10 Effective Steps to Amazingly Inspirational Writing

A guest post by Henri Juntilla of Wake Up Cloud

What’s it like when you remember a moment in time when you read a book or an article that made your heart sing?

There was something about the writing that touched something deep inside and inspired you to view the world from a different perspective.

Inspirational writing is something every writer is capable of. Yes, that means you, too.

It’s all about tapping into the energy inside of you that’s just waiting to come out. I’ve found a way to do that in my writing, and that’s exactly what I’ll share with you today as you keep reading.

So let’s dive right in, shall we?

1. Find Your Passion

The first step is to find a topic that you’re passionate about and that sets your soul on fire, because what you feel about what you write will come through in your articles.

I’ve found that the more passionate I am about anything in life, the more I attract just the right circumstances for success, and the people that I bump into are affected just by being near me.

2. Capture Inspiration

When you have a topic that you are interested in, or even passionate about, you still have to capture those moments of inspiration.

This could mean figuring out at what time during the day you produce your best work. For me, it is before noon, and during midnight.

You might also want to carry a notepad with you during the day, so you can capture any inspiration that comes to you.

3. Trust

When you begin to write from your heart, you have to allow yourself to trust that whatever is coming out is supposed to come out.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you publish every article you write. It just means that you tune into your inspiration, and you let it come out in whatever way it comes out.

4. Flow

When you trust, you flow.

The best way to get into flow, and the writing zone, is to do a brain dump whenever you’re writing.

Basically, what I do is I begin by coming up with the headline for my article, then I outline the article as best as I can, and finally I just let the words flow out.

You can call it brain dumping, free writing, or whatever you like. It is simply the act of writing your draft without editing.

5. Suspend Fear

Everyone has a little bit of fear when it comes to publishing their writing. I know, because I’ve been there and done that.

Your writing may not be perfect, and most of the time it doesn’t have to be. All your writing needs to do is convey the message that you have inside.

There are people out there waiting to hear from you, and it doesn’t matter if you make a grammatical mistake here or there.

6. Live Life

Live life boldly and constantly seek new experiences both internally and externally.

Personally, I’m in the phase in my life right now are enjoying meditating and exploring the inner workings of my mind.

You may enjoy traveling, or just trying out different things in your city. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as you’re doing something that you enjoy.

7. Learn & Grow

Immerse yourself in the rich amount of information that exists all around you. Read books, watch movies, or talk to other writers or friends.

The more you grow, the more the neural pathways in your mind expand, which means that not only will your writing improve, so will your life.

Human beings can’t stop themselves from growing, because we are naturally curious. If you aren’t, then you just haven’t allowed yourself to find a topic that you’re passionate about, yet.

8. Experiment (With Your Writing)

Have fun when you write your articles. There may be some days that you’re out of inspiration, and there may be other days where you are flooded with new ideas and when everything seems to be crystal clear.

It’s not about being perfect, at least not for me. Writing for me is something I enjoy doing. It’s a way of expressing what’s inside of me to the world.

9. Accept the Inner Critic

Your inner critic will always be there. Its intention is always to help you, but it often gets out of hand and ends up stopping you from doing what you truly enjoy.

Talk to your inner critic, and let it know that you want to trust the process and let inspiration flow. Once that’s done, the inner critic can come out and help you edit the article in the best way possible when you’ve written the first draft.

10. Remember Why You Write

Why do you write?

Do you remember the first days when you discovered your love for writing?

It may have been a time way back in the past. Or it may have been recently, if you picked up writing during your adult years.

Remember why you started writing. It’s easy to get bogged down in details once you start writing and want to become better and better at it.

In the end, don’t you enjoy writing and expressing yourself?

And aren’t you already doing that with your writing?

Give yourself some slack and just enjoy the amazing capabilities that you already have for writing, and you will start producing amazingly inspirational articles effortlessly.

Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where you can get his free course: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less. And if you liked this article, you will enjoy one of his top articles: 11 Ways to Eliminate Writer’s Block When Nothing Else Works.

Join Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch – along with 900 other enthusiastic bloggers – in the A-List Blogger Club. Click below to find out more.

Categories: Craft

The Art of Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem

A guest post from Ollin Morales of Courage 2 Create

The Art of Mayhem

A year and a half ago my life was in the midst of mayhem. The company I was working for went bankrupt and I was let go. I had just come out of another failed relationship. I had just come to terms with a failed attempt at entering a graduate school, and I was also given the great responsibility of taking care for a loved one with an illness. Yes, my life certainly felt stuck in incredible mayhem.

