Writers Unbound

From the Web:

• A fantastic article by Angela Booth that explains what I’ve been pondering in a fuzzy kind of way: Write More, Write Faster at Freelance Writing. Her advice includes creating process goals (a goal that is solely under your control) and separating planning, drafting, and writing. As she says, “I plan the articles I’ll write the following week each Sunday. I write the topics, the titles, and the outlines for all the articles. During the week, I draft the articles further, and then I write them. Drafting for me involves a combination of free writing and mind maps. I separate the draft for a project from the writing by at least one day, often by a week.”
  I’ve used that approach just a couple of times and it has always made me much more productive. Ask me why I haven’t incorporated it continually. I’m after greater productivity, so you’d think I would be rabid about implementing a known-to-be-helpful method. I don’t know why, maybe just self-defeating or procrastinating. I’m going to start implementing it this weekend, though, and we’ll all see how it affects my writing productivity next week.
• The initial article by Angela led me to her Writing Blog; she teaches writing courses and has some great sounding ebooks for sale, but they are all a good bit out of my price range right now. So I went the free route and started reading her blog posts. My favorites: Top Ten Writing Tips to Help You Write More, Writing: Stop Procrastinating and Write More, which reiterates what she says in the Freelance Writing article above.
• I leapfrogged to another one of Angela’s sites to read this article: Your Freelance Writing Business - What Will You Write?” This point stood out: “Many magazine writers have made the switch from magazines to writing Web sites, often for themselves. A writer friend writes five pages a day. She has many sites, and says: “I look on my sites as magazines. I add articles, advertising, editorial comments… I love writing my own sites because I have complete control, and it’s never dull. I write what I please. The only demand on myself I make is to write my five pages every day. It’s a great gig.” She making much more than she could make writing for magazines. Her time is her own, and with each page she writes, her Web site empire is growing.”

Hmm. Interesting concept, one I’ve been mulling over for a while after being inspired by a flyer about chutneys. (Yes, chutneys.) Seems Ms. Booth has fleshed out several of my mental ghosts for me. Many thanks, ma’am.