Use Mind-Mapping & Analyzing to Help Overcome Writer’s Block

In a recent post I mentioned writer’s block and writer’s overload.  “What Holds You Back From Writing.”

Today I want to cover ways to help you overcome writers block but I also want to raise the question of whether or not one can lead to the other (writers block and writers overload).

I referred to writer’s overload as having too many ideas to write about, which could translate to having so many ideas you can’t find time to write.  I also mentioned that “idea” overload can cause you to feel overwhelmed and not allow you to focus on one topic.  In a sense this can cause writer’s block.

So lets define writer’s block.  Writer’s block can be an inability to choose which points to cover for those writing non-fiction for the web or a magazine.  It can be an inability to move a scene or character forward in fiction writing, or it can mean lack of inspiration or creativity for poets and lyric writers.

Writing, in any form, is basically thinking.  So maybe it’s a “Thinking Problem”.  Thinking is basically analyzing.  To write about any subject, fiction or non-fiction, is to analyze it.  Lets think about how we can analyze our subject and break it down into smaller parts.

Some people call this clustering, some call it mind-mapping.

I’m going to use fiction in this example and mind-map a character.  We have a hero; our central character.  We need to give him a name, like John.  (I know, boring)

We have John and we need to define who he is.  Can you tell who he is just by his name?  Can you visualize John?  Probably not yet.

We need to get some basic information about John; his personality, his strengths, weaknesses and his background.

View Character Mind Map image in new window

If you look at the diagram (I’m not an artist) you can see I’ve placed John in the center rectangle and the things I want to define about him in circles, each with lines connecting them.

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Commonly Mis-used Words; Then, than, they’re, there, their, etc.

The English language can be tough, even for us native speakers.  It’s no wonder when we can have three spellings of a word that sounds the same but has three different meanings.  What were we thinking?

I see these words misused all the time, by native speakers, people I went to school with (many years ago).  You’d think it would be simple and they’d have learned the difference by now, but unfortunately they haven’t.

So lets cover a few of my pet peeves.

They’re: is a contraction for they are.
There: means something is somewhere.
Their: refers to something that belongs to people or animals.

Examples:
They’re going to the concert.  (They are going to the concert)
The book is over there. (Yep, it’s right over there on the table..see it’s somewhere.)
The children put their coats on the rack.  The coats belong to the children so you use their.
They’re putting their coats on the rack over there.  (Uses all three forms of the words in one sentence–not a great sentence but you get the idea.)

Then:  refers to more of a space of time.
Than:  refers to ‘instead of‘.

Examples:
We went to the movies and then we went out to eat.  (This is bad sentence structure but if you can put the word “and” in front of the word “then“, this is how the word is used.
We went to the movies, then we went out to eat.
I’d rather have apples than oranges. (If you can write this as ‘I’d rather have apples ‘instead of’ oranges, the word “than” fits.

Two: is a number (2)
Too: means also
To: refers to going somewhere, refers to something. (It’s a particle or function word.) Read about it at wikipedia.

Examples:
I have two shoes.
I have two shoes too. (I have two shoes also.)
I’m going to the store to buy two shoes.
I want to give her two shoes too.

Buy: means to purchase something.
By: usually refers to ‘beside‘ but can also mean someone wrote something. (The Green Mile is by Stephen King. (Stephen King is the author)  The book is by the door. ( The book is next to or beside the door.)
Bye: means you’re leaving, adios, chow, later on dude.

Examples:
I am going to buy a new car.
I live by the interstate.  (I live next to the interstate.)
I have to tell John “bye” before we leave.  (I’m letting John know we’re leaving and being kind by telling him bye.)

These are just a few of the words I cringe to see used wrong.  They are quite easy to use, and hopefully these examples will help you distinguish the difference between them.

What are your pet peeves?  Do you have words that you hate seeing abused?