But mysteriously, in the midst of all this mayhem, all I felt called to do was to write a novel.

This was a very mysterious urge for me because I had been studying acting at a university for 4 years, I had earned my bachelor’s degree in Drama, and had been acting in plays for most of my life. For all intents and purposes, my life was on an actor’s trajectory and everyone, including me, was resolutely convinced that I was going to become a professional actor one day.

But even though I had spent so much time investing in an acting career, in the midst of all the recent mayhem in my life, I was surprised to find that I had no desire to be an actor anymore, and that my true passion was for writing. I had never written a novel before, and so starting it would mean having to embrace the mystery of this urge, and let the future unfold as it would.

My sister had encouraged me to write a blog about the experience, hoping it would motivate me. There was no expectation for the blog to be any bigger than just a personal online journal.

But a year and a half has passed and the blog has gone from obscurity to Top Ten Blogger status in less than a year; thousands of people from around the world visit the blog now and hundreds are subscribed. Today, I’ve completely ditched acting and have become a freelancer writer in order to earn a living as I write fiction. I’ve even had clients take the writing consultation service I offer to my readers through my blog—effectively turning my blog into a business within year.

Meanwhile, I am working on finishing my life’s work, my novel, which is currently on its a second draft.

All of this was accomplished without much intention, but simply by following the mystery underneath all the mayhem, until it led me to the magic.

The Art of Mystery

There is a wonderful book by the late psychologist Dr. Gerald D. May. Dr. May found that in the writings of two Catholic saints, there was a profound wisdom that I believe stretches farther than the confines of any religion.

Dr. May explained that these two saints spoke about the mayhem of life, but they referred to it as “the dark night of the soul.”

Dr. May explained that “the dark night of the soul” is a moment of incredible turmoil in our lives where many of our previously held conceptions and beliefs are called into question; and in which we are forced to detach from feelings, thoughts, or objects that beforehand had given us great peace and comfort. This intense process opens us up to a moment of great mayhem in our lives that may appear very dark to us.

For Dr. May, the reason that this time is “dark” is not because it is evil, but because it is “obscure.” It’s hard to see what is actually going on. Because in actuality, although we cannot see it at the time, beneath all the mayhem, there is actually something wonderful secretly blooming inside of us. It’s as if this dark period is a womb in the midst of our lifetime; and this womb is providing the right amount of nourishment and care for you to one day be reborn as a newer, more liberated you.

Dr. May also said that the “mysteriousness” of this mayhem has a very practical purpose: because if we knew what was going to unfold in our lives before it actually happened, we might end up sabotaging our own success.

The Art of Magic

After I read Dr. May’s book, I wondered if I would I have sabotaged my current success if I knew where I was truly going to end up.

After a moment of thought, I concluded that yes, I would have sabotaged myself.

You see, today I have a great responsibility to my blog readership. They can certainly live fine without me, but from what they have told me, it gives them great joy and pleasure to have me around in a online world that is sometimes so filled with hateful, negative, and sensationalist language.

However, if I had known I was going to be given such a great responsibility a year and a half ago, I certainly would have not started my blog and would have probably ditched my novel.

Why?

Because my intention at the time had been to keep myself loyal to my novel, and any plan to “help” or “inspire” others would have been interpreted by me as a purely egotistical. I also would have likely given up writing the first draft of my novel knowing that, soon, hundreds of strangers’ eyes would be scrutinizing my progress.

So in order to keep me from sabotaging my future success, the process of life wisely kept me in the dark for a period of time.

Fortunately, today, I recognize that part of my purpose in life is to provide inspiration, hope, and encouragement to the struggling writers of the world. Today I continue writing my novel because I’ve already invested far too much time into it to give up now, even if I feel the pressure of the whole world watching.

It turns out there was a method to the mayhem after all.

Preparing For Your Opening Night

I recall that back in my acting days, it was well-known theater wisdom that when a production gets close to opening night you can almost be certain that several things will go terribly wrong: essential actors will drop out, sets will fall apart, props will go missing, the director will come down with the flu, etc.. But as soon as the curtains part on opening night, the mayhem subsides, everything falls into place, and the play goes on with little or no difficulty, as if by some mysterious magic.

