Content Creation Secrets

In school and college, we are taught to write in a `safe’ way. Well-meaning teachers advise us to outline before getting started. Otherwise, we would not know where we are heading to and end up not delivering what the topic requires of us.

Does this safe method always work? Not always. The general experience is, despite having an outline, we have trouble getting started and end up what we call writer’s block. Worse still, some of us find the process of outlining a tougher nut to crack than the writing process itself.

If we survive this safe method after much effort, the experience is so painful that we would want to avoid it in the future. The worst thing that could happen to a writer is to avoid writing. We would all like to be writers but we want to avoid writing because we attach a past painful experience to the process of writing.

If such a safe method of writing hinders our productivity and paralyzes us, it could only be called a dangerous method. Discard this method now if it gives you more trouble than benefit. Forget outlining before you write.

Discard it and replace with what? Is there a much more productive method worth considering?

Yes there is.

Just DIVE IN and start writing away. That’s the method.

How do you do it? Just write about the topic as if you’re talking to a friend about it over coffee in a cafe. Tell your friend what you’ll be covering and how you’ll be dealing with the main points.

You can even tell your friend how you’ll be opening your first paragraph. All this has to be done in a playful manner. As playful as possible.

Even if you don’t come up with anything useful (chances are slim you would not), you’ll loosen up and look at your writing project in a new light.

Writing in this manner is also a form of outlining. You can call it a discovery draft if you like. If you take the risk with a discovery draft, you maybe rewarded with insights you
may not have considered if you’ve sat down to approach your writing in the traditional manner.

Writing away without a worry in the world is a risk every writer should take. What have you got to lose?

Freewriting doesn’t work for most of us because we come to it with a big expectation.
Our expectation, more often than not, is to produce good, beautiful writing. We forget that the real idea of freewriting is to PLAY with writing.

Writing with an expectation is a sure way to paralyze you writing muscles. When you start off expecting to produce beautiful writing, you’ll be disappointed if you don’t get near your expectation. The disappointment stays in your `writing memory’ and you’ll tend to avoid freewriting in the future.

As Peter Elbow, a renowned writing teacher puts it in his book, Writing With Power, freewriting sometimes produces good writing. But that’s not your goal. Sometimes, it will produce bad writing. That’s not your goal either.

Freewriting is also not about speedwriting. Writing fast is not your goal. So, when you start, you don’t have to start with the idea of writing as fast as you can if that’s not how you write naturally.

According to Peter Elbow, the main goal of freewriting is not beautiful writing or fast writing. It’s rather WRITING WITHOUT STOPPING for a set period of time.

More often than not, you’ll stick to one topic. If you can’t, you’re welcome to stray to any other topic that crosses your mind at that instant. As long as you don’t stop, you’re fine.

As the author aptly puts it, “The goal of freewriting is in the process, not the product.”

If you’ve been reading up on writers and writers, you would have come across this Hemingway technique.

Hemingway discusses it in his book, A Moveable Feast, among his other sketches on life in Paris.

The technique is to stop writing when the going is good. Hemingway advises you to stop at the point where you know what’s coming next.

The whole idea of stopping thus is to provide you with the momentum for your writing the next day.

If you have trouble starting writing every day, this technique could come in handy. Instead of having to rack your brains wondering what to write, you’ll just have to jump in and continue with the flow.

To make this technique work, you would probably have to stop your writing in mid-sentence or stop at a point where you’re asking a question.

For example, you can stop at a point where a character is asking another, “How did you escape from the robbers?”

You know what the other character is going to say. You stop there although you’re tempted to write on.

The next day, you can be rest assured to jump straight into the writing and continue.

Now, Hemingway used this technique to write his novels. Can this technique be applied to short story or article writing or even blogging?

Check this article out.

Do you start writing with a hope? Most of the time we hope to finish what we start writing. If you’re new to writing, this is important - finishing what you start writing.

Anyway, after you’re used to finishing what you start writing, you begin entertaining a new kind of hope - hoping what you write will turn out to be a masterpiece.

This is a dangerous kind of hope. It can adversely affect your writing.

If what you write doesn’t turn out to be a masterpiece, you may end up with a deep wound which may not have healed the next time you pick up your pen to write.

The wound may be inflicted on you in the form of criticism from someone’s opinion you respect or rejection from a publisher you submit your work to.

The next time you feel like writing, you would be thinking of avoiding another wound, especialy if you’re not strong enough as a writer.

JK Rowling, before beginning her fisrt novel asked herself what was the worst that could happen if she started writing the novel.

The answer she got was it would be rejected by all the publishers in Britain. When she was prepared for the worst, she could write her novel without any doubt or fear.

The secret is not to entertain any hope and prepare for the worst when you write. A new kind of writing energy flows into you when you don’t expect or fear.

What do you do when you grow tired of writing? By tired I mean you have done much writing and you don’t feel like it anymore.

I can hear some of you saying go and read a book. But what if you’re tired of the written word? What if short stories, poems or even motivational books increase your `fatigue’?

You need a breath of fresh air. You have to recharge yourself by switching to a non-word medium. You could pick up a coffee table book and just concentrate on the photographs.

Or watch a Charlie Chaplin silent movie or just watch a movie in a language that’s foreign to you without the subtitles on.

Without the subtitles on, you’re forced to concentrate on the expression of the actors and their actions.

Alternatively, you could watch a movie in a language you understand but don’t write in.

If you have been blogging for a while, you would have learnt about your blog’s strengths and weaknesses.

Your weaknesses may include lack of writing prowess, plain language and even typos.