Write On!
Patti Stafford

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Seven Steps to Writing Success

1) Set specific goals.
“A DREAM written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A
goal broken down becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION
makes your dream come true.”
Greg S Reid

2) Set up a Daily To Do List.
Work on prioritizing the list and always work on the
most important task first. Make them realistic and
achievable. Each step you accomplish is a stepping
stone towards your dreams. Avoid procrastination if
you want to get to your dream.
3) Devote a specific amount of hours each and every
day to work on your business.
 
Do not get side tracked, especially with the endless
emails that you may get.

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The Pain of Rejection

If you’ve been writing very long you know about rejection.  It really doesn’t matter how you’ve been writing either–you’re going to get rejections.  One of the most painful parts of rejections happens when they come in waves.  I’ve received more than my share lately.  It’s reminded me that Stephen King received an ungodly amount of rejections before his big break, and it also reminded me of a post that Angela Swanlund did recently.

But even knowing all of this, the sting of rejection still takes a little bit of soul away, or it seems like it does.

Enjoy Angela’s article:
Dealing With Rejection

Happy Writing!
Patti Stafford

Mysterious Disappearance of the A-Listers; Angela Swanlund’s Opinion

Angela recently posted about the decline of the A-Listers and how they are throwing in the towel from all this blogging madness.

She states:

Content whore. Paid advertising flunkie. Queen of the 3 paragraph 87% key word dense blog post. Princess of the unlimited pen name. I’ve been called all of the above – and worse.

Where does that leave those of us still trying to forge a blog and a name for ourselves?  Angela has opinions on that too.  Angela and I have partnered on many projects over the years.  Ironically, she’s been predicting some of this stuff for years.

Read Angela’s Blog, A-List Decline

Happy Writing!
Patti Stafford

Why Web Content Writers Have a Bad Reputation

File this one under the sad but true category, folks. We are considered the ‘bottom feeders’ of the freelance writing industry – by the freelance writing community. The two main reasons are this:

1. Regardless of the topic of our content, a heavier focus is paid to the key word density of the article than the actual informational value of the piece as a whole. In other words, our buyer sometimes doesn’t even care if we use proper English or good grammar, as long as we use a good key word saturation. This all too common practice reduces the overall merit and value of web content articles in general. Nay, you say? Ask yourself these questions. Have you ever wondered how in the world a blog barely in English, with the worst grammar you’ve ever read – had a PR of 5? Or how a landing page of nothing more than links to eternity and one center frame piece of content could pull a PR4? Have you ever stared in utter disbelief at what just sold on a content marketing website – and wondered why anyone, anywhere, would have paid a dime for that piece? Hello.

2. Paid to post text link ads within our blog that are completely irrelevant to the content we present. We’ve learned how to link computer stores within the content of a post about decorating an infant nursery by slapping the a href tag around the word “monitor” in the phrase – set the baby monitor within two feet of the crib. Yes, a clever bunch we are! Not.

 It’s no wonder we take such a beating in ratings by the freelance writing community, we‘ve brought this wrath onto ourselves. But it does not have to be this way! We can take back the control of our content and raise our own personal standards to beat this bum rep.

 How?
When you begin a web content article writing assignment, literally forget that list of key words your buyer supplied. For the moment, focus solely on your topic. Approach this topic as if you, yourself, were in search of the information. What would you want this article to tell you? After you have the general concept in your head, do your homework. Research. Have you fully answered the questions you had concerning this topic? Have you covered this topic as thoroughly as your word count allowed?  Read your article aloud, does it flow with a good cadence? Is it an easy read, or did you stumble? Next, correct your grammar. And last – absolutely last – work those key words into the piece. In other words, write a real article.

When you log into the admin of your favorite paid review website, don’t let greed overwhelm you! Decline the tasks that do not specifically relate to a normal topic addressed in your blog. Respect your own readers more than this! Only accept tasks that you feel would be of real interest or importance to your readership. And when you write these reviews, do your homework. Visit that website, learn about those products or services, and present this information to your readers in a concise and informative manner. In other words – write a real review.

