Copycat!
I was recently blessed to come into contact with Leo Babauta, who runs a very successful blog, Zen Habits. He started up a new writers blog, Write to Done, and allowed me a guest post. I also interviewed him for About Freelance Writing.
In a recent post at Write To Done, Babauta suggests that one copy the style of other freelancers. He advocates reading great copy (stories, whatever) and then making it your own.
I was also able to get a review copy of Christina Katz’s Writer Mama, which I will also cover at About Freelance Writing shortly (I’m on the last chapter). Christina echoes Leo’s suggestion. She advises those who are looking to get into magazine print to break down the articles of your target publications. For example: how many subheads are standard? Does the author use humour or is the copy completely serious? Does the word count seems standardized across issues, features and departments, or is there some give and take? You are then to use your investigation in crafting your submission.
Finally, I’m thrown back to my undergraduate years, when one of my favorite professors lectured on Ben Franklin and assigned his autobiography. It happens that Franklin taught himself to write by carefully dissecting great works, studying their pieces, and then attempting to reconstruct the text as the original author had. Talk about self taught! Sure enough, Franklin’s autobiography is a piece of precise writing that accomplishes its purpose without self-aggrandizement.
Study the masters. Choose a muse and find out what it is that draws you to that muse. Take the pieces that you will from them, and make those pieces into your own work and styling. Now, go write!
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