst of our first snow day of the year where I live in Ontario, Canada. Ever feel like you’re stuck with a writing assignment? If you’re getting paid to write for a client and you haven’t a clue what to write about, you’re not alone.  As a writer, I have had to write on topics I’ve never heard of, on subjects I’ve grown really weary of, and had times when the muse just seems like he’s on vacation (yes, my muse is male sometimes). But… your clients deserve your best in each and every article you write for them so you MUST find a way to reach deep down and figure out what to write. I have many tricks up my sleeve for dealing with the dreaded writer’s block. Three of the ways I tackle it include: taking a break, researching, and outlining.

Take a Break

Take a break and do something else. Not for too long, mind you. I try not to use this as a procrastination tool. Instead, I think of it as giving my brain a chance to recharge.  Sometimes the break involves beating my high score on a Typing Speed (currently @ 92 wpm, thank you very much) and sometimes it involves taking a walk, washing the dishes, or soaking in hot bubbles. After a bit of time, I come back, prepared to get to work and I try to do it with a positive attitude. If you’re less than excited about the task ahead, try to look forward to the feeling after that task is done and that can propel you toward getting there.

Research

Stuck? Start doing some research. Look up the topic. Check more than one search engine. Check it out in Google News so you can see if anything that’s current relates to it. And, research other articles. Ezinearticles has thousands of articles about just about everything. If I’m writing for an article marketing client, chances are that the topic exists on there already. Read my articles about going beyond Wikipedia for research 1 and 2. Sometimes the start of researching can be tough but once you break through the barrier, you can get inspired to come up with an idea on what to write. Sometimes, if it’s a keyword article I’ll search on the keyword and figure out who my customer’s competition is. Then I challenge myself to blow them away in terms of SEO, information value, and hooking readers.

Outlining Articles

Outlining the article takes away a lot of the work when you’re struggling. It is like creating a template and then filling in the blanks. Figure out what you want to talk about and suddenly, you’re almost done. If you have a 500 word article, you could polish that off in five paragraphs. Come up with 3 ideas or points to cover in that article. The intro talks about what you’re going to talk about, then subheadings break down the article ideas, and then the conclusion is your fifth paragraph that summarises. At about 100 words a paragraph, you’re done.  If you look at this blog post, you’ll see that I sort of followed that outline here.  It’s no fun being stuck but a bit of effort, change of scenery, and tricks of the trade can help you get un-stuck and will hopefully produce something you can be proud of.

What do you do when you’re stuck on a writing job?

EDIT:

I just visited Twitter to plug this post and found a recent tweet that suggests a potentially helpful way to break through with a boring writing assignment:

Some people who slag off web content writers claim that there’s too much garbage content online and that too many people who write for money do it just for the money and couldn’t care less about the quality.  Some ghostwriters have low work standards when selling writing that won’t have their name on it.  In fact, I once hired a person to work on my writing team but found a comment by her on a writing forum that said she couldn’t be bothered to put much effort in when the work was ghost written. I cringed and promptly lost her email address.

Too many people rewrite, spin, and regurgitate information that’s already out there and it gives hard-working writers a bad name. Too many people pad their articles as they’re getting paid by the word, know nothing about the topic, and can’t be bothered to take the time to write something that’s worth reading so they just re-phrase basic articles that are already out there. Today’s post isn’t really a rant (despite how it sounds so far). Today’s post is intended to provide some food for thought for those starting out in freelance writing, especially ghostwriting.

I try to remember two things when writing:

1. Write tight. It’s on the bottom of every project brief for one of my regular clients.
2. A quote by Stephen King, “You must not come lightly to the blank page.”  Enough said.

I’m not going to say that everything I write online is worthy of a Pulitzer. I know that’s not true but I will say that I do my best to give a ghostwriting client work that they won’t be embarrassed to put their own name on.

If you’re a freelance writer, you know that time is money so it might be tempting to just whip an article for a client together but if you’re not going past basic sources like Wikipedia for information… you’re doing your clients, your own writing career, and the blessed Internet an injustice. 

Sure, Wikipedia is useful and if that’s all you use, your article might even get earn you a “good job” from your client because your article is free of typos, but if you want your articles to be better than okay, I say…”Write it like your own name is on it.”

Writing Research and Article Writing Tips:

For new writers, I suggest you use at least two and preferably more than two sources to come up with content for an article.  Sure, there will be times when you can write off the top of your head or when the client’s directions make it clear that they’re just looking for search engine fodder but if you make it a rule to try to write articles that provide actual value to readers you’ll develop a great reputation and get new clients through word of mouth referrals, too.

Almost anyone can get paid to write a 500-word article about something but it usually takes more than just Wikipedia as a research source to develop a reputation and profitable writing career. In my next post,  I’ll share some of my own sources of writing inspiration and research.

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(photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Szorstki)