Six Writing Traits for Success

Writing Traits – This post is based on an article in TTMS.org (Teaching That Makes Sense).  Although the article was geared for teaching students, the tips that are included are great for bloggers and adult writers as well.

I am an avid blogger and write at least three posts a day.  My style is rapid involves rapid communication of ideas.  Because, I am such an analytical person, I find myself self censoring quite a bit. I find that rapid writing (what I call power blogging) allows me to get out my best ideas before my analytical mind shuts down the creative process.

However, there are challenges with this style because it puts me at risk of not communicating ideas succinctly or in a way where an audience will be able to easily identify what is being communicated.  You may be a rapid writer or a methodical writer and there are pros and cons to each style.

Writing Traits

The tips listed below will provide a general guideline of what you should look for in your writing and the writing of others.  This list is copied from the post Six Writing Traits - http://www.ttms.org/writing_quality/writing_quality.htm

Ideas that are interesting and important. Ideas are the heart of the piece — what the writer is writing about and the information he or she chooses to write about it.

Organization that is logical and effective. Organization refers to the order of ideas and the way the writer moves from one idea to the next.

Voice that is individual and appropriate. Voice is how the writing feels to someone when they read it. Is it formal or casual? Is it friendly and inviting or reserved and standoffish? Voice is the expression of the writer’s personality through words.

Word Choice that is specific and memorable. Good writing uses just the right words to say just the right things.

Sentence Fluency that is smooth and expressive. Fluent sentences are easy to understand and fun to read with expression.

Conventions that are correct and communicative. Conventions are the ways we all agree to use punctuation, spelling, grammar, and other things that make writing consistent and easy to read.

Now like anything else, you can focus on these traits while you are planning your writing and in the review process.  I would suggest reading through the traits before you start each writing session.  Do not worry about committing it to memory.

You can even verbalize the traits and say something like – During this writing session, my writing will include the following traits.  After a while, your subconscious mind will actually take over and start improving your writing to include these traits.

After your writing is done, when you can detach from the writing, go through and rank yourself based on each of the traits.  The rankings do not need to be perfect but if you commit them to paper, you can see which areas may need more attention and which areas are improving over a period of time.  This will allow for an objective evaluation of what you are writing.

Work on improving on the six writing traits that are listed and you will find that you are getting a much greater response to what you are committing to paper.

Make it a great day.

Lessons from 40 Days of Blogging

40 Days of Blogging – This article will share the lessons that I have learned from 40 days of blogging.  For the last 40 days, I have gotten up and started writing first thing in the morning.  I write for about an hour to an hour and a half before I go into the office.  Further, whenever I have some free time during the day, I record videos about my blog posts or I simply write more posts.  This has been one of the most invigorating and exciting experiences of my life.

Lessons from 40 Days of Blogging

Here is what I have learned -

It gets easier, sort of - After 40 days of blogging, I have built the habit that allows me to know that I will get up every morning and start blogging.  I am confident that I will do the work every day.  When I first started, I had a lot of concerns that the monkeys in my head would take over and would take me out of the game before I even got started.  Knowing that I will get up tomorrow and do the same thing is empowering.

Results will come slow - I have created almost 300 posts over the last 40 days.  This seems like a lot but it really is not if you take it one post at a time.  However, I still get just get a trickle of visitors to my site every single day.  Although, from experience, I know that it takes about 90 days to see any real results, I still question every day what I can do better or what I can do more of that will allow me to get better results and to get those results slowly.  Patience and faith is key.  If you need to see instant results and instant success, then you will be disappointed and will probably give up before you achieve any success.  Just one person’s opinion.

I can work out my challenges through my writing - I write for an audience and I write for other people’s benefits.  However, if I am dealing with something personal, I can share about what it is going on and actually work out my challenge in the post.  I don’t like to abuse this because who wants to read about somebody else’s problems, but this does work every once in a while.

Diving in is so much more fun - At the beginning, I wanted to make the perfect post.  IT wound up taking way too long and I don’t think the reader would appreciate the difference.  It is a lot more fun to just jump in and free flow and see where we go. I have had some tremendous outcomes using this approach and find it extremely rewarding.

Don’t do it alone - Blogging is a solo activity.  By the nature of the work, we have to do at least a part of our work by ourselves.  It helps to have a running buddy or somebody who is working with us to fight off the loneliness that can set in while we are blogging.

Thanks for reading about my first 40 days blogging.  I expect to learn a lot more in the next 40 days and also expect to see some real traffic in that time.

How to Publish Content in Less than 40 Minutes (Video)

How to Publish Content in Less than 40 Minutes Video)

How to Make a Good Blog

How to Make a Good Blog – In this post, we will discuss how to make a good blog.  I have been blogging off and on for about three years but have created almost 250 blog posts in the last thirty days alone.  In this post, we will discuss some of the tips and the lessons learned that will serve you in your blogging efforts.

Remember that blog stands for web log.  Make it personal to you and make it fun.  There are no hard and fast rules about what you can and cannot do, so take everything that is written below with a grain of salt.  Take the tips that you like and feel free to throw away the rest, especially the stuff that is not interesting.

How to Make a Good Blog

1. Enjoy your blogging - There is no tip that I, or anybody else can give you, that is more important than this top tip on how to make a good blog.  Enjoy what you are writing about or creating a video about.  That will show through in your work and will be more important than any SEO or research that you are doing.  Blogs are meant to liberate our minds and allow us to express ourselves in any way that we want.  If you cannot do something that you enjoy, then there are so many better ways to spend your time.

2. Be entertaining - Share stories and do not give people exactly what they are looking for.  Be willing to throw in a curveball and share with your own personal style and flavor.  This will keep people on their toes.  It may turn some people off but you are much better turning some people off, then having everybody who reads your stuff being bored.  A little secret is, even the people who hate you and hate what you are doing, will read your stuff, so they can confirm to themselves why they hate you and your stuff.  Hah!!  Take That.

3. Take Risks and Share Yourself - Every great blogger that I know states that there blogging changed the second they began to take risks and sharing things that may be personal or controversial.  Will people judge you? Absolutely.  However, that is their issue, not yours. The funny thing is that because there is so much content and so much noise on the Internet and in the World, you are more likely to be ignored than you are to be judged.  If you are lucky (or skilled) enough to get a wide audience reading your stuff, then you are in the blessed few, even if people hate some or all of your work.  Be willing to take risks and you will thank me later.

Below is a logistics rant on how to make a good blog-

Find out what you do best and work on perfecting that craft - When I created my blog; I was torn between creating videos and writing.  I experimented with both platforms and realized one thing – I get more power from writing, then I do from creating videos.  However, I think that my videos have more benefit for most of the readers.  I decided that what I am going to do is write my content first and then I will record videos discussing what is included in the article.  The funny thing is that many times the videos take strange turns away from what is included in the articles, which can spawn a new set of written articles and a new set of videos.

The key is keep experimenting until you find your true voice.

Make it a great day and make a good blog.