You should correct these weaknesses as much as possible. The one thing you should not do is fuss and worry over them. If you give much time and energy, you’ll end up with a no-win situation, Why, you may even end up giving up on blogging.

Instead, outline a strategy on how you will be attacking these weaknesses. Follow and refine this strategy and you’ll certainly see results over time. Patience and persistence is the name of the game.

While devoting time to rectify your weaknesses, you would want to also focus on your strengths. Which category in your blog draws the most response in terms of comments?
Do you see a jump in traffic when you blog on a certain topic?

Which topic do you find yourself writing eloquently about?
You may have started your blog on a general theme, but over time you can identify the area that generates reader interest.

Focus on this area and generate more fresh content.
Blogging is all about learning to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Ask yourself what you are doing to overcome the weaknesses.

Ask also what you’re doing to reinforce your strengths.

Have you written some good content so that you could generate search engine traffic?

Traffic to your site or blog depends on your ranking in the search engine pages. Does good content rank highly in such pages?

We learn that search engine robots are getting smarter by the day. We are told they can easily differentiate between valuable content and spam.

Is this true? Are search engine robots that smart?

If you don’t get a good ranking because there are better content pages you’ll have to accept defeat graciously.
What if it’s spam or not-so-valuable page that ranks higher than your content page?

I’ve come across sales pages and product order pages that are ranked higher (first page)than good content pages, which are consigned to the third or fourth pages.

You and I know searchers don’t go beyond the second or third page in normal circumstances.

So, what can we do when a sales page or product order page ranks above your content page?

You will have to write more content on the same keywords and submit to article directories like ezinearticles. Search engines rank content from article directories highly and you can still drive traffic to your content pages in a roundabout way.

The other method would be to create a Youtube video on your keyword and leave a link to your content page in the video description section. Search engines rank Youtube videos highly and your video may end up on the first page for your chosen keyword.

Do these methods appeal to you? Do you have any other methods?

The Internet Gurus will tell you that you can make thousands of dollars within a single day with your content. That’s a laugh. They are the ones who make thousands of dollars selling information products telling you how to do it.

Those who have tried making money with their content have some sad stories to tell.

There are thousands of webmasters or bloggers with great content sites or blogs carrying hundreds of articles making only a few dollars a week through Adsense. The same goes to the Adsense gurus, but they make money selling information products teaching you how to make a fortune with Adsense.

Still, there are some who make a living online with their content. They offer freelance writing services. They are certainly the envy of many who have not yet met with success in their attempts to monetize their content.

You may envy them, but the Internet gurus do not. These slick salesmen tell you it’s not enough to make a living with your content. You are only considered a success when you make a fortune out of your content.

I came across such a statement in a sales letter for a product which teaches you how to make a fortune with your content. You know what’s the secret? Just provide quality content which is in demand.

Gurus share another `little-known’ secret. Don’t write your own content. It’s time consuming. Get someone to do it for you for a few bucks. Sell the content for thousand of dollars. Very simple, isn’t it?

If you come across such a product just ignore it. You are not going to get content creation secrets to make a fortune by buying such products.

Save your money and visit good content creation sites or blogs to pick up useful tips. Keep creating content and be patient as you keep learning.

But if you’re lazy and greedy and always look for shortcuts in life, this advice will be useless to you.

The greedy and lazy will never make a fortune with their content. They will only make the Internet gurus rich and end up frustrated – the just reward of greed and laziness.

If you’re brimming with ideas for blog posts, you may find it tempting to discuss them with friends or family members instead of writing them down.

Is this a wise thing to do?

Yes and no.

Of course talking it out is much, much easier than writing it down. You may find yourself waxing lyrical about your ideas. If you’re going to discussing your content in depth then you run the risk of running out of steam when it comes to writing the content.

Yes, you may feel what’s there to write when you’ve already talked it all out.

If you really have to discuss your blogging ideas, just talk briefly on the topic without going into the details of the content.

You don’t want to end up emotionally spent even before you sit down to write your content.

Talking about your content, however, comes useful if you’re having trouble getting started writing your blog post.

In this instance, you may want to use your friend or family member as a springboard for a smooth flow of ideas.

You may even want to do an audio recording of the discussion so that you could use it to refresh your memory when it comes to writing your blog post.

Getting dozens of comments for his blog posts is nothing new for this high-profile blogger. His posts get commented on for months , almost on a daily basis. Almost every post enjoys a high Google PageRank.

Obviously, many blogs must be linking to the posts for his blog to enjoy such a standing. I would say that the blogger deserves all those comments owing to the comprehensiveness of his posts. They are almost at par with the quality of articles in a top-notch magazine.

However, I have an issue with the way he moderates the hundreds of comments he receive.

The post I was reading had about 130 comments. What disappoints is the blogger seems to have included every other comment that has been posted. What’s the idea of doing that?

There are many one-liner comments which don’t add to the conversation, made solely for the purpose of getting backlinks from a high-traffic blog.

There was a comment which only said one word: Last. Then there was a duplicate comment. The commenter must have clicked the submit button twice. Then there are comments which are plain silly. I stopped reading the posts after the first ten.

There may be some useful ones if I scroll further down, but I’ll only get to them by wading through the `lazy’, selfish comments which are just a waste of time.

Out of the 130 comments, the blogger could have done with about 30-40 comments that contributes to the discussion. The comments will be swelling over the months and years and they will end up providing no real value to a reader.

If yours is a high-traffic blog with dozens of comments, please moderate the comments in the interest of other readers. It’s your duty to select only those which provide value.

Kick out those comments which try to advertise a product, which try to be witty without saying anything or which just say one word.