I wouldn’t believe this mysterious phenomenon myself if I hadn’t witnessed it every single time I had acted in a play.

It is good to remember that when it gets closer to the opening night of your life, everything can and will go wrong. The mayhem will be everywhere. But if you carry conviction during the dark times, and trust that the mystery will lead you to a better, more liberated space, then as soon as that curtain opens, the mayhem will subside, everything will fall into place, and you may be surprised to find that the show goes on without a hitch.

Just like magic.

Ollin Morales is a writer whose blog, Courage 2 Create, chronicles his journey as he writes his first novel. His blog offers writing advice as well as strategies to deal with life’s toughest challenges. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Join Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch – along with 900 other enthusiastic bloggers – in the A-List Blogger Club.


Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction

Why Disconnectors Are Critical In Keeping Your Readers Awake

A guest post by Sean DSouza of Psychotactics

Do me a favour.

Watch one of those soppy soaps today.

Something like ‘Desperate Housewives; Dynasty; The Bold and the Beautiful’ or something equally…um…riveting.

Notice how they started the episode?

They didn’t trust the fact that you’d actually remember the previous episode. Nope, the writers of the soap know that you have extreme short term memory, and need to be prompted. So oui, out rolls the prompt. First, they show you exactly what was happening in the last episode, before throwing you smack, bang into the current episode.

And right after they’ve created a connection, they disconnect.

Disconnectors create a jolt

Imagine you’re driving a car. And the highway stretches in front of you straight as an arrow. Mile after mile of the same, same seems to suck you into vortex of yawns.

Then suddenly you you see a curve in the road.

The curve is the disconnector

It’s the thingamajig on the journey that jolts you back to life. You’re all alert. You’re all eyes and ears. And you’re paying close attention.

Kinda what your reader does when reading your article

The connectors create the smoothness that pull your reader into the story. The disconnectors snap your customer out of la-la land. The curve in the road gets the readers attention, without taking the reader off the road.

I guess some explanation is in order here, right?

Or rather explanation with demonstration. So here’s an article from the Psychotactics archives. Notice how the disconnector actually jumps in without warning. There’s a marked disconnect between the headline and the body copy–a factor that forces you to read the article.

Example No.1:

Headline: Can You Really Create Persuasive Sales Copy out of Thin Air?

Body Copy: “Draw a dog.”

Those were the commands of the art teacher to a bunch of five year olds. They didn’t know it just then, but they were part of a psychological experiment.

The command reverberated through the room with a varying effect.

Some kids furrowed their eyebrows. Some scoured their brains for inspiration. Others chewed on their crayons uneasily.

Yet three kids seemed unmistakably unperturbed

Whipping out their crayons, they seemed to sport an air of flamboyance, even haughtiness. With practiced deft strokes, they went about rendering a piece of art many adults would have been proud to call their own.

Barring the three obviously talented ones, the rest of the class seemed to produce nothing but chaos.

Did you see the intense disconnect between the headline and the body copy?

Yes you did, because I made a big hoo-haa about the disconnect. Yet, if you were just reading this article, you’d have never seen it. The first fifty words would have got your attention, and you’d be away. It’s only because I’m pointing it out to you, that you’re noticing the disconnector.

You can create disconnection at the start of an article, in the middle of an article or even towards the end of the article. As long as you can learn to disconnect and then connect, you’re effectively doing what every soap opera does day, after day, after day.

Let’s see how the disconnectors work in the middle of an article

In the article below, the disconnectors and the connectors flow thic and fast. You’ll find three whole disconnects in as many paragraphs. You’ll also find connectors within the disconnectors, and disconnectors within the connectors. And best of all, the words don’t jump and bounce around curves. The disconnectors and connectors actually keep the dynamics of the article powerful, without too many curves, or too many straight runs.

Headline: The Fundamental Flaw in Creating Your Uniqueness (USP)

Copy: “Say cheese,” says the person behind the camera.

And you say cheese. Your facial muscles are frozen. You have a dumb, goofy look. And under your breath you’re muttering, “C’mon Take the picture, take the picture, c’monnnn!”

Click! You blink. The picture’s been taken.

And then the photographer runs across to you, all excited to show the nice digital photo. You take a look, you roll your eyes. You cringe. Because you just detest the photo.

It looks artificial. It looks posed. It’s not you. It looks like all those ‘cheesy’ pictures you’ve seen before.

It’s not unique.

