Before You Say “Can’t Write Over 500 Words in the Morning”

Here is how I did in one morning. And following days for editing.

Ok, using too many supporting links, supporting evidence, names, quotes, titles, on one line after another line from the beginning till the end? Nop. Nop. Nop. Unrealistic.

If I read my own writing like that, see those sentences and paragraphs, I would wonder what’s going on!? It would be hard to read, right? Only thinking about getting hit on the Net and ditching the readability is a sad reality. Sure, he desperately needed it… I lost interest in reading the rest of the article, I might have skimmed through the rest, but I kind of worried a bit about the author’s mental state… but that’s not for me to worry about.

Anyways, here, instead of throwing a word or phrase after another one that people like to search on the Internet, or citation after another citation, we can take advantage of the SEO settings and write a short good abstract of our writing (click … →More setting →SEO settings →SEO description →rewrite it to capture your audience’s attention). The story, article, or your whole tutorial can be written first, then do the SEO description later.

There is no doubt, we need supporting information. But including too many authors’ names and article titles will probably drive readers away unless that’s the intention. No, right? Even some publications do express the number of references they appreciate. How can an article be credible, precise, concise, and pique the interests of readers? And, in one morning right?

What I did:

First of all, no more than 7 articles (but if you are a fast reader go ahead skim and read more). It is in the morning. Reading short ones (3- to 5-minute read), 2 to 4 articles on Medium are more than enough, I think.

Second, categorize them. Either in your mind or write them out. I did in my mind. If I can do it, you can. Because English isn’t my first language. That’s why choosing articles are so important. Reading too many articles in fact isn’t good if you’ve ever heard of it. As a result of losing your creativity, your own opinion, your writing, and so on, reading too much isn’t good is why people say it.

After reading and categorizing articles (such as stories related to dogs, and humorous stories), I did the following.

1. First of all, start with jotting down ideas

Instead of calling the “word vomiting” method, Matt Lillywhite called the method “mindful communication.” I thought it was a very nice way of rephrasing it. He published an article called “I Write 1,000 Words Every Morning. Here’s How I Do It. I grab a shovel and become a goal-digger.”

I thought it was such a good idea! The day I tried, and have my writing published on ILLUMINATION was this: I Feel Good When I Choose To Do These

Since I woke up early that morning, I thought I would try it. Try my new way of writing, and see what would happen. It turned out that my writing piece was accepted and published within a day. Thanks to the Editor and the publication!

✔ Reflect on the main points or ideas I like.

Sometimes I jot down my ideas on MS Word or other apps, but this time right into the draft page. Matt Lillywhite suggests in his article to pick and choose words after mindful communication.

Here is one example of my accomplishment in the morning. 534 words in one morning! Some people may write over 1,000 words, but it was my accomplishment that I’m proud of.

✔ Make the body text flow to pique readers’ interests and include something to entertain.

Feelings of funny, sad, or other emotions can trigger readers’ emotions. As said in his article (David B. Clear) entitled Dear Writer — You’re an Entertainer First, he describes writers need to use words and/or images to trigger readers’ emotions.

Whether a piece of writing can pique their interests, it’s a writer’s skill to make it happen. Why? It is to catch readers’ attention and led readers to scroll down to read more and more.

Authors can choose a certain type of structural writing and images to achieve it.

• words & sentences … short, long, abrupt
• images … beautiful ones, relevant ones, or other images such as cartoon

The way David B. Clear uses his words and images is super interesting. I can see the motions from his words and cartoons. They make me smile, and they make me nod to the points he makes.

For my piece, I Feel Good When I Choose To Do These, I chose a beautiful light brown dog wearing a pair of fake glasses, reading a book about doggies. My way of entertaining: attaching a lovely dog’s picture from Unsplash to my article.

