The Writer’s Flywheel in 14+ Illustrations

Does content marketing sometimes feel like a challenge?

Like you’ve got to produce a never-ending stream of content?

A blog. A newsletter. LinkedIn. YouTube. Insta.

Wherever you’re marketing you business, it may never seem enough.

Never enough content.

Never enough time.

Soooo … how do we stay sane?

I’d like to offer a different perspective on marketing and writing for your biz.

A more sustainable way that gives you joy and energy.

What’s more …

This perspective will invigorate your readers and clients, too, and help you grow your business.

Shall I explain?

1. How to do your best writing

The standard content marketing advice is to write for your reader: Help your reader achieve their aims, solve their problems, and answer their questions.

But that’s not enough …

Because if you only share tips, then your writing can be easily exchanged for anyone else’s writing. You’re not building a strong relationship with your reader.

So, what to do?

Don’t just write for your reader; write for yourself, too.

Don’t just write about what you know; write about what you want to learn, too.

Follow your curiosity and write about what you’re discovering, what matters to you, what makes you excited to write. Your enthusiasm breathes life into your words, and your readers will notice. A spark transfers from you as writer to your readers.

YOU and your enthusiasm are the secret ingredient in your best writing.

And you know what?

When you do your best writing (from the heart!) you connect more strongly with your audience.

And when you connect more strongly, you can let go of that punishing schedule of more more more.

Focus on quality, on real connections, on real conversations, and then find a publishing schedule that works for you, that keeps you connected to the joy of creating.

2. How to make content marketing work for your business

Big corporations can afford to be boring.

Because they have tons of money to buy brand awareness.

But for small businesses and freelancers, life is different. We don’t have heaps of money, so we have to fascinate our audience with fewer resources.

But we have these secret ingredients I’ve told you about …

Our joy. Our personality. Our enthusiasm.

So, let that joy feed your wish to help your readers.

People notice when your content is in line with your beliefs and values, and when your content becomes unmistakably you. You connect with the people who are right for you, and that fuels your motivation to keep creating content and building your business.

Good writing connects, and to connect you need emotion, and to write with emotion, you need to care about what you’re writing. You can’t fake it.

So, whenever things go awry and you feel overwhelmed by content marketing, reconnect with that inner joy—the inherent joy of creating.

Creativity can seem fickle.

Just when you need to write your next blog post or newsletter or social media post, you can’t seem to find an idea.

Sound familiar?

Here’s how to keep that inner fire burning and stay inspired all year round …

3. Know what input you require

As Austin Kleon suggests, a problem of output is often a problem of input.

So, if you’re out of inspiration, first consider what content you’re consuming.

When we read the same as everyone else, we’ll produce similar content, and we’re at risk of going stale.

So, follow your curiosity and rewild your attention. Read something off the beaten track.

Secondly, review what else is required to keep your creative soul happy. I need rest, plenty of tea, walks, and quietude.

What feeds your creative soul?

4. Get out of your comfort zone

There are 3 creative zones:

• The inner zone is your comfort zone, where you create on auto-pilot and risk going stale.
• The outer zone is the procrastination jungle, where you spend your energy fighting your fears and where you risk procrastination.
• The in-between zone is your most productive zone, where you’re outside your comfort zone but not too far.

It’s just outside your comfort zone where you find your creative challenges and do your best work.

So, if you feel like you’re going stale, give yourself a new challenge. Write about something different. Take on a bigger client. Or try a new creative writing technique.

Keep challenging yourself.

Have fun.

5. Focus on joy

Writing can be hard.

I hear you.

I used to have a hate/love relationship with writing. Yet, over time, I learned to lean into the joy of writing. It’s about both detachment and focus:

• Detachment: Learn to let go of expectations and stop worrying about the number of comments and likes and impressions a post may get.
• Focus: Relentlessly focus on the task in front of you whether that’s writing a crappy first draft, revising, editing, or proofreading. Pay attention. Do your best.

Remember:

No matter how hard or wonky the writing process sometimes is, there’s inherent joy in creating something that didn’t exist before.

Embrace that joy.

You know what’s so fun when your writing skills improve?

First, your writing makes more impact because you know how to captivate, educate, inspire, and persuade your readers.

Secondly, writing becomes more joyful as you make your words sing.

So, here are 3 tips on improving your writing skills …

6. Find sustainable growth

Is that sneaky voice spoiling the fun of writing?

I’ve been there, too.

Struggling to write is human.

But please don’t accept what your inner critic tells you.

If your inner critic tells you that you’re a bad writer, be sure to correct them.

No one is a bad writer, and all of us are learning to write better.

To find growth as a writer, embrace two contradictory beliefs:

• Remind yourself (and your inner critic) you’re already good enough.
• Acknowledge you can improve.

On the intersection of those two beliefs, you’ll find sustainable growth.

And improving your skills becomes more fun.

7. Practice X-ray reading

X-ray reading is like reverse-engineering.

When you reverse-engineer a bicycle, you disassemble it to understand how all parts fit together, and you try to put the bike together again.

In a similar way, you can take a piece of writing apart to understand how it works. It’s one of the most valuable skills to learn as a writer.

To practice your X-ray skills, focus on one aspect of writing at a time. For instance:

• If you find structure hard, study how others structure their writing.
• If you want to write better openings, study which opening paragraphs captivate you and make you want to read on.
• If you want to add pizzazz to your writing, observe how others choose words and use techniques like metaphors and strong imagery.

To become a better writer, become a better X-ray reader.

8. Put in the effort to write simply

A simple text is almost effortless to read.

And it can feel like the words have just flowed out of the writer onto the paper.

But that’s not how writing simply works.

The LOWER the effort to read, the HIGHER the effort of the writer.

