Many professional writers find the act of writing to be an afterthought, an anticlimax after all the work has been done. The words seem to flow by themselves after thoughts are organized, angles decided, and the tools are in place. Well yippee for them. Most in the corporate realm that have been tasked with blogging for their businesses don't have that experience or discipline. Here are four ways to make it easier:
Create your own space. Maya Angelou famously uses a non-descript room with no color or decoration that might distract her from her task. Many top novelists have cabins in the woods or other secluded places where they can go to churn out bestsellers once a year. If you're on the same budget I am, that's not an option. What is an option is carving out a space in your home or office that feels like it's separate from the many distractions around you. Maybe there's an open cubicle or conference room available? Maybe you have a light in your office you can dim or turn off to create the impression that you're in a different place. Maybe you have headphones you can use to cancel out the noise around you or pipe in music or sounds that will help give you the clarity to be creative. Whatever you can do, creating your own space makes it easier to mentally seclude yourself from your environment and achieve the focus needed to write well.
Rehearsal helps a lot. Have a funky analogy to explain a key feature or value proposition? What do people say when you explain it to them? Do they get it? If not, they probably wouldn't get it in your blog either. One of the great things about your blog is that it can be so conversational. Use that by trying out your writing ideas in conversations with people around you. You don't have to beat it to death but it's a great way to poke holes in your own arguments or find out what frequently asked questions come up when presenting new information.
Borrow relentlessly. You're not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize; you're just trying to get good content in front of your audience so they'll hang out long enough to buy something. Your audience doesn't care if your content is original so much as they care if it's relevant. Now, if you're blatantly ripping off content they're getting at some other site, you don't hold much value. But if you're giving a fresh take or opinion on an event you found out about at another blog or news source, your audience might see value in the originality of your opinion. How much of your content should be inspired by other places? Well, if your value to your audience lies in your ability to aggregate news and trends across your industry, quite a lot. There are ethics around how to "borrow" content and although there's not much someone can do to you for stealing their stuff without attribution, there is Karma.
Invest in your education. The easiest thing for you to blog about is whatever you're already thinking of. It stands to reason then that spending time learning about possible blog topics is a great way to kill two birds with one stone. You get the knowledge you need to take over the world and have a steady diet of blog topics fall out of your daily curriculum. If you're blogging for your company, this is like killing three birds with one stone! You have a great excuse for spending time soaking up knowledge that will make you a more valuable employee; you're learning things about your industry that will help further your career; and your blog will be more informative and popular than other sources in your space.
Whatever ends up working for you, there's one thing that will help you more than everything else: experience. The more you write the easier it will be.
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