I’m incredibly proud of my blog and collection of articles. So much of the best I have to share is sitting there for anyone and everyone. And best of all, it’s also there for me. Often I can search my blog for a thought and come across an eloquent article I’ve written in the past, revealing to me how much clarity I already have around that thought and how much I have to share about it.
I was talking to someone this week and they asked how long it takes for me to write an article. Not long. If I had to guess, less than 20 minutes.
I’m going to outline my process.
Most articles come from a writing prompt of “What do I need to hear most right now?”
I’ll write that out, and stare at a blank page. And then I’ll start writing.
Sometimes I’ll get inspired for article ideas throughout the week, so I have a notepad file on my phone where I write them down and I can review them later for inspiration.
And sometimes I draw a blank. As I did today. I had nothing ready and nothing was being answered easily after I wrote my prompt. So I set a 5 minute timer on my phone and started… writing.
Pure stream of consciousness writing. The main thing is my fingers don’t stop. I don’t stop to think. If I have nothing to write about, I write THAT. I keep writing. And then things will start to show up. Like today. I wrote “How long does it take to write an article?” and then my stream of consciousness started to follow that up with the other parts of my process that I’m sharing right now.
And then my article became to be for someone else – Jen, whom I spoke with this week. So, I’ve already pivoted from writing to myself to writing for one other specific person. And that’s perfectly good as well.
I aim my articles to be under 500 words. Just enough to get a thought out, and not drown in too much text, because ultimately I’m a lazy reader. So I write how I like to read, and I think it works for a lot of people.
Once I have the main article done, I re-read it first, then I listen to it with “text to speech” (I have a Mac, and it’s a built in part of the OS for accessibility). I listen to my article, because then grammar issues are noticed more easily than simply my eyes looking at the article.
When I’m satisfied, I copy and paste the article into my website, and paste it into my email service for the Frolic 100 mail out.
No AI here.
And that’s it. Today, including the 5 minutes of stream of consciousness writing, the above text took an additional 14 minutes. 19 minutes to complete the first draft. I will re-read it, listen to speech to text, and then publish.
This is officially the 279th article I’ve written since I started, one article and one week at a time.
Who benefits from when you share yourself with the world, one article at a time?
Thank you Chris!!! I’m even more inspired now.