Writing clearly and simply is hard work. But you know what’s so wonderful about it?

The writing process crystallizes your thinking. Your ideas become sharper, more luminous. And readers will love how you make them feel smarter.

Want to write faster?

The weird thing is that trying to go faster might slow us down.

Sound crazy?

In his book Accidental Genius, Mark Levy describes how Robert Kriegel, a mental coach, trains Olympic athletes.

One time, during a practice run he found his sprinters were tense and tight. Rather than asking them to up their efforts, he requested they run the next practice round at 90%.

The result?

Everyone ran faster the second time!

So, here are some suggestions to take it easy and write faster …

9. Trust your process

To write with more ease, learn to embrace the messiness of the creative process.

Writing is often taught as a simple, linear process:

1. Pick an idea
2. Create an outline
3. Write a first draft
4. Revise and edit your draft
5. Format and publish your final version

But writing is rarely that straightforward.

Writing shows up the flaws in your thinking. Ideas you had in mind turn out differently in a draft text. An outline might not quite work the way you thought.

Writing is uncertain.

But when you learn to embrace the messiness of the process, you can turn any crappy draft into decent writing.

So, sit with the discomfort and the doubts; and get to work … step by step.

Through the work, you’ll sharpen your thinking.

And your ideas will shine more brightly.

10. Harness the creative power of breaks

To be a productive creator, make time for both focused productivity and diffused-mode thinking.

Focus is your productive super-power.

When you’re focused, one task occupies most of your attention. You can do deeper work, and do it faster.

You can train focus by choosing a task, eliminating distractions, and setting a timer. Whenever your mind wanders, refocus on the task.

But focus can also create a kind of tunnel vision.

So, to boost your productivity, plan breaks from focused sessions.

When you’re in diffused-mode, one habitual task—like walking, folding the laundry, or washing the dishes—takes up some attention, while your mind roams to make new connections.

That’s why I often get my best ideas when out on a walk. You might get your best ideas under the shower or in the gym.

It’s because our brains keep processing ideas even when we’re not focused.

So, breaks are a creative super-power.

11. Make peace with your inner critic

I’ve heard people say you must simply banish that nagging voice.

Lock it away in a drawer. Or knock it out.

But that’s not easy, is it?

The harder I tried silencing my inner critic, the more agitated she became. I felt fed up. My inability to tame my inner critic made me feel weak and inept.

Until I had a mini-breakthrough.

It was in 2014.

I was diagnosed with a serious whiplash injury. At first, I tried to keep up with my normal life. But in December 2014, I broke down. My body didn’t want to co-operate anymore.

I was exhausted.

To heal from my injury, I learned to listen to my body. I learned to slow down and to treat my body like an ill baby I had to take care of. Gently.

The same was true for that voice in my mind.

I didn’t have the energy to fight her anymore. So, I learned to be kind to her. To accept that she was only telling me I was scared.

Over time, writing became less stressful. More joyful.

Now, I can’t tell you my inner critic and I have become best friends.

She still nags me.

But I know we can work together.

I know she’s warning me I’m doing something new, exciting, scary.

And I know that the best way to keep the peace is to take care of myself, to take tiny steps forward, and to never be ashamed of feeling scared.

Got a big writing goal for this year?

Fab!

Set your goal, and then forget about it. Instead, focus on taking one step at a time.

Why?

Big goals invite procrastination, and small steps carry forward momentum.

Here’s how to keep momentum and get more writing done …

12. Set a doable target

We often underestimate how much we get done by doing a little work consistently.

Gustave Flaubert, for instance, wrote Madame Bovary by writing every evening, completing two pages per week.

And Stephen Guise wrote his book Mini-Habits by aiming to write 50 words a day.

Writing 50 words a day may sound like a stupidly low target …

But he could accomplish 50 words even when he was busy, felt tired, or had a thumping headache.

And he could keep momentum going.

13. Just start

In his book Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman suggests we’re trying to live life as if we’re the captain of a super-yacht. Calm and in control.

But in fact, we’re only in a kayak paddling in a fast-flowing river. We have much less control than we think.

The captain’s approach to starting (or growing) a writing habit is to try finding the perfect system: Read a couple of productivity books, sign up for productivity apps, buy a wall planner, and think how to best start that writing habit.

Of course, systems can be useful, but they can also form a distraction.

And really, if we want to write more, all we need to do is sit down and write—write because it matters to you.

Maybe that feels like an uncomfortable idea because it feels too simple or too uncertain but that’s kind of Burkeman’s point.

I find it an interesting way to think about writing.

So, what would you really want to write this year?

Let’s do it. Start tomorrow, or the day after, and then keep going … A paragraph or two on most days gets you further than you’d think.

14. Make writing a choice

Want to make it easier to start writing?

Stop telling yourself you SHOULD write because SHOULDs breeds resistance.

The more I’ve moved away from SHOULDs, the more joyful writing has become, the keener I am to write, and the higher my productivity.

So, stop telling yourself you should write more; instead make writing a choice:

• I want to write
• I feel lucky I can write today
• I choose to start my day with writing
• Today, I get to write

Let’s lean into the joy of writing, the joy of creating something that didn’t exist before.

Kindle your inner fire

In the past year, NYT writer Frank Bruni has often been asked where we find joy when there’s so much pain in the world.

His answer: “In language.”

There’s beauty and ingenuity in other people’s writing. Not only can we learn from each other; we can also appreciate the feeling of connection, the human spark that’s lighting up someone’s words, the recognition of our common humanness.

And there’s beauty in writing ourselves. In finding the words to communicate our ideas with gusto, to connect with our fellow humans, to pay attention, to care about what we write, to recognize the power of our words, and to make our words sing.

Aren’t we lucky we get to write?

Happy writing, friends.

Take care, and remember: Human content wins.