Who cares that you don’t have the right credentials?
Or that you break rules. Or that you break them because you didn’t know they were rules in the first place.
Or that you’re afraid.
Who cares that you stay up late, or get up early because you’re not happy with something you wrote and you need to fix it?
Who cares that it’s the wrong word and the right one won’t come?
Or that you hate semicolons as much as I do?
You’re the one behind the curtain.
You are in the magic business, friend. And only you knows how to push that idea along.
There is no license for writers. You chose this.
No one is ever going to give you permission to do this.
And you’re often going to find more reasons to stop than to go on.
No one cares if it’s luck or talent that saves you.
No one ever says “I used to be a writer” and means it. You’re in this for life.
The readers and the money are rewards. And good ones at that.
But there is only one thing keeping score in this business of stringing together letters and words.
There’s just the work.
About the author:Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing content for the web and other media. Follow him on twitter here.
CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.
I’m in the middle of doing some in-depth research for an important project, and I find myself thinking a lot these days about the nearly lost legacy of Charles Herrold.
It’s okay if you have no idea who he was. I hadn’t a clue either until I started reading up on the early history of radio.
Charles Herrold was a radio pioneer.
He coined the terms broadcasting and narrowcasting—possibly as early as 1909, and well before the eventual rise of radio’s golden age in the 1930s and 40s, by which time these were household names.
Like so many great words, broadcasting and narrowcasting were borrowed ideas: terms that were used to describe the farming method of sowing seeds from a container that spun outwards in all directions rather than in neat rows.
In choosing these words to describe the scattering approach of this new medium, Herrold showed that he understood the enormous potential of radio as an all-new way of reaching a lot more people than ever before, all at once.
Not just the select literate few of society, as was the case in the 18th and 19th centuries with book publishing and newspapers. All people. Not just with one program, but many.
Through radio and the way that Herrold (among others) saw its application, message became content.
Content became programming. And eventually, programming found a mass audience.
So why then is Herrold such a lesser-known in broadcasting history?
Most mentions of him indicate that he never made a profit from the industry that he helped pioneer.
Professor Mike Adams of San Jose State University summed up the problem this way: “He was in the right place at the right time…but he had the wrong technology.”
Herrold’s broadcasting was based on what engineers call the arc method, while others opted for a method involving vacuum tubes. I’ll spare you the technical details here.
What’s important to know about the arc method of broadcasting was that it sounded awful.
His audience couldn’t hear him as well as they could have. So they went elsewhere.
According to several public records, Herrold died in relative obscurity. Meanwhile, his radio counterpart, Frank Conrad went on to be celebrated in the New York Times as the “father of radio broadcasting.”
There are valuable lessons in this story that you can apply to your business and marketing efforts today.
First, it’s not enough to have good ideas or even to see the potential of something ahead of others.
Execution is everything.
Second, if you’re in the people business (and odds are very good that you are), you are a broadcaster. You can’t build an audience if people can’t hear you properly.
Let me repeat that…
“If you’re in the people business, you are a broadcaster. You can’t build an audience if people can’t hear you properly.”
Click to tweet this.
Make sure you have the right tools that cut through the noise. And remember: you have less time than you think to capture and maintain your audience’s attention.
Third, create great content just as you would build any other exceptional product in your business. Get it into the hands of your audience in a way that is most convenient for them.
These matter ahead of all things when you’re in the people business.
About the author:Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing content for the web and other media. Follow him on twitter here.
CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.
Anyone can be a writer, it’s true. But sometimes—whether you’re writing an article, webcopy, a direct marketing piece or a book—you’re going to get stuck and it can seem as if no amount of rewriting is going to fix your copy.
Don’t wait for that sinking feeling to set in.
Here’s the first thing you must do.
Keep writing.
Don’t give in to that feeling that says you need to walk away.
Giving in is easy. It’s what many people do.
There are cases where you need to shift gears for a bit (and I’ll come back to that). But unless you keep working at your craft and your ideas, you’re going to lose any momentum you started with.
There’s an even bigger danger.
Unless you’re in the deadlines business like I am, there is also a good chance that if you put that writing assignment away, you might not come back to it. Ever.
Stop with the Point-A-to-Point-B thinking. Be more abstract.
Ideas and the business of writing them down is not a linear practice. In fact, it’s rare to be struck by a fully formed thought that’s ready to share. That’s just the low-hanging fruit, my friends. The rest takes time to ripen. And often it’s going to take you in directions that may surprise you as much as your reader.
Here are a few methods I use when I get stuck. You can use any of these, too.
The tangential method
Find a good quote about the subject you are writing about. Don’t just slap that quote into your copy.
The writer’s first job is to ask questions. Who is the speaker behind the quote? What did he or she accomplish? Are there any articles posted online about this individual? Book reviews? Praise? Criticism? A few minutes of satisfied curiosity can provide you with an entirely new angle on what you’re writing about.
The switching gears method
I said earlier that you have to keep on writing when you’re stuck. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep bashing your head against the wall and wishing for a different result. Some ideas need to simmer. In the meantime, write something else.
Creativity is a weird visitor. It often walks into your house, puts its feet up on the sofa, grabs pen and paper and tells you it’s working on something. Let it do its job. Just don’t let it switch on the TV.
Switching gears means that you might not be working on the thing you started on in the first place, but you’re still producing. Practice and discipline. These are your best teachers.
The backstory method
This one applies to fiction writing. Having trouble making a character believable? Invent a backstory and write it down. Need help asking the right questions? Go to one of those free online dating sites and look at the questions they ask of people when creating a dating profile. Fill it in. The answers you’re being asked are meant to help other people decide if you’re likeable and compatible. So this is a good resource if you’re stumped.
