How to solve every writing challenge you have

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Every writing challenge you have can be solved in one way - by writing.

This week I’ve had several chats with my writing students about the process of writing. The advice I gave them is contained in the article below, which appeared in an early issue of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine.

I also recommended my anti-procrastination ebook, “Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More”.

Just write. Most/ all of your writing challenges are solved in one way: by writing.

Enjoy the article, and WRITE.

Just Write It, Whatever The Consequences

by Angela Booth

© Copyright 2007 Angela Booth. All Rights Reserved.

(This article originally appeared in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine.)

Want to transform your writing career? Here’s a tip that took me 20 years to learn – I trust that it won’t take you as long.

Here it is: whenever you get an impulse to write something, write it.

Your spontaneous impulses ALWAYS help you to take another step forward in your writing career. I’ve had impulses to write a book or an article, and my immediate response was: “No, it will take too long/ be too difficult/ I’ve got no time/ I don’t know how…”

Unfortunately, I often listened to my negative mind-chatter, rather than following through, and doing it anyway, whatever the consequences might be.

I’ve missed many opportunities.

There are three reasons you should always Write It, Whatever The Consequences: you don’t know what you don’t know, you can’t see around corners, and every rejection is a new opportunity.

Reason 1. You don’t know what you don’t know

You can’t take a step forward in your writing career without facing the unknown. Don’t let the thought “I don’t know how” faze you. If you get the impulse to write something, you will always learn what you need to know to write it in the process of writing, there is no other way you CAN learn.

Whenever I’m given a new opportunity, if I feel that it would help my career, I grab it with both hands, because I’ve learned that I don’t need to see where the path leads. I just need to see the path.

Trust the impulse. Go forward – write it anyway.

Reason 2. You Can’t See Around Corners

When you get an impulse to write something which is scary, and you write it anyway, even if the result is woeful, the writing will lead you to an opportunity which you could have reached in no other way.

The birth of my copywriting career is a great example of this. When I began writing copy, it was out of necessity. I was managing a dog training business at the time, and writing novels. I was spending huge amounts of money advertising the dog training business. It was a chunk out of the budget that the business couldn’t afford. I decided that there had to be another way to make people aware of us, so I started to send out news releases – even though I knew nothing about writing news releases.

As I continued to write news releases, I got offers of copywriting work, and this opened a whole new business writing career to me. If I hadn’t followed the original impulse to write news releases, copywriting would have remained a mystery to me.

Reason 3. Every Rejection Is A New Opportunity

Rejections are EXCELLENT. Think I’m crazy, right? Not so. Every major sale that I’ve made as a writer, I gained via a rejection.

My first novel sale came about via a rejection – an editor at one publishing house declined my book proposal, but recommended that I send it to an editor at another publishing house who purchased not one book, but several from me.

I’ve made dozens of article sales via rejections. The process works like this. Rejection/ rejection/ rejection… followed by the offer of a contract to write an article. Those “rejections” let editors see my name, and get an idea of my interests, so that when they need an article that fits my style, they offer the gig to me.

As a freelance writer, your intuition is your most precious resource. So when you get an impulse to write something, ignore the negative mind chatter, and write it. You’ll be amazed at the opportunities which will open to you.

Technorati Tags: writer, writing, how to write, make money writing, freelance writer, freelance writing