How to Create an Article of 1,000+ Words in 90 Minutes or Less

Woman with writers block

A guest post by Patrick Stöckmann of Unwrap Your Mind

It’s a dreaded situation for all beginner (and even seasoned) bloggers. You want to write a post, and are sitting in front of a blank page. Suddenly your mind looks just the same – blank. Your inspiration just stopped, and you feel at a loss. We’ve all been there. The good news is that there are some surefire ways of writing quality content in record time.

I want to share with you my techniques for writing a 1,000+ words article in 90 minutes or less.

To show you that I actually do what I preach, I’ve written the first draft of this article in 5 minutes, the second draft (nearly publishable) in 45 minutes, and the final version in 70 minutes. Editing took about 15 minutes and looking up a nice photo added another 5 minutes.

There are 6 steps for creating a successful article in record time: Writers block_2

  1. Preparation
  2. Write a first draft
  3. Create structure and fill the gaps
  4. Editing
  5. Adding a picture
  6. Publish & Party

Step 1 – Preparation

One of the keys to being able to tap into the fountain of inspiration is to not leave it by chance. This key consists of preparation and structure. Inspiration, preparation and structure go hand in hand very successfully.

1.1 Prepare Your Environment

Your mind works best, when you allow it to focus on one task at a time.

How can you do that?

  • Remove clutter. A structured working space mirrors a structured working mind.
  • Remove any distractions. If you find you are looking at your phone, turn it off. If you are looking at a magazine, put it into another room.
  • Reduce noise.
  • Check out a minimalist approach for your writing space. Minimalism doesn’t mean cold and uncomfortable. Your room should be comfortable, but with nothing that could distract you.
  • Don’t forget to switch off your phones (use an answering machine if necessary).
  • Tell people in your house to not disturb you. Make sure they understand the importance of this time.

Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days


Get your pencils sharpened for November.

By Leo Babauta

I’ve decided to take the plunge and join NaNoWriMo in November (for the 2nd time), attempting to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.

Join me!

I successfully completed NaNoWriMo in 2006, and it was an incredible time. It was a lot of fun, and joining with the efforts of tens of thousands of fellow writers is an experience like no other.

Just a few reasons to do NaNoWriMo:

1. It gives you the motivation to finally write that novel.
2. It teaches you some good habits — getting writing done every day.
3. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re put to the test like this.
4. Like I said, it’s tremendous fun to join up with so many enthusiastic writers.

So I’ll be doing it, and today I’d like to share my secrets to being successful at NaNoWriMo. I’ll also share some tips about midway through the challenge, and some lessons learned after it’s over.
Read more »

Categories: Fiction

The Tarot as a Tool for Writing Your Novel

Note from the Editor: November sees the beginning of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Anyone can join the thirty days of literary abandon. WTD will run posts to inspire and encourage you on the way.

By Marelisa Fábrega of Abundance Blog

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) begins in just a few days, on November 1st, and thousands of would-be authors are registering with high hopes of crossing the finish line on November 30th, novel firmly in hand. The objective of writing at least 50,000 words in 30 days doesn’t seem so daunting, until the sobering thought hits that you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to write about. Or perhaps you do have an idea—one that would look great as a blurb on a book jacket cover–but the plot is eluding you, or you can’t see your novel’s characters very clearly. One solution is to prime your creativity pump by turning to the tarot.

Although the tarot is most often used as a tool for divination, tarot cards are also great, practical tools for writing and creative thinking. Corrine Kenner, author of “Tarot for Writers”, explains that well-known writers, such as John Steinbeck and Stephen King, have used tarot cards for inspiration. She adds that Italian novelist Italo Calvino went so far as to call the tarot “a machine for writing stories.”

If you’re thinking of writing a novel, you can apply the imagery and symbolism of the 78 cards of the tarot to help you develop plot, conflict, character profiles, dialogue, and scenery, as well as to introduce unpredictable elements. The cards can even serve as a creativity prompt if you hit a brick wall while you’re writing. With a tarot deck beside you, you won’t be starting out with a blank sheet of paper. Instead, you’ll have a world of imagery as your disposal, which, if you allow your imagination and intuition to step forward, will begin to move, speak, and take action. This article will help you get started in using the tarot to write your novel.

Choosing a Tarot Deck

There are many different tarot decks which you can choose from, including everything from the Lord of the Rings Tarot–with “Death” depicted as Gandalf fighting the Balrog–to a Jane Austen Tarot, in which each card represents a character or scene from one of her novels. Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith created the best-selling Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck in 1909, and that’s the deck we’ll be referring to in this article. You can either purchase a deck from Amazon, or you can print the cards out, for free, here. Read more »

Categories: Craft, Fiction

15 Basics of Insanely Useful Blogwriting


Me in my favorite coffee shop, blogging about the basics of blogwriting.

By Leo Babauta

After blogging for almost 3 years now, it’s hard to remember what it was like when I first started out. I’ve written nearly 1,500 blog posts, not only for Zen Habits and this blog, but as guest posts (and in the past, paid posts) for dozens of other blogs.

But I’m going to force myself to go back to those early days, when I tentatively started a simple journal on Blogger.com and put my first shaky words out onto the web.

This is a guide for new bloggers — so if you’re experienced, feel free to skip this one. This is the post I wish I’d read when I started, and in a sense I’m writing this to the Leo of January 2007 who knew nothing about what he was doing.

Hi younger (and infinitely more handsome) Leo … rest easy. You’ll do fine. You’ll write some crappy posts, but that’s OK. In doing so, you’ll find your voice, find what works, and start to connect with an audience.

Be brave, and forge on.

That said, here are some tips to help you along on your journey. Blogging basics. Oh, and feel free to break any of these “rules”, as nothing is ever set in stone. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting

Frictionless blogging: Remove the barriers to publishing


Photo courtesy of mezone.

By Leo Babauta

There was a time when I would agonize over writing a post, get it perfect, and basically spend hours on it (if not days) before publishing.

Perfect is the enemy of a good blogger.

These days, I post to four different blogs without it taking large chunks of my life away: Zen Habits, Write To Done, mnmlist.com and now Zen Family Habits. If I allowed perfection and a million other obstacles to get in my way, I’d never be able to get my ideas out there.

Having the ideas isn’t the problem — I have a million of them. What I’ve learned is “frictionless blogging”: removing all the barriers to publishing so that I get those ideas out into the world as easily as possible.

What are the barriers to blogging? Think about it in your own life — what slows you down? Fear of sounding dumb? Distractions? Fiddling with your blog software, stats, widgets? Formatting a post perfectly? Getting every single word right? Finding the perfect photo? Writing the perfect headline?

These and many other things create friction, and the more friction there is, the less you can publish. Now, we should ask the question: is it desirable to publish quickly and often? Not always.

I am a fan of slow living, and a minimalist, so you’d think frictionless blogging and being prolific would be against my nature. And it is, to the extent that I don’t like a chaotic, complicated, frenetic, overly speedy lifestyle. But if you can remove distractions, enjoy the act of writing, and then publish in as simple a way possible, that’s a good thing.

You don’t need to be prolific or speedy. I am, as a blogger, only because I love putting my ideas out there — to be used, to be criticized, to be turned into something new and better, or to slowly fade away into the void because no one cared. All of those are better than my ideas languishing in my head, never to surface into the world.

So I publish, without friction. And it works. I can blog a lot, easily, and still have time for other projects (A-List Blogging, a fitness course I’m creating, ebooks, and other fun stuff).

So if you’re interested in frictionless blogging, here are a few tips: Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting

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