Credit: jjpacres
Books say writer’s block can be cured by taking a break from writing. But, if time does not cause a broken car to start, how can you expect it to change your inability to write?
Time will not erase writers block. However, you can discover and eliminate the root cause of your problems. It sounds crazy. However, 90% of writing problems are caused when these 4 basic writing steps are completed out of order or misunderstood.
Step One: Determine your target audience.
Think about it. It is hard to give a speech to 200 random people, but much easier to speak with one person. When you are speaking with one person, it is easy because you can tailor the conversation. The same thing applies to writing. Write as if you are speaking to one of your ideal customers and your writer’s block will vanish.
Step Two: Create an outline.
It is easy to get off topic. But, you can prevent this by creating a guide to keep your writing on course. Think of your outline as the GPS keeping your pilot from wasting valuable time. Business blog writers skip this step because they are in a hurry. However, if you skip this step, you will end up starting over a billion times because your writing will have no clear direction. Direct your writing and your writer’s block will become a thing of the pasts.
Step Three: Write.
Your blog articles are not essays. They are conversations on a computer screen. If you are having trouble making your articles conversational, there are a few exercises you can do to loosen up.
- Set a 5-minute timer and write fast as you can without worrying about spelling. This will keep you from editing during the writing process.
- Cuss, add lewd jokes, and make your writing offensive as possible. Once you remove the foul language, your writing will sound less Shakespearean and more like an everyday conversation. (This technique is great if your sentences are complex or hard to understand).
- Use a voice recorder to speak about your writing topic. You can transcribe your conversation the old fashion way or use dragonfly. (This is great for writers who are intimidated by the process).
Writers do a bad job of completing step 3 because they are either afraid of writing garbage or afraid of offending others. If you are afraid of failing, you will start editing your work before it is written, and this will ruin your creativity. If you are afraid of offending others, your message will become difficult to understand. Use the exercises above to alleviate the common writer’s block causes associated with this step.
Step Four: Edit your writing
This is your chance to shave paragraphs down to their bare necessities, remove unnecessary words, and fix grammatical mistakes. Since editing is the most important step to writing, you should spend the most time on this. Writer’s block is not caused by editing. However, it is caused when writers edit before they have finished writing.
To conclude, if you find the root causes of your writer’s block, you can eliminate the problem and create a wonderful business blog. Please, share your writer’s block experiences in the comments below!
About Carson Derrow
