- About 6 months ago I found myself in a challenging situation. Writing has never been particularly difficult for me. But I was suddenly getting paid to write, which meant deadlines and expectations.
1. I had to produce one piece a week for a freelance writing client. 2. I had to produce blog posts for a startup that I held an equity stake in. 3. I had to write a weekly newsletter for BlogcastFM, the podcast that I’m the host and founder of. 4. I had to keep writing for my own blog, and the books I wanted to write.
My production requirements had increased significantly and I didn’t wake up every single day with ideas for new posts, articles or newsletters.
If I waited to be inspired, I would be screwed.
I know blog posts on writing/blogging are a dime a dozen these days, but I figure if I read enough of them one day the lessons' will stick.
Well, I can sure tell how he manages to write 1000 words a day after reading that. Seem like a cheap shot? It was. But also he didn't say anything in that entire article. He linked to some dime-a-dozen self-help style books, talked about "activation energy" which sounds like Scientology, bragged a bit and gave one actual tip that I would consider helpful: write a sentence before you go to bed (something good) and expand upon it in the morning. I like that, but it only took me about 15 words to cover.
PROTIP: that article was 1073 words, title and all. It felt long because it's a 500-word essay puffed out with double fluff, in addition to bullets, quotes, etc. 500 words is stupid simple. You break it up into 5 paragraphs of 3 or 4 sentences each. - Topic paragraph: Topic sentence, summary of paragraph 2, summary of paragraph 3, summary of paragraph 4, summary of closing paragraph. - Paragraph 2: Topic sentence, argument 1, argument 2, argument 3. - Paragraph 3: Topic sentence, argument 4, argument 5, argument 6. - Paragraph 4: Topic sentence, counterargument 1, counterargument 2, refutation of counterarguments 1 and 2. - Paragraph 5: Rephrase topic sentence, summarize paragraphs 2-5, finish with a joke or conjecture. * * * That's 119 words, by the way. In other words, 10 vaguely thoughtful Reddit/Hubski comments is 1000 words per day.
Hmm. Sorry to bring back an old thread here, but my main issue with this article is directly related to this. See, there's a difference, I think, between writing something like fiction, something with your life so intrinsically intertwined in it and something like a web comment that exists in total anonymity. It isn't about writing ANY 1000 words a day, which is, perhaps, what this fellow suggests (especially considering this blog post might be one such experiment), it's about writing 1000 words of your medium. It is in your medium that you are self-conscious, in your medium that you try to cherish every little word (even when they must be killed off). Writing is a craft, sure, but this comment is not going to improve my fiction anytime soon, as far as I can tell at least.
I was mostly being tongue-in-cheek. We are always brain storming ways to get more people involved and talking on the site, as we know there are a lot of lurkers who for whatever reason are content just to lurk. Writing 10 comments per day may not help anyone become a better writer on their subject of interest, but it would sure as hell make Hubski a lot of fun.
Although this article isn't outstanding, I really do love the idea of writing crappily. In my opinion, doing something badly is the best way to learn how to do it well. For writing, at least. As long as you're learning from your mistakes as you go. Plus, I think once you lose the fear of failure and the worry of writing badly and you accept that it's not going to be great (or even good) and just go for it, it really becomes a thousand times more enjoyable. Just writing for the sake of writing.