How can it be unique? You weren’t yourself!

And that’s the whole problem with uniqueness. You’ve tried too hard. In your business you’ve tried to your darndest to get your own uniqueness. And you’ve failed miserably. Because you froze.

And the uniqueness you sought to find, looked like the cheesy picture in the third paragraph.

When asked about your uniqueness, you mumble something like ‘service or quality,’ which means nothing to most people.

The funny thing is that Sarah had the same problem

You see, Sarah has a yoga class. And a yoga class is a yoga class, right? Sarah twisted her brain like a pretzel, but she just couldn’t come up with a form of uniqueness.

So she did what all the experts recommended.

She asked her clients. And some of them shrugged. Some of them gave her mixed answers. And that left Sarah more confused than ever before.

Then she did what most businesses do. She gave up. She figured her business would just remain a commodity. To hell with the uniqueness. Trying to find what was unique was too hard.

You see Sarah was asking the wrong question

She was trying to look inward. Because the question isn’t: What’s unique about my business? But rather “What do I *want to do* in my business that’s different from everyone else?”

Let me explain.

I asked Sarah what she’d want to achieve for her students most of all? Her response was lightning quick and I backed up two steps at the speed and ferocity of the answer.

“Injury,” she said. “You can really hurt yourself in a yoga class if you’re doing the wrong thing. I want every student to have Injury-Free Yoga.”

Tum..dee..dum. Can you see it? Sarah couldn’t see it. Her uniqueness was *Injury-Free Yoga.* Plain and simple.

What do I *want to do* in my business that’s different from every one else? What do you want to do that’s different in your business? What’s your dream for your customer?

Ask Tom Monaghan, founder Dominos Pizza

Today you take quick pizza delivery for granted. But if you zapped your way back to the swinging, hey-groovy seventies, you’d grow old just waiting for a pizza.

You’d call a pizza place. You’d ask, “Can you deliver?” And about seventy-nine hours later, you’d be still tapping your fingers waiting for the pizza guy to arrive.

Tom Monaghan did what Sarah did. He couldn’t find anything unique about his business, so he invented his uniqueness.

He worked out how to get a pizza to his customer in 30 minutes or less. And then he came up with Dominos now historic slogan. Dominos Pizza. In 30 Minutes or It’s Free!

Yup, the pizza man invented his uniqueness.

You noticed the disconnection in the article, didn’t you?

Disconnection 1: We were talking about USPs and inexplicably started with ‘saying cheese,’ in a photo.

Disconnection 2: From uniqueness, we jumped to Sarah. Who the heck is Sarah? What’s she got to do with all of this USP business?

Disconnecton 3: We dragged Tom Monaghan into the story. What happened to Sarah?

You know darn well what happened

The story line connects with the concept of the USP. It reverts back and forth between Sarah and Tom, the founder of Dominos Pizza. It connects, disconnects and takes you on one heck of a wild ride.

Use disconnectors to get that wild ride rockin’

The job of the connector is to make sure the customer slip slides from one part of the article to another. It keeps the momentum steady. The disconnector is meant to give the reader just a little bounce. Just to make sure the reader hasn’t quite nodded off, and to build what is called a plot, within a plot.

If you want an education of disconnectors, get to your remote control.

There’s sure to be an ‘educational’ soap on, right now!

Categories: Craft

How I Doubled My Productivity as a Blogger by Becoming a Virtual CEO [CASE STUDY]

A guest post by Chris C. Ducker blogs of VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com

In January 2010 I put a goal in place for myself. That goal was to become a full- time Virtual CEO, leaving my desk and the 250 people that worked for me in the dust as I enabled myself to work from anywhere, on my own terms and focus on building businesses, instead of running them.

By the end of the year, I had achieved my goal, and successfully created a great online following for myself in the process, as well as a kick-ass community of other like-minded folks at my blog, Virtual Business Lifestyle. I have to be very, very honest, unlike a lot of bloggers out there, I did NOT set out to create a popular blog.

Although I have been very humbled by the popularity of it, and the big names I’ve been able to attract to appear on its sister-podcast, including our beloved Leo Babauta! The real reason behind the blog was to follow that one-year journey. It seemed that a lot of other people wanting to follow it, too. Which included my monthly round-up reports, along with other video reports and tips and tactics for removing yourself from ‘business’, and becoming a more new-age entrepreneur.