That takes Too Much Time And I’ll Lose Money!
Oh really? What would you say if I told you this method guarantees you’ll be approached personally by advertisers instead of through the paid link marketing website? What if I told you this method guarantees you’ll be approached by content buyers personally? Then would you be willing to take the risk? Then would you be willing to decline those mis-matched tasks and tighten up those web content articles? I bet you would. Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee you squat. I know, horribly anti-climatic, my bad. But I will offer this challenge. Try this method of writing for 6 months and if you don’t see significantly better offers and gain significantly more readers – I’ll personally feature your work on my websites, and help to promote you. Deal?
Angela

Online Collaboration Tool: A Writing Teams’ Best Friend

Angela and I do a lot of ‘remote’ collaboration in our writing services.  We got sick of sending file attachments through emails all the time, not to mention how difficult it was to keep up with all the edits and updated files.

We set out to find Project Management Tools that were user friendly, cost effective and much simpler than email.  What we found was Huddle.  Huddle is the leading web 2.0 collaboration tool. With Huddle you can manage projects, upload and share documents and files with anyone anywhere. Huddle is entirely web based so there’s nothing to download or install.

How can you use Huddle?
Give your email a rest
– Have you ever tried emailing large files? Upload and share large files and documents.
Instant access – Don’t have your computer with you? No problem, access your info anywhere there is an internet connection.
Online editing – Create and edit Word and Excel files even if the computer you’re using doesn’t have those programs installed.
Online discussions – Banish email threads and the “Reply All”. Use private discussion forums to manage team communications in one place.
Hard Drives Crash! – Don’t lose your work, with Huddle you get plenty of storage. Don’t lose your work, back it up on Huddle.

If you’re having trouble keeping up with your team, your clients or your projects.  Give Huddle a try.

Never Send a Potential Client “Writing Samples”

If you frequent many job boards for freelance writers you’ve seen plenty of ads wanting to see samples of your work.  Never send these out.  More than likely this is simply a ploy to get a lot of content for free. 

It’s extremely important that you build an online portfolio.  Read my article, “Creating a Successful Portfolio in Economic Hardtimes” to find out more about a portfolio.  Any legitimate content buyer will not mind getting a link to your online portfolio.  If they do, then you probably don’t want to work for them anyway.

I’ve applied for these jobs that request writing samples and I send a link to my portfolio.  I’ve never heard from any of them.  Why?  Because they weren’t interested in hiring me, they wanted free writing samples.  Think about it.  If 500 writers each send a writing sample, that’s 500 pieces of unique content they’ve just acquired for free.

Of course there’s nothing to stop them from copying your content from your portfolio, but they do risk the duplicate content penalty by doing this.  A much easier solution is to post a free ad on craigslist and request writing samples.

Happy Writing,
Patti Stafford

Believe in Yourself

“Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be
times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take
heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will
often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong,
distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end,
only the strong survive.”

- Jayne Ann Krentz

Earnest Hemingway

 “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,”
Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934.
I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King.

Stephen King is well-known for such works as Carrie, Salem’s Lot, Pet Cemetary, The Shawshank Redemption, and many, many more.

I love to read his works, but I have to admit that sometimes I spend more time in the dictionary referencing his words than I do actual reading.  He is a very diverse and gifted writer who provokes his readers into thought.

One of the best books I’ve read is, “On Writing” by Stephen.  It was written on the craft of writing and is full of inspiration and knowledge.  I suggest every writer should own a copy and read it often.

Read Stephens full bio at his website, StephenKing.com

Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th Birthday

Children may no longer be required to recite the poem with the repeated word, “Nevermore!,” but scholars around the world and close to home continue to revere Edgar Allan Poe’s fiction and poetry – including “The Raven” – as the 200th anniversary of his birth approaches.

The 19th-century American author, famous for such works as “The Black Cat,” “The Telltale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” was a University of Virginia student for just one year, but on Grounds his presence and his work are everlasting. In commemoration of the bicentennial of his birth on Jan. 19, 1809, the University Library has planned an exhibition beginning in March that portrays and investigates the enduring influence of Poe’s works, as well as his tragic life.

Read more…


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