With a fact-filled backstory (okay, made up facts, but I’m sure you get where I’m going with this), you have new ways to approach your subject and write convincingly. After all, you totally know this guy now.
The undoing method
Some ideas are just not ready for primetime. Some are just crappy ideas. A good way to test yours is to turn them inside out. Play devil’s advocate. Write a short piece arguing the opposing point of view.
One of my business lines is speechwriting. I sometimes use this method when I’m finding the copy isn’t as persuasive as my standards demand. Undo your arguments. You’ll quickly reveal the cut line that separates the facts you know are true from the rest of the points that you simply feel are true.
About the author:Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing content for the web and other media. Follow him on twitter here.
CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.
Writers get asked this often and more often than not, the answer can be distilled to this: I don’t really know. They just come to me.
Ideas are like luck. You can believe they just happen and that you’re just fortunate to be there when they materialze. But that’s a pretty fanciful notion, isn’t it?
Here’s what I know as someone who has been in the idea business for more than 10 years on my own, and more than 20 in the writing trade: luck and ideas come from practice.
You have to make a habit of being there—of showing up and doing the thing that needs to get done to get the things you really want. There is no shortcut.
I like what Neil Gaiman says about this: “You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.”
I want to share with you 10 more. The list is varied, but what they all have in common is an unyielding devotion to showing up regularly with great writing and solid ideas.
Who’s on your favourite list for creative inspiration? Let me know.
James Altucher
His positions on a lot of things might raise your eyebrows. He and I disagree, for instance, on the importance of voting (I see it as a civic duty in Canada, but I can see why he feels the way he does, living where he lives). But there’s a strange genius to what James does. I admire that, not to mention his deep sincerity. He also happens to be a prolific storyteller who understands the intimate bond between reader and writer. More than just teaching the value of not holding back at all in your writing, he also writes killer headlines. How can you help but click on a story called How I Screwed Yasser Arafat out of $2mm? I never miss a thing this guy writes.
Dan Zarella
I value a handful of field-tested research more than a truckload of opinions, and that’s why I read social media scientist Dan Zarella’s blog regularly (as well as his latest book). The takeway is more than just for social media. There’s insight here you can apply to all aspects of marketing and selling. As a direct result of Dan’s work—and his generosity in sharing his findings online—there’s a lot more certainty to writing for the web than ever before. Be sceptical of the opinionated. Act on verifiable data.
rob mclennan
Poetry is what reminds me that there are no easy answers to creative problems. As I say so often: simple is hard. I turn to many poets often for advice through their words. One in particular is rob mclennan, whom I’ve know since the days of Bard poetry readings in the basement of a downtown bar here in Ottawa. His blog isn’t just a platform for his own elegant prose, but for others, too.
Leo Babauta
As much as I’m a stickler for evidence-based research, one place where that can’t help much is in learning the mastery of living the good life in the fine sense that Aristotle once spoke of. The path to happiness is not through data, but through wisdom earned through practice. It’s that easy. And that hard. This is why I keep coming back to ZenHabits for more.
Colleen Francis
Wait, I know what you’re going to say. “Hey you’re plugging her because she’s a client!” Well, that’s partly true (I’ve been writing for Colleen for many, many years). But there’s an even more important reason. Colleen is one of the industry’s best speakers and coaches, teaching business owners and sales people to increase sales the smart way. I learn something new on every job I work on for her. If you want to be a better speaker, a better business owner and even just be smarter about working with people, Colleen has the world by the tail. So I’m happy to share her wisdom with you, dear reader.
Jane Friedman
Jane Friedman of the University of Cincinatti shares my passion for the future of publishing and has some very thoughtful things to say about that. She does a great job of helping to teach writers to think more like entrepreneurs. There are also valuable takeaways for everyone—not just writers–in search of advice and encouragement on keeping their creativity muscles well-exercised.
Jeff Goins
This is a recent find for me. Jeff’s a writer for writers. His blog is pitched at those who care about “writing, creativity, and changing the world.” And he does a great job of delivering on that. His stuff glows with an infectious positive energy and that’s why I subscribe to his updates. Bonus points for being a fellow guitar enthusiast.
Lisa Larter
She practices what she preaches about how businesses can do a better job of using social media in their marketing activities. Her post on why business owners need a “stop-doing” list helped give me a push in the right direction in 2011 and I’ve been reading her ever since. Lisa gets bonus marks for being a fellow resident of Ottawa–where a one-time non-existent entrepreneurial culture is growing today, thanks to the people who put in the time to make it happen.
Roger Ebert
Yes, the man’s a giant in film review. But at his core, Roger’s a writer who just happens to talk about film. His ideas often touch on things that transcend cinema. He built a rather fine career on his considerable writing talents, and yet in the last several years, his skills have grown even more. It’s partly in defiance of illness and loss, but there’s something else that drives this guy’s incredible passion for words. He’s not afraid to colour outside the lines. He reminds that there is endless satisfaction in digging deeper into your thinking and to not just settle for what comes quickly.
Artie Isaac
I was first drawn to Artie because of his speaking style, which I admire greatly (and that includes his trademark bowtie). He’s a powerful advocate for anyone who is in the ideas business. What I’ve found has really been keeping me coming back, however, is his emphasis on ethics. He’s also a fan of Thich Nhat Hanh. So again, bonus points.
About the author:Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing content for the web and other media. Follow him on twitter here.
CreativeBoost gives you valuable updates about unlocking the power of writing that sells. It's free. Join today.
About the author: Patrick Gant is a writer & speaker. He owns thinkit creative, a company that specializes in writing and editing content for the web and other media. Follow him on twitter here.