Productivity Ensued

Fast forward another 6 months down the road and I am achieving more than I honestly thought possible in my new role as a Virtual CEO. In the last six months I have started two new businesses, each doing fantastically well, especially considering their short age-span and added another 25-odd staff to my ‘brick n mortar’ business in the Philippines. I’ve become more focused as a business owner, because I now work a lot more at home, in my ‘own world’, as I call it, and with hardly any disruptions – despite having a toddler in the house!

What’s Different and Why?

There are, however, three main reasons why I have been able to create so much more productivity for myself since becoming a Virtual CEO.

Email Management – First up, I have taken on board two very easy-to-follow email rules. Email is probably the biggest time drainer for entrepreneurs, and I knew I was going to have to get this in check if I wanted to become more productive. So, firstly, I adopted a one-click rule. Meaning, when I open my email its replied to, deleted or archived for future reference. That’s it. And I never open the same email twice.

Secondly, I adopted a 3-sentence rule. All of my email is now no longer than three sentences. This has meant I spend way less time composing and replying to email, creating tons more time to work on other, more important tasks.

Work / Life Balance – There has been so much written on this subject, I am not going to try and become an expert, or preach about it. However, I can say that I have been spending more time with my family since becoming a Virtual CEO (one of the main instigators for my goal in the first place!). Because of this, I am actually more relaxed. Being more relaxed gets my creative juices flowing like you wouldn’t believe it. Hence the productivity, and the launching of two new businesses!

Minimizing Meetings – I run a 250+ employee outsourcing company. I work with clients from all around the world, literally. And I have a great management team in place (part of that one year goal!). However, I still have to ‘do’ meetings pretty regularly. I now go into the office just twice a week on average, and usually for around 3-4 hours at a time, and only for meetings. I rarely even bring my laptop with me… Just my iPad, for taking notes / presentations.

Plus, I put a 30min meeting rule in place, too. Before this, so many of the meetings I was involved in caused PAIN in my daily schedule. I was always running over, and always scratching around for more time to sit with people. This rule enables me to get more meetings in, make them more productive and to the point, and ultimately get more done when I am in the office. If I’m not in the office, I meet with people via Skype, but with the same 30min rule in place. It works. Its nice. I like it.

The Biggest Takeaway

Without a doubt, the biggest takeaway for me from all of this is that it is absolutely, 100% possible to make changes in the way you approach your life, your business, your health and fitness and your online world, too.

As a blogger, vlogger and podcast host, I absolutely love what I now do online. The audience continues to grow, and so do my businesses. Coincidence? I don’t think do. That doesn’t mean that my readers / fans are all becoming clients, because the very, very large majority are not. What it does mean is that because I am having so much fun doing what I am doing online (I almost see it as my personal outlet that’s expanding into something so much more now), as well as spending more time with my family, and starting new businesses and enjoying life in general…

Business is rewarding me for all my hard work.

Looking back, when I put that goal in place in January 2010, I honestly knew I would achieve the goal. I’m just that kind of goal-orientated person – always have been. However, if you had of asked me about any of the rest of the stuff that I’ve been enjoying since I hit the goal, because of the additional productivity I’m now encountering, I probably would have called you a crazy person! Make it your goal to write down your goal. Then, work hard towards realizing it. For yourself, your family, your business and your life in general.

Chris C. Ducker blogs at VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com, and is the Founder of three different businesses, including Virtual Staff Finder, a professional match-making service that helps busy entrepreneurs find experienced, high-quality virtual assistants. He lives in the Philippines, with his family, full-time.

Categories: Blogwriting, Business

How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers

A guest post by Ali Luke of Aliventures.

Do you have a bunch of first chapters tucked away in a drawer – for seven different novels?

Is there a folder full of abandoned short stories on your computer?

Have you left a trail of abandoned blogs around the internet?

Did your ebook fizzle out after a few pages?

Most writers have been there … again, and again, and again. When I began writing, I spent plenty of time starting stories. The problem was, I pretty much never finished them.

Maybe it’s the same for you. You’ve got plenty of great ideas, and you just can’t resist throwing yourself into them. Unfortunately, your motivation seems to vanish … and you’re left with a bunch of notes, outlines and first drafts that aren’t going anywhere.

No-one’s going to buy a half-written novel. No-one’s going to read a blog post that stops short after two paragraphs. So whether your writing aspirations involve hitting the New York Times bestseller list or living from the passive income from your ebooks, you need to finish what you start.

