![]() ![]() I had to weigh every word. Adverbs perished. What I hadn’t expected, is that this limitation would improve my writing drastically. By doing so, I hoped newspapers writers weren’t intimidated by the task of blogging about their work. When I joined Dutch daily nrc.next to start a behind the scenes-blog for them, I decided to limit the blog posts to 300 words. The useless elaboration then serves as an inspiration for a new blog post. When I’ve written something that doesn’t support the main message of my article, I cut and paste it to a new draft. You need a willingness to save your darlings for a different blog post. Also, a willingness to kill your darlings. Picture: Rijksmuseum / Gerard EdelinckĮditing takes time. “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”īlaise Pascal gave great blogging advice. ![]() I’ve learned to listen to the French polymath Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662). So I write all these elaborations, showcasing how well all my theories are backed up with knowledge. Just like almost every human being, I have a tendency to show off how much I know. Step 4: Listen to Blaise Pascalįirst of all, I go back to all the XXXX’s and look up the right years, spelling and facts. Once it’s a clean text, I focus on cutting all the parts that don’t support the main premise of my article. I’ve finished the procrastination-inducing creative process. If I want to add a video, I just type ‘VIDEO HERE’, instead of heading to YouTube to grab the embed code.Īfter I’ve said everything I wanted to say, the hardest part is behind me. Instead I’ll just type some giant XXXX’s so I can come back later to check them. If I’m not sure about a fact or how to spell a name, I won’t open Google. When I’ve started writing, nothing should threaten my flow. When I’m done with iA Writer or Ommwriter, I copy/ paste the text to my CMS. But the WordPress community has built a fine focus mode for its editor so I find myself choosing WordPress more often. This was a terrible tool for focused writing. It plays ambient music and gives sound feedback every time you hit a key. Ok, this might sounds cheesy, but somehow Ommwriter gets me in the perfect mood to write. So jumping to a different section in the text is more difficult. When in ‘Focus Mode’, iA Writer only shows you the sentence you’re writing at that point and fades out the other ones. This app blocks out almost every urge to edit. Step 2: Open the right writing tool Screenshot of iA Writer This is the best antidote against screen-staring. Maybe I came up with some good key sentences too. I want to know what my main message will be and preferably I’ve already sketched out the main structure of the article. I don’t open my laptop before I’ve come up with what I want to say. I get in a flow and the words just come streaming out. No wonder it sometimes took me a day to come up with a short blog post.īy separating the writing and editing process, I’ve become an effective writer. I behaved like a menacing editor criticizing every sentence seconds after I had written it down. But before starting a second sentence I already found my cursor back at the second word and replacing it with a better synonym. I wrote a sentence and hit the period key. Actually, I thought it was part of my productive behavior.īecause there’s nothing more distracting during the act of writing than editing. But the biggest distraction of all didn’t seem like a distraction. My phone and desktop notifications were obvious culprits. I used to allow all sorts of things to distract me while writing. Getting in the flow for coming up with the right story and words is incredibly hard. ![]() Coming up with the right story and words is incredibly hard. That’s why there are so many web sites and magazines about productivity. That’s what they’ve invented procrastination for. But the first process, the writing itself, is a different matter. I think the second process is easy to get started with. The other hours were devoted to staring at the screen and relentlessly editing the article. My mistake? I had mixed two writing processes: When I look back on these days of toil, I realize the actual writing had only cost me around an hour. Sometimes it took me a whole day to write a post of only 500 words. I used to spend too much time on writing. » Blogging Advice » How to become an effective writer. ![]()
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