Entertain

✔ Reason 1: To make the audience engaged, showing easy steps

One great example David B. Clear gave was: teaching Biology on YouTube by the amoeba sisters. The amoeba sisters are SOO Good! I saw many of their work on YouTube to study a bit of the subject matter and use of language, but then I ended up watched A LOT! The characters are so adorable, each video is short and the contents are so easy to follow. Surely it caught my attention and made me want to watch more. Yes, it works. If I have a child, I would definitely try to let them be funny teachers of my child.

Anyways both the amoebas sisters and David himself are good at entertaining.

✔ Reason 2: To make the audience engaged, triggering laughter!

It’s human psychology: we get to laugh at something we don’t expect to happen, see, or hear. On some occasions, people feel these emotions as expected. Entertaining the readers, your audience, so that you can make them more engaged with what you do. Mark Rober speaks about the learning style of Super Mario at TEDxPenn. The main concept is sometimes so hard to implement in the real world, yet he made it so easy to understand. The example is so easy to understand. Letting the player finds a way to clear the level. The type of learning, many people can relate to and prefer over other methods. And other examples people can smile and laugh about. Throwing some random interesting facts or even fictional elements can also help the audience stay engaged.

It’s about engagement. Without any competitors, having fun along the way to a destination is super fun and players tend to be wanting more. From intrinsic motivation, autonomous learning, and mastering the game, or in real life, mastering your style of writing or other activities.

2. Editing: The flow of the contents

I then moved on to edit them; deleting words and phrases, and adding words. For example, in this current piece, I added a few hundred words to my introduction to make an introduction, of course, and to glue pieces together to deliver my points.

The first step, pouring out words can make the editing part easier. One thing that needs to keep in mind is that, avoid incongruence of points.

It is how a writer puts words, sentences, and the use of structures and life events in the right sequence. I mean the time sequence doesn’t have to be in chronological order. Flip it to entertain if you can.

Of course, aim for zero grammatical error too. I can say this, using Hemingway Editor besides Grammarly is one good option. There are many options you can choose from and improve your writing. I was very intimidated to use these tools somehow. Somehow I thought the Hemingway Editor would scramble my sentences to the way Hemingway would write. I know that there is always room to improve. Even though my sentences and paragraphs aren’t perfect, I don’t want the app or anything to scramble my ideas, sentences, or paragraphs in the way I may be confused or lose my initial points to make.

After having read an editor’s article, saying that he recommends everyone to use Hemmingway Editor, I decided to try it. Guess what, I found out it doesn’t scramble my sentences, dah!!!! It just highlights places for you to look at. Basically, it tells me to make sentences shorter, or avoid using passive voice. Writing then has become smoother than ever! And, easier!

3. Editing: The use of images.

It depends on how the author uses images. Sometimes it speaks clearer, louder, and funnier than some sentences. After having my article I Feel Good When I Choose to Do These published, I feel like I need to try something new to entertain. So I did, using the GIF! Although the GIF is perhaps cuter than what I created previously, You can become an expert in making 3D objects or making a short movie, there is always an option that you can try to create on your own. Canva can let you customize texts of photos, and create cartoons.

Finally, the hypothetical aim here is to write over hundreds of words. The more you write the easier your editing could be. Give a little trim on the same day or take as much time as you need, but try not to be a perfectionist. It is probably more important to think about how to entertain, and put at least one nice image, and takeaways at the end as below, and done!

Takeaways

There are ways to put down 500 words or more in the morning. But you can keep in mind the followings :

Easy to follow content + Image/GIF + Entertain = Catch audience’s attention.

And my suggestion and the real tactic used was this:

1. Coffee with healthy snacks
2. Bookmark no more than 6 articles. It’s in the morning!
3. Reflect on those, start writing down
4. Edit. Avoid adding too many words and sentences to the-already-existing ideas
5. Pick the right images and/or GIF
6. Pick the right titles
7. Use the power of entertainment
8. Oh, and lastly, take advantage of SEO settings. Write a good SEO description if you have time

Thank you for reading!

And happy writing!