Here’s how:

Step #1: Stop Starting New Projects

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to grab that new idea and run with it. But now’s the time to stop. Resist the urge to begin anything new – however cool it sounds right now. After a few days or weeks, that shiny new project is going to lose its appeal and end up in the unfinished heap along with everything else.

Do it:

Decide, right now, that you won’t start anything new until you’ve finished something off. Find a notebook, or create a document on your computer, to store any awesome ideas that crop up – you can always come back to them in the future.

Step #2: Assess Your Current Projects

Take a long, hard look at all your current works-in-progress. If your writing life looks anything like mine, you might well need to grab a sheet of paper and make a list – you may even want to hunt through your desk drawers or your computer’s folders.

Is there anything that’s just not worth completing? Maybe the novel you started ten years ago isn’t the one you want to write now. Maybe that blog post draft was never going to go anywhere.

Rather than keeping old projects hanging around, ditch any that have died on you:

As with all dead things, holding onto it won’t keep it alive or change the fact that it’s useful time has come and gone. Hanging onto dead stuff has a higher psychic cost than most of us realize; in time, dead stuff does what trash and dead things do – it stinks.

(Charlie Gilkey, Don’t Leave Your Trash On The Stairs, Productive Flourishing)

Do it:

Make three lists:

  • Active projects that still excite you and have a purpose
  • Dead projects that you’re ready to let go (even if you feel a little bit reluctant)
  • Dormant projects that you might come back to in the future

 

Step #3: Choose One Project to Focus On

Now it’s time to pick one project. Just one. Because, when it comes to down to it, something has to be your priority.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t work on anything else. It just means that this particular project – whether it’s a blog or an ebook or a newsletter or a novel or a poetry collection – is the one that’s going to win out if you’re short on time and energy.

So what should you choose? You might like to start with:

  • Your smallest project: aim to finish that 2,000 word short story, not that 100,000 word novel.
  • The project that you’ve put the most time into: it’s probably getting close to finished.
  • The project that will have the biggest impact for you: if selling an ebook means you can cut down your hours at your day job, that might be a higher priority than getting a brand-new blog off the ground.

Do it:

Choose a single project as your priority – one thing that you’re going to see through to finished. (And tell us about it in the comments.)

Step #4: Decide What “Finished” Will Look Like

How will you know when your project is done?

This might seem like a rather stupid question – but it’s worth thinking about. Many writing projects don’t have a totally clear end point.

If you’re working on an ebook, for instance, “finished” might mean that you’re ready to launch after:

  • You’ve written an ebook that has a start, middle and end
  • You’ve written an ebook that’s 50 pages long, and you’ve proof-read it
  • You’ve got feedback on your ebook and revised it

Any of those could be right for you, depending on your goals. A short, free ebook is obviously going to require a very different level of polishing from an ebook that you hope to sell for $49.

Without a clear definition of “finished”, you risk your project dragging on … and on … and on …

Do it:

Write down, clearly, what needs to happen in order for you to check off your project as “finished”. Feel free to share this with us in the comments.

Step #5: Set Some Milestones (And Start Hitting Them)

Some small writing projects don’t need milestones: write a blog post, for instance, is something that you could realistically accomplish during one or two writing sessions.

Most projects, though – especially ones that have been hanging around unfinished for ages – are more complex. You won’t be able to finish them in a day, in a weekend, or even in a week. You’ll want to set some milestones to keep you on track.

Good milestones could be:

  • Completing a major section of a novel
  • Completing the first draft of a short story
  • Getting the outline for your ebook finished off
  • Writing a certain number of posts before your blog launch

I’d suggest having between two and ten milestones for your project (though you can break these down further if you want). It’s often useful to set a deadline for the nearest milestone, too, and hold yourself accountable.

Do it:

Write down several milestones that will get you from where you are currently to the finished project. Give yourself a deadline for your next milestone – e.g. “Finish first draft of ebook within the next three weeks.”

Over to you … I’d love to hear about your writing projects (whatever state they’re in). What’s currently languishing in your project-pile? And what will you pick to see through to completion?

 

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach. You can find posts from her all around the web, but her home base is at Aliventures. If you want to take your writing further, start by reading the most-tweeted post on her blog, 7 Habits of Serious Writers.

Join Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch in their spectacular training environment for bloggers: the A-List Blogger Club.

Categories: Productivity