Writing and Creating Content

As someone who has struggled with this for some time, I know what a pain it can be to get those ideas inside your head onto a screen. I've seen a number of our members express how writing is often the most difficult part of this business and that's why I thought I'd share the way I tackle this process.
I came into WA as a freelance writer and I'll be the first to admit that I wish I'd known all this BEFORE I got into doing that. I would have made more money those first few years and struggled a lot less. Unfortunately, I had to figure this out on my own and it's only now that I think I've finally got a handle on it.

One of the most important things I learned came from an article I read a year or so ago. I can't remember where I saw it, but the whole process got a whole lot easier when I started to implement what I learned there.

The premise of the article was to think of writing articles as a 3 part process:

1. Idea generation

This includes picking your topic, research, reading and organizing your reference material and planning your outline.

2. Writing

This is the actual process of creating a rough draft. Don't think of this as your final copy, because if you're doing this right, it will still need some polishing.

3. Editing

This involves going over what you wrote, fixing grammar and spelling mistakes, rearranging sentences, correcting sentence structure, and possibly going back in there to add in additional information for better clarity.

Important note: The reason for the 3 part process is that when you try to do it all in one shot, there's a tendency to obsess over everything at once, from word choices to sentence structure, etc... My experience is that it takes MUCH longer to whip it out that way, because you're never going to be happy enough with that first sentence to move on to the next one. Before you know it, you've been on the same paragraph for hours and you're ready to quit!

With regard to idea generation, what I do is come up with a topic and scour the web for 3 or 4 references from which I can get the bulk of my information. As we all know, your computer can slow down if you have too many tabs open, so what I do is clip them into Evernote and organize them there.

As I skim through them the first time, I make mental notes about how I can structure my own outline and any slant I might want to put into it. Once I'm done with this, I lay out my outline. I create another note within Evernote and place the outline there, but you can do this anywhere. I just find that more convenient.

What I'm really doing with this first outline is creating a single page with all the information from my references that I'm going to use, laid out in the appropriate sections within that outline where I will be discussing those points. Basically, if I see a paragraph with information relating to a point I will be making in a specific section, I'll copy/paste the text from that under that heading to create a single page I can work with to create the intro, conclusion, and all points in between.

If this seems like a lot of work, let me explain why I do this. When you're looking at multiple reference pages, there's a whole lot of information you're NOT going to use. It can be very tiring for your eyes to have them darting up and down, in and out, hunting and pecking for that one little tidbit that you need from that one page. I find it easier to paste just those parts of the references into a "master reference" document, laid out in the format of my outline.

Once I do this, I make use of another indispensable tool... Dragon Professional Individual 15 dictation software. If you've used the older versions of it before, you'll find that this one is MUCH smoother and makes far fewer mistakes. Honestly, I found the upgrade worth every penny. This is what I create my rough draft with and it's so fast this way that it more than makes up for the time it took me to arrange all those bits and pieces of my reference material.

When dictating, I basically just open up a blank document and go through my "master reference" document from top to bottom. I go through each section in my own words, as if I had read the paragraph to myself and was explaining it to someone standing in front of me in an ordinary conversational tone.

At this point, grammar and sentence structure DOES NOT MATTER. Just spit it out with all the "uhs," "umms," starts, stops and mistakes. All you have to remember is to use your own words and separate your paragraphs in the appropriate places. It should look almost the same as the document you're reading your notes from, except that this one wil be in YOUR words and according to the outline YOU created.

Aside from that, remember that this is a ROUGH draft and it's called "rough" for a reason.

Now comes the editing portion. All you have to do is go back through the article and clean it up. Run a spell-checker over it, put it through Grammarly, or whatever it is that you usually do. Read it out loud, if you like, so you can listen to the flow of the words and remove all the "fluff" that doesn't actually contribute to the points you're making. Maybe look up some synonyms, if you find yourself repeating the same words too often.

Once I have something I like, I run it through Copyscape to make sure it doesn't sound too much like my sources. If you read it in conversational tone in your own words, quickly and swiftly, it really shouldn't. But in the event that a few of your sentences are too close, Copyscape will let you know, so you can make the necessary changes and run it through again, until it comes up clean.

And that's basically it! The fastest part of this is the rough draft. Once you get used to the editing part, you'll find it doesn't take too long either. At some point, you'll get really fast at creating a master reference sheet, too.

It's important to note that some people can just spit out a rough draft really quickly, without taking so many steps. But what I have found is that in most cases, doing it that way is easiest when you already know the subject matter very well and don't have lots of reference articles to look at. Unfortunately, you won't always be that lucky. It's also easier with subject matter that involves opinion, as opposed to bullet-point type articles that deal in facts and figures.

Another important point I'd like to make is that there are numerous other approaches to writing, many of which work as well, or even better, for the writers who use them. The reason I do it this way is because I not only battle with eyestrain, but also with a short attention span. In other words, if I have to fight too much with what I'm writing, my brain will constantly be on lookout for opportunities to do something else and I will gradually lose interest in finishing.

Having fought with this problem for many years, I think I've finally nailed down what works for me. I encourage everyone to experiment with this and any other approaches you learn about, especially from other WA members. After all, we're in the same boat! You might find that you can pick and choose a few things from each of us and come up with a method that works best for you.

It may take some time, but it's worth it if it can help you shave countless hours off the writing process, create more content and earn more money!

Best wishes to everyone and don't be afraid to share your own tips in the comments. We can all use them - including me! I'm always on the lookout for more efficient ways to knock this thing out of the park.

Mark